Contessa Cosmetics would not be my final resting place. I had never intended to join the company as a life- time employee. I estimated two or three years would make me marketable to someone else and opportunities in less costly locales would become available. Of course, I did not share my strategy with coworkers like Warren. He might be angry that he had not concocted so simple a plan. With only six months invested in my career, I had a long time to wait before bailing out of New England.
I had to learn to choose my confidants carefully or not to confide in anyone at all. I trusted my assistant, Luwanda, implicitly; but our supervisor-subordinate relationship placed certain limitations on the extent of our friendship. I had been terribly naïve upon arrival at the R&D facility and viewed every person as a potential friend, not necessarily someone to invite for a sleepover, but someone with whom I could exchange pleasant conversation. However, this was not realistic. Lurking in the corridors with deceptively warm smiles pasted to their mugs were traitors ready to sell the new Ph.D. down the river to again esteem for themselves. These characters waited for me to say something questionable when, in fact, the whole place buzzed with disgruntlement about the plant closure and downsizing.
Unfortunately, I had engaged in a discussion with someone who apparently thought she would benefit by baiting me into self-incrimination. This dissatisfied woman had applied for my job, but lacking the terminal degree, was passed over for an outside candidate. She spread my ideas in the form of rumors around the building, which resulted in my boss calling me into his office and warning me about stating my opinions too liberally. So much for free speech on corporate property. I learned to clamp my jaw and avoid controversial exchanges with untested people.
I was not the only person whose limits were being probed by fellow employees. The climate in the place seemed to deteriorate progressively, and keeping to myself became a survival skill. Luwanda also felt the pressure at work. Combined with personal factors, she examined her priorities.
We sat together in a back corner of the cafeteria, though it was not our habit to hide in dark recesses. However, Luwanda wanted to discuss a private matter.
Luwanda sipped a diet soda wetting her palate to begin a monologue she met with mixed emotions. “I’ve been with this company for thirteen years. I have four weeks of vacation, a good retirement plan, nice benefits, some good friends.” The woman smiled at me. “I never really thought about leaving Contessa until last fall when the plant closed. I actually hoped for a fraction of a second that Ralph would call me into his office and tell me my position had been eliminated.” Luwanda took another artificially sweetened swallow. “Most people dread that. My family needs my salary. I should have been worried, but I had that odd instant of hope. Since then, I started wondering why I was hoping and for what.”
I knew where Luwanda’s comments were leading. She did not have to continue. She owed me no explanations, and I did not blame her at all.
But she proceeded to describe the discontent she felt about being away from her young children. She was tired and unhappy. The atmosphere at work only exacerbated her misery. In years past, Luwanda had enjoyed warm friendships and a cheerful professional environment. That seemed to have vanished. Old timers had retired or had been forced out, their jobs eliminated. Young aggressive people joined the company who were not opposed to backstabbing and rumormongering. Luwanda could only tolerate so much for money alone.
“I accepted a long-term substitute teaching position at the primary school in my town. It will get me through the end of the school year. That experience will help me to find a contract position in September.” The salary was much less than what Luwanda apparently earned at Contessa Cosmetics, but she would not have the expenses of commuting and after school care for her children. She could spend more time with her boys and her husband. The quality of their lives would improve, although they would have less disposable income. “We’ll just buy less crap for a while,” Luwanda concluded with a smile. She would not miss the frivolous things that her earnings allowed. She wanted to be with her sons, a more than equitable trade-off.
“Please don’t take this as a reflection on you, Kate,” my assistant soothed. “Working with you has been great. I wish we could have started together sooner. When I talk to Ralph, I am going to make that clear to him. You have been a good supervisor: fair, helpful and supportive. Whoever fills my position will be lucky to work for you. It’s just time for me to make a change.”
I sensed Luwanda’s guilt in addition to her relief. “Please, don’t feel badly. I cannot blame you a bit, and would probably do the same thing in your position.”
Actually, I had also begun to flip through the classified ads and surf the Internet job boards.
As is customary, I said a few words on Luwanda’s behalf at her farewell party. I realized how badly this might have looked and imagined the tabloid headline: “Thirteen year veteran quits shortly after reassignment to stuck-up Ph.D.” To soften the blow, Ralph Sebetich also spoke of Luwanda’s many merits. Ralph had talked to me about filling in for Luwanda until a replacement could be hired. I nodded thoughtlessly in agreement. He asked for a list of suggestions for locating a suitable new Consumer Specialist, which I gladly typed and provided.
The R&D center felt empty and sad on the first day of Luwanda’s absence. I roamed the halls, displaced and alone like a schoolgirl whose best friend had stayed home with the flu. Fortunately, I had one other trusted buddy at work, a group leader named Christos. I began to spend more time with him after Luwanda’s departure. Since he was married, busybodies monitored our friendship, especially since Christos was a touchy person. But he put his arm around everybody, male and female alike whether the person was a higher or lower professional level. This type of behavior could have created serious trouble for Christos in a paranoid culture of sexual harassment, but the fellow was so handsome and his intentions so genuine, most people welcomed his affection. Christos treated even an ugly woman like Gretchen, the vice president of product development, like a princess. He did not necessarily intend to kiss her fleshy backside in search of a promotion, he just liked people and had an uncanny ability to get along absolutely anyone. Those who encountered him would walk away thinking Christos was a wonderful guy. If he were not married, I might have been romantically interested in him, but I would have had to stand at the end of a very long line.
Christos held a doctoral degree in physical chemistry and our educational backgrounds bonded us in friendship. Since Christos was male, we were careful about how close we became at work. We generally ate lunch together alone once per week and again another time or two in a group. The balance of the days, I usually ate by myself at my desk or ran errands during my break.
The next week, I took Luwanda’s evening focus group. The participants would be discussing colored lip products for a project in Christos’ fashion cosmetics innovation group. Christos had decided to sit in on the session. Since the meeting began at six o’clock, I followed Luwanda’s schedule and did not come to work until noon. This availed a morning for skating at Hansie’s Ice Chalet.
Georgeanne’s face lit up as I strode into the rink. “What are you doing here on a Wednesday morning, Kate? Did you get fired?” she teased.
I explained my evening hours and proceeded to stretch.
“You’re going to love morning skating. It’s so empty.”
I already knew about the luxury of daytime ice, having stolen away from my graduate research on a weekly basis to enjoy a morning at the Martinsville Arena. Hansie’s little rink seemed almost spacious, and Georgeanne took up hardly any room at all. Another retired lady joined us, and I spun freely in at the center of the tiny place. Taking over for Luwanda temporarily would not be too bad since it allowed a late morning at least once per week to frolic at Hansie’s.
When I arrived at work and offloaded my handbag, Christos popped his head into my cubicle and demanded anxiously: “Where have you been? Ralph has been looking for you.”
Didn’t Ralph remember that I had an evening focus group? I closed the desk drawer and went to his office. “Hi,” I ventured, pushing the door open.
“Where were you all morning, Kate? Gretchen came through here wanting to talk to you.”
“Did you tell her I have an evening group?”
“No, I told her you took some personal time,”
“You should have told her I was working late tonight and would be in at noon.”
Ralph Sebetich put his head in his hands as though suffering from a migraine.
“Ralph, are you alright?”
“Kate, you are expected to be here in the morning whether you work late or not.”
“What? Luwanda always came in at noon when she had to work until eight. I’m interviewing Luwanda’s lipstick group tonight.”
The harried mathematician sighed. “You can’t do that, Kate. You have to be here.”
I still did not understand what Dr. Sebetich meant. I tried to explain my responsibilities to him again, calmly and slowly in case he had a breakdown and was struggling to process information.
“Luwanda was a technician. She qualified for overtime; you do not. Instead of paying her overtime, she came in later. You are on a straight salary, Kate. The most you can do is adjust your flextime.” This meant I could come in at the latest allowable start time, which was 9:30 a.m. when I usually arrived at eight. For the privilege of working an extra four hours without compensation, I was allotted an hour-and-a-half as a morning buffer. That might be enough time for an early freestyle at one of the training centers, but it would make the day horribly long.
My mouth opened to argue with Ralph, though this was the company’s policy; not his. It seemed like a tremendous injustice. But he had already anticipated my objection and continued to speak. “It shouldn’t be for more than a few weeks, Kate. If you need some time for personal business, let me know. We can work something out, but I can’t let you come in late every time you have an evening focus group. Everybody will want the same arrangement whenever they have a late meeting or a heavy workload. As professional grade employees, sometimes we are expected to do a little more, go the extra mile,” Ralph quipped with a tired smile. He looked absolutely beat from too much extra mileage.
Christos was waiting for me, hanging around my cubicle making light conversation with Warren, when I returned from my talk with Dr. Sebetich. He sat down on my guest chair in the cramped space and whispered, “Where the hell were you all morning?”
I explained in equally hushed tones.
Christos looked at me in awe. Obviously what I did took enormous gall or stupefying ignorance. “Next time you think of doing something a little unconventional, talk to me first,” he offered kindly, still monitoring his volume.
But I did not know my decision was unconventional. I had just assumed, and assumed with remarkable clarity, that I would be entitled to the same privileges as my former assistant. My cheeks reddened with shame. Had I started to cry, which I really felt like doing, the tears would have evaporated into steam on my burning face. My brief respite at Hansie’s had ended in disaster. Just as I thought I had managed to coax something good out of Luwanda’s resignation, it disintegrated to a humiliating apparition.
I might have descended into contentment had I not realized the jealousy many of my coworkers harbored toward the doctor of philosophy in me. For the time being, I was satisfied with skating at Hans Koenig’s Ice Chalet and performed my duties at work with the numb persistence of a graduate student trudging through his research. Except graduation no longer emitted a flicker of light at the end of the dark tunnel. Now I received my reward on a biweekly basis in the form of a paycheck. Unfortunately, it never seemed like that much money. It supported my standard of living, but saving anything would have been a long-term tedious process. Warren, my latest antagonist, once quipped: “If you want to own a house in Connecticut, Kate, you’d better find a husband.” Sadly, his remark was absolutely accurate. Even on my entry-level Ph.D. salary, I could not afford a piece of real estate bigger than my apartment and certainly not a detached home with a backyard. I could not help but wonder if Warren had rushed into marriage to pool earnings and buy property.
Chapter 60 posted 10/1/02
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