But now it was Monday, and I was back in the office, with only one important task on my mind. I had to take two vacation days which would allow all of the preceding planning to flow forward unimpeded.
It probably won’t surprise you to hear that the company had an archaic mechanism for requesting vacation days. Accessing the company’s network drive, I found the Wordperfect document that sufficed for the vacation day request form, printed it, and filled out the necessary information with a blue ballpoint pen.
The color of the ink is significant. Legend had it that vacation requests submitted in blue ink were more likely to be approved than those in black ink -- and for those completed in red, green, or some other subversive color, everyone knew that those were never even considered. One might as well put the paper slip through one of the many shredders that dotted the office landscape. None of this, as far as I knew, had ever been tested in any scientific sense, and yet the veracity of these beliefs were never questioned, and we all adjusted our behavior accordingly. That’s the way things generally worked in any cult-like setting.
The next step was to drop the completed document in Ruthie’s inbox, whose job was to log the request, make sure the employee in question actually had the vacation days available -- because, you know, we’re all trying to scam the company -- and then, if passing that hurdle, initial the document in the designated spot and route the document through the appropriate supervisory chain. Since I reported directly to Mary, my request would go directly to her desk for consideration. Other employees, lower on the company’s chipped and paint-faded totem pole, would have their forms go through all the layers of management before landing on either Mary’s or Don’s desk for the final approval.
“Taking some time off?”
I had already turned and was moving away from Ruthie’s desk when her question stopped me in my tracks. I didn’t even think to ask her how she knew I was dropping off a vacation request slip. Ruthie, it seemed, knew everything that happened in the organization and even a few things that hadn’t happened yet.
“Umm, yeah,” I said, trying to convey with my tone of voice that it really wasn’t any of her business.
“Going somewhere?”
“What?” I asked, now turning fully towards her and meeting her eyes. She was dressed in blue, with diamonds sparkling on her ear lobes and at her throat.
She looked at me for a full ten seconds before speaking again, the silence in the air between us thicker than cookie dough.
“You and Jenny. You’re going somewhere for a little getaway. Something nice before the baby is born.”
Oddly, none of her sentences were questions. They hung in the air like the accusations they were. Go on, they seemed to say. Make something up. You’re going to need a believable story if you expect Mary to approve this request.
And, of course, I had no such story. I hadn’t even bothered to think up a plausible excuse. The week after the Annual Conference was one of the busiest there were -- with all kinds of details to see to: minutes to write, evaluations to tabulate, refunds and extra charges to process, follow-up conference calls to schedule. Usually, it was the second or even the third week after the conference that people chose for burning their vacation days.
My wheels were spinning but I kept my face as placid as possible. “No,” I said. “Nothing like that. I wish. Truth is, Jenny’s mom is moving into a new condo and we need to help her get settled.”
To this day, I have no idea where this particular lie came from. It’s true that Jenny’s mom was a widow, and that Jenny was trying to get her to downsize into something more manageable, but Trudy had so far refused to be removed from the sprawling house in which she had raised her three children.
“Uh huh,” Ruthie said, and when she didn’t seem to have any other comment, I turned quickly and walked without further comment back to my office.
There, I shut the door and hid my face behind my computer monitor. I had done a lot of stupid things over the last several days, but I decided then and there that telling that particular lie to Ruthie was clearly the stupidest of them all. Not only did it sound like a lie, it was too easy to check, too easy to verify that there wasn’t a shred of truth behind it. Why, all Ruthie had to do was give Jenny a call and ask her about--
In my fevered mind I knew I had to beat Ruthie to the punch. I had to talk to Jenny and bring her into the center of my conspiracy. My hand reached out for the telephone, but the instrument began ringing before I could bring it into my grasp. Recoiling as if it was a venomous snake, I peered at its little screen and saw it was Ruthie, calling me on the intra-office line.
“Hello?”
“Alan.”
“Yes?”
“It’s Ruthie.”
“Yes?”
“I forwarded your vacation request to Mary.”
“Yes?”
“She would like to discuss it with you in her office.”
“Yes?”
“Now.”
“Yes. Okay.”
I placed the handset back in its cradle, and found that I had some small sliver of the presence of mind needed to contemplate my downfall. Never, in the history of the company, had a vacation request moved so quickly through the chain of command. Five minutes, surely no more than three hundred seconds from the time I dropped it in Ruthie’s inbox, I had a request for an in-person meeting in Mary’s office. I didn’t know how I had misplayed the situation so badly, but it appeared that I didn’t have the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell of getting the time off I requested.
And then what would I do? Go to Boston anyway? Call Quest Partners and tell them I couldn’t come? Either action seemed equally impossible.
I composed myself as best as I could and presented myself as ordered in Mary’s door. As I passed by I gave Ruthie the best poker face I could muster. She did not look at all convinced by it.
“You wanted to see me, Mary?”
Mary was standing next to her glass curio cabinet, wearing one of her smartest suits, and carefully re-arranging some of her trinkets and trophies. “Yes, Alan. Please. Come in and shut the door.”
I did as instructed, standing, more or less at attention, just inside the office.
Mary did not turn to look at me. “What’s this I hear about you wanting two days of vacation at the end of the week?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve earned them, haven’t I?”
That got her attention. She turned toward me, a large crystal award still in one hand. “Well, I don’t know why you’re taking that tone. I’m just curious why you would need to take vacation so soon after the Annual Conference. Is everything all right at home?”
There was a lot to unpack there. I had successfully struck the opening blow, knocking her somewhat off balance with my curtness, but she had recovered well, feigning both offense and concern for the welfare of my family. It was meant to soften me up, to get me to drop my guard so she could slip in her knife. My next play would be crucial. I decided to stay focused on the facts -- such as they were.
“I already told Ruthie,” not altering my hostile tone in the slightest. “Jenny’s mother is buying a new condo, and we’re going to help her move and get settled in.” It was still a lie, but it felt more like the truth this time, or at least I felt like I had put more indignant truth into it.
Mary stood silently for a moment, hefting the large chunk of crystal in her hand like she might throw it at me. I could see her wheels turning. Eventually, she turned and gently placed the award on one of the cabinet shelves.
“Alan, have a seat, please.”
“Okay,” I said, moving into the office and taking an uncomfortable seat in one of the uncomfortable chairs opposite her desk.
Mary came over and perched herself on the edge of the giant slab of mahogany that served as her desktop. In doing so, she had to hitch up her skirt a little, revealing a tiny run in her stocking as it passed over her bony knee. She looked at me gravely.
“Alan, I want you to know that I know about the mistakes in the final conference program.”
It was such a non-sequitter that at first I wasn’t even sure she had spoken English. “Excuse me?”
“The mistakes. The ones Eleanor was counting on you to fix. The ones we were both counting on you to fix. I know that Eleanor said that the matter would remain between you and her, but later on she felt it was important for me to know and she told me about it.”
Yes, I’m sure she did. Something of such magnitude? I was very important for you to know. After all, how are you supposed to run your company if you didn’t know how far the key members of your staff could be trusted? Especially with something as crucial to the very survival of your business as a few misplaced words in a 200-page program book. I mean, if you had an employee like that, one who lacked either the competency or the judgment necessary to protect the integrity and reputation of the company’s clients, it was absolutely vital that such information not be hidden from you. To do so would undermine your ability to lead your organization forward. Why, if Eleanor hadn’t volunteered the information, it wouldn’t be surprising if you hadn’t managed to drag it out of her.
“Alan,” I suddenly heard Mary say, “did you hear what I said?”
She pulled me out of my Pavlovian brain rush of sarcasm. Fortunately, none of it had escaped through my lips, but mentally, the damage was done. I was now completely off my game. Whereas before my anger had been calculated, now it was honest and true.
“Sure, I did,” I said. “I heard your words, but I guess I’m struggling to understand their importance. What mistakes did Eleanor tell you about?”
“Mistakes in the conference program,” Mary said.
“Yes. Such as?” I could see Mary tensing up. She did not like being confronted.
“Are you denying it?”
“I’m not denying anything,” I said. “I just want to be clear. What specific mistakes did Eleanor tell you about?”
With that, Mary skooched off the edge of her desk and moved around behind it. She opened a drawer and pulled out a perfect-bound copy of the program from the Annual Conference just completed. “Here,” she said, tossing it across the desk at me. “Eleanor gave me her copy. She wants it placed in your personnel file.”
The booklet that landed in my lap was creased and well-worn -- almost like a Bible that a zealot had poured over and carried in her grimy hands for decades. Pages were tagged with dozens, maybe hundreds, of little sticky notes, and as it flopped open almost of its own will, I saw that the random spread was covered with little underlines, cross-outs, and marginal notes in Eleanor’s tight and exact script. I did not, but I felt like flicking the offending thing off my lap like some hairy insect. I didn’t even want to touch it, so I simply let it lay there.
“Mary,” I said, feeling my anger rise even as I was trying to calm myself down. “I fixed everything she wanted fixed before going to press. Don’t you remember? I worked late for a week to get them done. These have to be all new changes. These have to be things she didn’t even tell me she wanted fixed.”
Mary looked at me suspiciously. “Alan, I find that very hard to believe.”
Now I did pick up the tattered document. “Look at this one,” I said, literally seizing on one correction at random, but my anger swelling even further when I realized what it was. “She’s rewriting the learning objectives from an education session she wasn’t even part of. Look at this! She’s not correcting their punctuation or grammar. She’s rewriting someone else’s learning objectives.”
“So?”
“So?” I said. “She wasn’t part of that session. The learning objectives come directly from the presenters. What right does she have to change them like this?”
“She’s was the program chair, Alan. She was responsible for all the education sessions. How do you know she didn’t speak with the session presenter and get their agreement on those changes?”
I shook my head. Mary wasn’t hearing me, and I was too upset to realize that she wasn’t going to hear me, no matter what I said or how long I explained it to her. “Then why wasn’t it part of the changes she sent me before the program went to print? How am I supposed to make changes to a program after it’s already gone to print?” And with that I threw the offending program back onto Mary’s desk, where it landed with a dull slap. “This is a joke, Mary. And I think you know it is.”
Mary sat down behind her desk. “Alan,” she said seriously, “none of this is a joke. In fact, the cavalier attitude that you’re showing now is part of the problem you’re creating for yourself. Eleanor and I, the two of us, we’re frankly questioning the seriousness with which you’re taking your responsibilities.”
I tried to interrupt her, but she held up a hand and I held back.
“At first, I thought that maybe I had promoted you too soon. That you weren’t ready for the additional responsibility. But now I have to question if you’re even trying. You’re not making mistakes because you don’t know what you’re doing. You’re making mistakes because you don’t seem to care.”
Mary paused, but I kept my mouth shut, not wanting her to shush me again. Inside, I was boiling, but I knew blowing up at her more than I already had wasn’t going to do any good.
“And now there’s this vacation request,” Mary resumed, speaking logically, as if one idea flowed easily from the next. “The very week we get back from one of the most difficult conferences we’ve ever run, you’re planning to take some vacation. And for what? To help your mother-in-law move? Is that it?”
I remained silent, but this time Mary really did want an answer.
“Alan. Is that it?”
“Yes,” I said tersely. I was trapped in my own stupid lie. There was nothing else I could say.
“And how long have you known about this? Did she just call you up over the weekend? Hey, Alan, I’m moving next Thursday, can you help me?”
“We’ve known for a while,” I said slowly. “But everything has been so crazy and hectic. It just kind of snuck up on me.”
She sat there behind her desk, her arms folded across her chest, a pouty look on her face. She might have been waiting for me to say more, but I did not give her the satisfaction. I very much doubted if I ever was going to give Mary any kind of satisfaction in the future.
“Okay, Alan,” she said finally. “I’ll approve your vacation request. I don’t know how I’m going to explain it to Eleanor, but you can have my approval on one condition.”
“And that is?”
“That you start taking your responsibilities to this company and the clients we serve seriously. No more putting silly family matters like this ahead of your professional responsibilities. You are a senior leader in this organization now. Your allegiance and loyalty has to be first and foremost to the satisfaction of our clients. If Eleanor Rumford doubts that commitment, she would be within her rights and authority to pull her business away from the company -- and I cannot have that. You are far more expendable than the business that Eleanor represents to this organization. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Did I understand? I sure did, perhaps more than Mary realized.
“Yes, Mary. I understand.”
“Good. Now get the hell out of my office.”
+ + +
“Dragons” is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. For more information, go here.
This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.
Image Source
http://lres.com/heres-why-amcs-need-to-pay-close-attention-to-looming-regulatory-changes/businessman-in-the-middle-of-a-labyrinth/
No comments:
Post a Comment