I was in all three meetings, although my final encounter with Susan could be better termed a brush-off than a meeting. By the time I caught up with her she was already in her office, taking some books of her shelf and putting them in an old copy paper box.
“Susan, wait a minute,” I said. “What are you doing?”
“I quit, Alan,” she said plainly, her tone incredulous, probably at the idea that I may not be smart enough to have figured that out. “I’ve never left a job so quickly before, but I’ve had it. This place and I do not share the same values. The sooner I’m gone the better.” She stooped to pull her purse out of her bottom desk drawer and she dropped it into the box next to her books.
“Susan, please,” I said. “I’ll talk to Mary. We’ll address the situation with Wes.”
Susan gave me a skeptical look, and then moved around me to remove her coat from the hanger on the back of her door.
“You may talk to her, Alan,” she said as she shrugged into her coat, “but she’s not going to listen. She’s made her decision. She’d rather defend the abuser than protect the abused—and I won’t be a part of that.”
She walked past me again and retrieved her box from her desk. I felt a little like a turnstile at the entrance to the subway, constantly spinning in place while the people who mattered buzzed by and on to better things. With her box tucked under one arm and her coat already buttoned, she turned smartly back towards me and extended a hand. Not knowing what else to do, I shook it.
“Good luck, Alan,” she said. “I should be mad at you for the way you set me up in there, but I think you might’ve actually done me a favor. If you do decide to go up against her, watch your back. Mary strikes me as the kind who poisons her prey before eating it.”
And with that she was past me again, leaving her office behind and striding victoriously down towards the elevator. Moving out to her doorway, I watched with the rest of the office as she calmly waited for the car to arrive, then entered and vanished with the pneumatic hiss of the closing doors. In our last image of her, she was holding her head high, gazing out over the heads of those of us who remained.
The meetings with Amy and Caroline quickly followed. Susan’s dramatic exit had caught everyone’s fascination, but as soon as she was gone, Don popped out of his office and began weaving his way between the pods, telling everyone to get back to work.
When he got to the pod where Amy, Caroline, and the rest of the Education staff sat, he told Amy to report to his office and Caroline to stay at her workstation until she was called. I watched as Amy seemed to quietly collect herself, absently arrange a few files in her workspace, and then rise and begin making her way towards Don’s office. Once she was moving, Don’s eyes came up and found me standing in Susan’s office door. His face was expressionless, and he pointed at me and then hooked his finger down towards his office.
A minute later we were all gathered around Don’s conference table, Amy sitting where Susan had most recently sat, the rest of us in our same positions. Amy looked nervous but a little resigned to her fate. She was a young woman with long, flowing hair—the kind you might see in a shampoo commercial—but she had been with the company for a while and surely knew what was coming next.
An odd quiet settled over the room as we all waited for Don to begin, but Don’s eyes were downcast, his fingers busy fiddling with his class ring, and stopping every once and awhile to crack one of his thick knuckles. Mary sat looking directly at me, her stare at once dispassionate and unsettling, and I found myself wondering what she was thinking. Influenced by the rumors usually spread about her, I considered the possibility that she might not be thinking at all—at least not at that precise moment. Like Don seemed to be, I thought perhaps she was just passing the time until the meeting could officially begin and they could move forward with the task they had set before themselves. Until then, there was simply nothing to think or do. There was only waiting. Waiting for the moment when they would terminate one of their employees; waiting exactly like they would in line at a busy restaurant to use the restroom. In such circumstances, at such moments of empty time and inactivity, Don’s habit was evidently to crack his knuckles and play with his class ring—and it made some sense to me that Mary’s habit would be to study the people around her for weaknesses.
In a few moments Peggy Wilcox appeared on the other side of Don’s door. She was the Director of Human Resources, but in that small company that meant little more than being Don’s executive assistant. Don didn’t formally have one—no such position existed on the company’s perplexing organizational chart. Like his humble office, Don liked to pretend he was a man of the people who eschewed the trappings of power, but everyone knew Peggy was at his beck and call and handled all of his formal correspondence. She was a kind-hearted person, but had kept her position in the company through a combination of quiet competence and abiding loyalty that both Don and Mary appreciated. She stepped into the room without knocking, handed Don a slim file, and took up a position beside his closed door. She stood at attention, her chin quivering slightly before her clenched teeth forced it to be still.
The meeting did not last long. Once Don began speaking it was over in less than two minutes. It was a testament to the company’s brutal efficiency that such an action could be so well coordinated in such a short period of time—every legal requirement fulfilled and a practiced script used to keep any tinge of human emotion from soiling the cold proceedings.
Don told Amy they were letting her go—that was the phrase he used, letting her go, as if charitably releasing her from some terrible burden. He opened Peggy’s file and slid a piece of paper across the table at Amy. It floated over the veneer surface like an air hockey puck and fell practically in her lap. It was a release form, Don said, freeing the company from any liability. If she signed it, they would treat her departure like a resignation. They wouldn’t contest her unemployment insurance and would give her the standard reference should anyone call during her quest for a new position.
Amy held the document up and I watched her eyes dance across it for a few seconds. When they flashed back up there was a shine of defiance in them. “What if I don’t sign it?” she asked.
“Then you’ll be terminated for cause,” Don said simply, as if he really didn’t care what Amy decided to do. “No unemployment insurance and no good reference.”
“For what cause?” Amy persisted. “Susan just walked out of here with a box under her arm. And I’m guessing she didn’t take the time to write anything in my file before she left.”
I looked at Mary, surprised that Amy was playing this as coolly as she was. Although no one had mentioned it explicitly, it was obvious that she knew her conduct with Wes at the recent client meeting was the reason she was being let go. But Mary didn’t seem surprised. She didn’t even turn away to meet my stare, her cold and calculating gaze focused squarely on Amy. Weaknesses, I thought again. She’s looking for weaknesses.
“There’s already enough information in your file to warrant your dismissal,” Don said easily. “You have a well-documented history of inappropriate conduct. You were issued a written warning just two months ago for a similar incident.”
Amy looked down at the document again. She seemed to consider her options for a moment or two, and then set the release form back down.
“Does Wes know you’re doing this?”
To me, it was as if Amy had turned over a box of scorpions on the table. I couldn’t believe she would be so brazen. It seemed little more than a flat-out confession that there was something inappropriate going on between her and Wes Howard. Mary might have taken it that way, too, but she seemed to view it more as an opportunity than as a threat. Rather than recoil from its implications, she leaned forward, apparently willing to let the scorpions sting her.
But it was Don who spoke next, and Don was all business. “You don’t have to sign it now,” he said, ignoring Amy’s comment and bringing our attention back to the release form. “In fact, I would prefer that you didn’t. The offer it contains is good for the next seven days. You can sign and return it any time before then and we’ll honor our end of the deal. I would encourage you to take a few of those days to consider your situation, and even speak with your own legal counsel if you prefer. We’re striving for an amicable separation, and believe our offer will best help facilitate that. But ultimately, it will be your decision that determines what happens next.”
I watched as Amy looked at Don coldly, her mascaraed eyelashes blinking slowly. Don had stuck to his script, had refused to take Amy’s bait and, as a result, had extinguished the fire in her eyes. In that moment Amy looked slow-witted, like a kind of cold-blooded lizard just coming back to action after a long desert night.
Don let the silence build in the room for three seconds and then called an end to the meeting. He announced it like it had been within his ability to do so at any moment. He said that Peggy would walk Amy back to her workstation, let her collect her things, and escort her from the building.
And that’s exactly what happened next. At first, I didn’t think it would. I didn’t think that Amy would get up and leave without saying another word, but the defiance that had flashed in her eyes was no longer there. There was nothing she could do at that moment that was going to change the situation, and she probably realized that whatever cards she still held were probably better played at another place and time. Peggy’s presence undoubtedly helped. As soon as Don finished talking, Peggy attentively positioned herself at Amy’s side. She scooped the release form off the table, helped Amy push her chair away, and then guided her out of the office with an expert hand.
Things did not go quite so cleanly with Caroline. Peggy returned a few minutes later with Caroline in tow, and even before she sat down the tears were flowing. I remember thinking, no, NO, Caroline. Don’t cry. She’ll destroy you if you cry.
Don and Mary and I had passed the few uncomfortable minutes between Amy’s departure and Caroline’s arrival in almost complete silence—Don again playing with his class ring, Mary studying me with her clinical detachment, and me trying to figure out some way to ask about what had just happened with Amy. I wanted to know what they thought about Amy’s reference to Wes, if they thought it revealed what I thought it did, but I had a difficult time finding the right words to break the odd silence they both seemed so intent on keeping. As my mind searched for the solution, my eyes strayed between Don and Mary and fuzzily focused on Don’s solitary bookshelf. As typical for Don’s office, it was crammed with all manner of materials—his books maltreated with broken spines and tattered covers, and even his precious policy binders bulging with their contents, less than half of the documents actually secured in the rings.
“What do you think she meant by bringing up, Wes?” I finally managed to croak.
Don and Mary exchanged glances, a little surprised, I think, that I had spoken up at all. Don seemed to defer to Mary with an obsequious nod of his head, and Mary turned to me, her eyes bright and penetrating.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said abruptly. “I called Wes while you were off following Susan. He’s not going to cause any trouble.”
I wanted to ask more questions, but Mary’s terse tone chased them out of my mind, and in a moment the tear-streaked face of Caroline Abernathy appeared on the other side of Don’s door. Peggy escorted her inside and directed her to sit in the chair Amy had just vacated. Caroline was only a year or two out of college and usually looked like she was still pulling all-nighters at the student union. She had a couple of balled-up Kleenexes tucked in the cuff of her wrinkled cardigan, and now she pulled one out and used it to dab at the tears as they fell out of her eyes.
Don showed her no mercy, berating her savagely as she wilted and withered under the strain. The most sympathetic thing he said to her were the first four words out of his mouth—What were you thinking? He sounded initially like an angry father who had caught his teenage daughter trying to sneak into the house a few minutes before dawn after being gone all night, but he transitioned quickly into the strident taskmaster he was, simply outraged by the negligence of others.
“You obviously weren’t thinking, were you? I don’t see how you could have been, at least not thinking about your responsibilities to this organization. Travelling to client meetings is a privilege, Miss Abernathy, not a perk, and company policy clearly states that you are to conduct yourself professionally from the moment you leave the office to the moment you return. You are a representative of this company for that entire time, and your conduct must reflect the high ethical standards upon which our business model is based. By acting the way you have, you have jeopardized the reputation of this organization and may have damaged the relationship we enjoy with one of our longest-standing clients. Those are actionable offenses, and we have terminated employees in situations far less severe than this.”
It’s hard for me to recall those words and not now think about how full of corporate gobbledygook they are. In many ways, I believe, they are actually nonsense words, like something out of a Dr. Seuss story. But I watched them destroy Caroline, shriveling her up in her chair like a dying flower, and I listened as Don shouted them at her in full knowledge of the power they had—a power not unlike the one that good Doctor Seuss has warned generations of children about. The best kind of Sneetches, after all, are the ones with stars on their bellies, and Sneetches like Amy Crawford and Caroline Abernathy—well, they didn’t have any stars on thars.
It was a difficult scene to witness, and in my discomfort I averted my eyes, first seeing Mary’s vindictive sneer, and then Peggy’s look of anguished commiseration. If Don was the father punishing his daughter for some violation of the family’s moral code, then Peggy was the mother who knew the penalty was necessary but hated to see it delivered, and Mary was the sister who had jealously ratted out the daughter in the first place.
Don went on for a good ten minutes, basically repeating the same two minutes worth of material in ever louder and more incredulous performances. By the time he was finished he had half risen out of his chair, his large knobby fingers splayed wide on the table for balance and the veins in his temples pulsing with a life all their own. Spent, he collapsed heavily in his chair, tipping it momentarily back onto its rear legs and straining its loose bolts to their limits. He looked at Caroline in silence, his head shaking in disappointed frustration and his eyes staring vacantly into the space between them, as Caroline blubbered and sobbed, her face practically hidden in her hands. Eventually, he stood up, retrieved a box of tissues from on top of his bookshelf and slid them across the table to Caroline.
“Come on, now,” Don said with some small tinge of discomfort in his voice. “Get a hold of yourself.”
Caroline looked up, a pair of red and puffy eyes rising out of her hands. The tissues she had brought with her had long since disintegrated, and she pulled three fresh ones out of the box in quick succession. While wiping her eyes, her cheeks, her nose—her voice came forth, hitching with her spastic breath, hopeless and submissive. “Are you going to fire me?”
It was Mary who answered—Mary, who had not said a single word during the entire meeting with Amy, and had so far not spoken during this one.
“That depends on you, Caroline,” she said regally, not a drop of human compassion in her voice. “I am not making the decision to fire you today, but this incident will be written up and placed in your personnel file. You will receive a copy of this document later today, and it will serve as your official warning against this sort of behavior. If you demonstrate any kind of unprofessional conduct in the future, either here in the office or while travelling on business, you will be terminated immediately. Is that understood?”
Caroline did not speak, but she nodded her head.
“I’m giving you one more chance,” Mary said, sounding like the decision served Mary’s interests much more than Caroline’s “Do not disappoint me.”
+ + +
“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.
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