Short Story: My Worst – My First

So…I’m 40 years old and I’m quitting my job tomorrow! It’s 10:44pm right now, so I should really just say “today,” but I know my proofreading process. This very well could get pushed into the second week of November, but I won’t commit to which year.

I work, still by technicality, for a big retail chain in the Midwest. I’m not going to name and shame. For far too long that anger has boiled my blood over and into the rest of my life. I’m still not back to room temp yet. I will not, however, obscure relevant details of my lived experience just to be polite to a corporation. This is my life. My story. They wrote their parts, I’m just xeroxing them into the greater narrative. If you had to google what “Xerox [verb]” means, I’m flattered to have appealed to such a young audience.

I’ll even go so far as to genuinely compliment my employer (hereinafter referred to as “The Company”). They took in a cripplingly shy, early-20-something nerd and turned him into someone that could, at least on occasion, hold a conversation. Someone who came to work in their call center and could pick up a phone and offer empathy and assistance to someone who was just robbed. Someone who could manage step-by-step plumbing renovation projects. Someone who could supervise a team of highly competent service dispatchers who busted ass every day to live up to – and surpass – expectations. That’s not a humble-brag, I really mean it when I say that I could have never been that person without The Company. They invested in me. They developed me. They rebuilt me like I did to so many perpetually clogging sewer drain systems. I take as much credit as the PVC does for constantly carrying crap, because I know it was their effort that fixed my fatal fecal flaws.

The Company had always been an upstanding member of every community it built into. It had values that were core to its identity. Those values weren’t vague notions or implied expectations, they were tangible. They were written and postered, framed and plastered onto the wall of every store, and ten times over in every corporate building. They championed things like work ethic, respect, honesty and integrity. We felt like members of an exclusive club, and we were rightly proud. All things change eventually, I guess.

I’ve been on leave for the better part of 6 months for mental health reasons. Lots of therapy. The company line, when I specifically asked, was that I requested leave and they granted it. In reality, I walked into work and was immediately greeted by security and escorted to a private meeting room with an HR representative and the head of my department, one of the Vice Presidents of our company. For context, that would be my boss’s boss’s boss – just a couple rungs down from the CEO. To quote my father-in-law, a good man and long time employee of The Company, “You don’t get fired from The Company unless you deserve it.” Well, I haven’t been fired, nor will I be. I know they’d rather not pay the unemployment, and will use euphemisms to evoke me to say I don’t want to be there any more. I’d rather not be poisoned by another one of their pennies. Even so, I probably deserve this.

I will hold myself to account. While off the clock, I sent hateful messages to The Company via a submission portal for our customers to send comments and feedback. The core grievances weren’t anything out of the ordinary, you can see similar fare up and down /r/TheCompany – “Stores need more labor,” “Customer experience is suffering,” and so on. What made mine different, though, is that the language I used was held to the grindstone until keened to my thirst. It was distilled, emotional, verbal vomit. I remember very little of what I said, I was too inebriated with indignation and blacked out. I can still laugh about some of those jeremiads, but I am suddenly sobered remembering some of the more venomous ones.

Make no mistake – I don’t feel guilty about the words I used. None of them would be unwelcome in any HBO stand-up comedy special in the 90’s. If we can watch a crossdresser gibe about genocide, surely invoking the name of the new CEO’s belated mother in uncouth jest is fine, if it’s for good? It’s for good, right? Right? (80’s kids get the reference.) No, it was not the words, it was the intent behind them that shamed me.

To elaborate, I tried to use my words to help people understand things the way I did. When I felt – not knew – that they did not agree, then I used those words to try to make them feel the way I did. When I felt that they did not feel as I did, I used my words simply to hurt them. Every one of them. “Not just the men, but the women and children, too!” Full blown Anakin. Even if my rants never made it up the chain, maybe I could win over some pitiable call center agent to my cause. It only takes one stone to start an avalanche, or something like that.

Where were we..? Right, 6 months of leave. Let me tell you, if you haven’t just thrown everything out there in front of a therapist – judgment be damned – then you should give it a shot. “A fat hairy white guy in therapy? What a cuck, pathetic!” Well, before actual therapy, I still used that word, albeit idiosyncratically: cutting frantic and furious epithets into my skin, literally starving myself (want to lose 60 pounds and your job? Ask me how!), and spending long hours navigating a labyrinth of self-hate. That was “therapy” to me back then. When I got so overwhelmingly angry that I couldn’t assemble a cogent thought, “therapy” helped me return to something approximating normalcy. In summary: feelings are complicated, talking helps, and if you have a problem with that then you and your toxic masculinity can lick my unshorn underbelly. Once you’re done flossing, we can move on to the context of my worst day at work.

• Flossing Intermission
  

I’m glad you could rejoin me.

The Company is based out of the medium-sized community that I call home. If you come into town from the west and turn right off the ramp, you would have found, until recently, a very small one of The Company’s retail locations. As our stores grew larger and more mechanically complex, legacy locations like this one became visibly outdated and obsolete. At corporate, I worked with one of that store’s former managers. That fellow told me that they had always advocated for that store to get remodeled – “It’s in The Company’s hometown, and it’s the first store off the interstate, we should make a better impression than that.” I worked a few shifts there, and I can admit first-hand that it was pretty grungy. I also spent a few years, in the toddling years of my would-have-been career, at another nearby location of similar poor construction and poorer clientele. While I can recount plenty of funny stories of my time there, it was still a startling reminder of how those of lesser means scrape out a life for themselves.

I also lived about 2 blocks away from that location for years. My wife (I need write about her, she’s marvelous) and I moved into that house shortly after we got married. On the day we moved in, I surprised her with our first dog. (I’ve got to write about dogs sometime, too, because I like any dog far more than every person.) We built a fence so that she could run free out in the back yard. The dog, not the wife. We had both of our children while we lived there. The wife, not the dog. I remember standing on the paved walk to our side door, calling my grandma and asking her if I could give my son his middle name after my late grandpa, her husband. And after we had our second child, with encouragement and generous financial help from her parents, we sought a safer neighborhood. Within a few blocks of our home, there were drive-by shootings, prostitution rings, meth labs, dead bodies. Many of the problems revolved around a seedy hotel next door to that aforementioned legacy store. The wife and I wanted something a little more “Raise a family here,” and a little less “Raze a family here.”

I know in that neighborhood that there are a lot of great young kids that are living in awful circumstances, and our systems are failing them. My wife, in her infinite empathy, has bought jackets and shoes for young children who are out in sub-zero temperatures without them, or shirts and pants for others who are every day wearing the same ones. I was blessed to have the opportunity to give respite care – short term, emergency foster care – over the Christmas months for a 12 year old young lady that my wife had formed a bond with. (I need to write about the foster experience, too. Hereinafter, this sentiment will simply be denoted with “That, too.”)

Much like The Company molded me into a better version of myself professionally, she has done that personally. She has forced me into uncomfortable situations that have helped me grow and recognize my own mission. But it was always my wife who saw the need for all of these poor kiddos and stepped in to help. While she often talked with me about these things before doing them, and always had my blessing, I was along for the ride. Even though I couldn’t see the problems with my own eyes, I trusted my wife and knew her mission was pure. The answer was always very simple for me: “Yes. Let’s help them.” It is plainly the good and right thing to do.

Remember that seedy hotel I mentioned earlier? Oh. Okay, scroll up, I’ll wait here. (Mr. Bean waiting by the roadside…hopefully I can verbally evoke a meme or image in your head. If not, then to you I say, “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.”)

Remember that seedy hotel I mentioned earlier? Good, I’m glad you were paying attention. The Company made a big announcement: We had bought the seedy hotel, and were tearing it and the legacy store down to build a big, beautiful retail facility two- to three-fold larger than the original, with far more offerings and amenities. Our city rejoiced. The Company, ever humble, dusted off its knuckles and gave some quiet talking points: “It’s great for the neighborhood,” and “It’s great for The Company” and so on and so forth. It just made sense. While the company didn’t start here literally, the city was its de facto home. The Company grew from infancy in our community, from a scrappy upstart to a pillar that would make Atlas blush – and then quietly put him out of the job. I’ve seen pictures of houses on eroding beachfronts that are leaning so close to the water that you’d think they’re trying to copy the ocean’s test answers. I’m sure an unemployed Greek titan could find some unglorious temp work.

What wasn’t announced, and not even known by myself who had lived just blocks away from there, was that the hotel was subsidized for low income housing for our community. I didn’t learn that until long after the last stud was wrenched from the foundation. I learned that, more specifically, because my wife came home one day lamenting an young girl she knew who had been living there with her family. She had transitioned into living in a tent – in Midwest winter, no less – after having been expediently evicted from the hotel. After everything she had gone through already, this poor preteen girl was now carrying the burden of homelessness, and all the other stressors that come along with it. Oh, Atlas, where are you? After a while, the family disappeared, and I still don’t know what happened to them. Figured I’d warn you now that there’s not a happy ending coming here.

To say that my stomach dropped is an understatement. My entire tract was banished to the shadow realm. While I didn’t feel personally responsible for her situation, I felt the imperative to do something about it. Internally, the company had a virtual “Idea box” to which any employee could send in an idea. It certainly wasn’t the most direct way to give feedback, but I was familiar with it, and really didn’t want to bring up my entreaty face-to-face with anyone. This idea box was not meant for just any kind of idea. No, it was very intentionally there for profit, and required a submitter to explain how their idea would make The Company more profitable. Many of my submissions ended with, “It doesn’t make The Company more profitable, but it aligns with our values.” I never heard back on any of those ideas. Goodwill is the obvious dividend. It was obvious to me, at least. I submitted the situation and waited for a response.

To the best of my recollection of the wintry early months of 2024, I did not hear back for a couple of weeks. It felt like a couple of weeks, if nothing else, and a short eternity yet on top of that. I was heartened, though, when the Head of our PR department, Mr. McCool, sent me a chat message asking if we could talk on a video call, and I obliged.

First, I’d like to say Mr. McCool used to be a pastor or preacher of some such faith leader, and thereby had some default level of respect from me. He also left the faith to come work for The Company, drive a two-seat sports car, and preach to a different kind of congregation. I think he even appropriated the used car salesman’s wet-look, slicked-backed hairstyle. Major Joel Osteen vibes, but his round glasses were more like Major Arnold Toht. Now, almost 2 full years from that video call, the red flags should have been obvious.

Nevertheless, in the years before our video call, I had found myself faithfully sitting in McCool’s pews – made of company provided metal folding chairs – for many years. I took in many of his sermons. The Company holds an annual year-end “bash,” you see, where coworkers celebrate their accomplishments, set their eyes on the new year’s goals, and collect some hefty bonuses. McCool would almost always give a touching story about how the generous and empathetic coworkers The Company had helped a customer in dire straits. They were genuinely heartwarming. Or about how he had been moved to tears by some stranger who brandished courage in the face of personal tragedy. And how that experience changed him, and by extension all of us by his sharing of the emotional tale. I have to give him credit, the man could work a crowd wonderfully, and we Ate. It. Up. It was the affirmation of all of our company’s values and that, no matter how mundane our job, that we were making a tangible difference in people’s lives. I can’t be sure that all of his stories were genuine, but he told one once about a model train when he was a child. I could never do it justice now, but I remember leaving with a feeling that somewhere inside there, he was a little boy wanting to go back in time and play trains with his dad.

I left my cubicle and found an open small meeting room nearby. These rooms were tiny, offering just enough space for a one-on-one discussion or a private phone call. I opened up my work laptop there and took McCool’s video call. I was hopeful that we would be able to do something about the situation I had brought to light. By this point in my tenure with The Company, though, I was jaded enough to know it was not guaranteed.

I’d like to take a moment to clarify that Mr. McCool is of no relation to Michelle McCool, wife of the WWE’s The Undertaker (Wrestling? Oh, hell yeah! That, too). So, I had no reason to suspect the tombstone piledriver and chokeslam that had been prepared for me. It was actually just the same quiet talking points, “it’s good for the community,” “It’s good for The Company,” and even “The mayor asked us to do it because the hotel was such a problem.” McCool was uncharacteristically nervous. That last comment about the mayor wasn’t part of the usual talking points. He was shaky, and reaching.

As a rule, I always kept my laptop camera off by closing its privacy shudder. Denied his audience, I have to believe that he was sorely missing the affirmation and approval of so many rapt, weeping faces. The dire and disdainful silence I gave him in response – in conjunction with that blank camera image – probably didn’t help either. He perspired and panted and continued, “We made a donation…There’s really nothing more we can do.” Palms up to the camera, he showed that he clearly held no solutions for me. My palms were down on the table on either side of my laptop. We concluded the conversation with respectful goodbyes, and when I picked my hands up from the table, I could see the sweat puddled there. It was surely the condensate of my anger that had just steamed out of me. The Company simply…couldn’t. I sat still with despair.

Knock knock knock!

Out of the narrow window I could see my boss, Mr. Chess, knocking. He is not at all in the chain of command with Mr. McCool. Mr. Chess is, true to his name, far too complicated to describe here. I can only summarize and say that nobody at The Company had done more to develop me professionally and provide me opportunities to succeed. He was smart and funny, demanding respect and deserving fear. He had a way of engendering mistrust in people, though, whether he knew it or not. At times it seemed obvious, like when calling out the shortcomings of one of my peers. Other times, it was so subtle that I think now it was actually just my lack of self-confidence pouring gas on his spark.

In other words, he built me up and generously supplied all the material insight and experience I could ask for, but he also unknowingly tore at me like an excavator to a dilapidated hotel. He’s not a villain, and I’m sure that he did not realize the negative impact, or else he would have reflected and changed. I truly believe that. I had neither the emotional intelligence or courage to talk to him about it, either. He was never shy about calling out his problems with anyone at any level of the company. In that, there was something earnest, and sharp as steel. He often used a saying, “Play Chess, not checkers,” whenever he had outmaneuvered someone on the corporate landscape. When he invoked that of my peers, I often asked myself “What piece am I in his game?” Probably the castle guy. The one that gets stuck in the corner and never realizes its full potential. Yeah, that seems right. I don’t think I’m very good at chess?

Mr. Chess’s office shared a wall with the private room I was talking to Mr. McCool in. He opened the door quickly after his knock, before I could acknowledge him. That’s an office faux pas to be sure, but I wasn’t going to complain to my boss about his behavior, I was a coward after all. He must have heard through the wall and known that I had just ended my call. I could have used a while longer to cool off, though.

“What was that call about?” he said with a curious but cheery smile.

“Just interviewing a potential new hire,” I lied coolly, belying my real temperature. I avoided making eye contact.

“Oh.”

I made some excuse, grabbed my laptop and walked out, and he stepped out of the doorway to let me go. To this day, I don’t think they know how damaging that experience was to me. It was the start of the exact same slippery slope of emotions that Yoda warned us about a long, long time ago. McCool carried The Company’s bags and I spiraled like a luggage carousel. And did Chess get a warning from McCool, colluding with him to try to “smooth things over,” and “Make sure I was alright?” Or did he eavesdrop through the wall, trying to farm some tea? Maybe it was truly innocent and he doesn’t know to this day what happened, but that seems like a terrible coincidence to me for someone who is normally so calculated. I don’t know, nor do I want to at this point. I know where that path of thinking ends – suffering. That being said, he never did tell me why he opened the door to chat with me.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, the company took unprecedented time and money to send an updated value poster to every store, and replace all the outdated copies hanging at corporate. Under the “Honesty” value, they removed the portion that promised they would be honest with their coworkers. In court you could argue that the meaning really didn’t change, it was just condensed, but it seems like an unforced error to me. A coworker with whom I am still in touch asked their supervisor why the change, and the response was, “McCool said it actually changed a couple years ago for legal reasons.” I had no idea McCool was behind it, but I suddenly started doing math in my head on the dates. I told myself truthfully that, at that/this point, it really doesn’t matter. I needed to move past it and get closure.

I know I can be emotional at times. I’m glad that I’m getting emotional at some things more worthy of it. I know back then, though, that wasn’t always the case. Was I misremembering something? Did my recollection get foggy over that time, and I just latched onto that moment to justify my anger? I ran to google for some kind of unbiased feedback, making sure to leave The Company’s name out of the query.

And the answer:

Remember everyone, AI can make mistakes. If you have a problem, call Sundar Pichai. Other than that…I guess it’s time to wrap this up.

So, that was my worst day at work. And this is my first blog post. I don’t intend to spend too much more time venting about The Company, but it’s hard to avoid talking about them because of the integral part they’ve played in my life over the last 18 years.

I can recognize now that The Company didn’t do anything wrong. They behaved like most any business would in the circumstances. It’s understandable. Really. I understand now that I was angry at myself, because I didn’t speak up, because I didn’t try harder, or do more. I let my feelings fester inside of me until the fever was too much to bear. I’ve gotten so many great and truly hilarious stories (That, too.) that I’d love to share later. But for now, I am beset with a righteous responsibility to post this, and get my ass in the shower, because in no more than 51 minutes (That’s right, it’s 9:09am now, but I did sleep for a few hours in there), I am expected at a meeting where I will be resigning from my job.

In the end, if The Company wasn’t able to do what was plainly the good and right thing back then, then I know what I need to do now. LFG!

Epilogue

“I would love to comment on some of things you said, to be honest. Twofold. Number one: I don’t want to end up in your blog,” huffed Mrs. Owens, the HR lady.

Oh don’t worry, lady, once I’m out of here I don’t ever want to think about this place again. Do you think the department store clerk goes home and is inspired to write about the mannequins?

~RECORD SCRATCH~

And yet, here I am. Let’s rewind a little bit.

Suffice to say, I am no longer employed by The Company. Thank goodness for that. I wasn’t lying to myself at the time, I had no intent to write anything further on The Company after “My Worst – My First,” but I felt like the meeting had such meaning to me that I couldn’t not write about it. Just as the worst day of my career with The Company, this moment will undoubtedly be pivotal in my life. In the words of Weird Al, “This means something. This is important.”

I should make a correction, too. Wait, sorry. What I meant was, “I should make a correction: TO.” Human Resources rebranded themselves a year or two ago as “Talent Operations.” Isn’t that the most HR thing ever? As with most things, I spent way too long thinking about it.

The term HR has become bedeviled with troublesome connotations. So, when they tattooed over the old name like a college girl does to a tramp-stamp begotten under dubious sobriety, we understood why. In more recent days, with my leave experience, I spent more time thinking about the Talent Operations part and what that meant. Clearly it gives doesn’t give people the ick like HR does, but what does it stand for itself? They are overseeing the operations of the “talent,” i.e. the employees, I guess? When I let my imagination run wild with that, I imagined a massive cube of machinery that represented the company. Gears grinding, pipes rattling, steam and smoke billowing mostly from places that they should be billowing from.

Upon every surface of this cube of capitalism’s artifice scurry little drones (Borg, not bee). They pull at some levers and yank at some chains, plink-plunk drops of oil from greasy squeeze-cans, and shovel coal into boilers. These Operators ensure the Great Talent Machine and all its composite pieces are performing to specification. When the machine sputters and blows a gasket, all those Operators gather ’round with tinkering toolbelts; they are equipped with a policy defining every break, and a procedure outlining every fix. They are ready to stop a leak like Flex-Seal and and wash away the evidence like Oxi-Clean. So goes TO, at least from my outside observations: As unhuman as it is inhumane.

As for the department formerly known as Human Resources, all that pops to mind is the Department of Natural Resources. They are stewards of a beautiful and unique gift, allowing for it to be sustainably harvested while providing it fastidious protection. They are always maintaining a delicate equity, rather than a dilapidated engine. That’s certainly not what the moniker “HR” evoked before, and certainly not just for The Company. I just thought we were better, and thought we would and could aspire to something more holistic.

You might be wondering when we’re going to get back around to that juicy hook I led with. In the interest of brevity, I’ll set aside my palette and paintbrush, eschewing cad yellow and phthalo blue for some black and white notes and dates from my leave experience. There is just one detail for you to keep in mind: The Company is proudly “self insured.” That is to say, they have a third party organization processing claims, but inevitably there is no insurance company paying for it. The portion that you, the coworker, don’t pay is paid entirely by The Company. Your insurance premiums are also, as is normal in the workplace, paid to The Company.

My leave experience was not great when it came to dealing with The Company. Without further ado, here’s how it went:

• At the start of my leave, I used my PTO to continue collecting my normal hourly pay. After that, I had to start a short-term disability claim so that I could collect $185/week. For context, I used to make around $31 an hour.
• The Company strongly suggested that I seek therapy, and I agreed and began immediately.
• When my PTO ran out a month into leave, I soon after got an email about “High Arrears.” Arrears is a fancy word for debt, i.e. “You owe us money.” Money was a huge stressor for me, knowing my income was a fraction of what it was before. My self-worth was tied to my income with a hangman’s knot, and it felt like The Company was trying to kick the chair out from under me. The email, which I had read only frantically at the time, said that the deficit could be recovered from me upon my return to work. Put a pin in those italics for later. I interpreted this as the company espousing an understanding attitude: “Pay us eventually but focus on healing right now.” It was very naive of me.
• Debt collection calls started. No, not for my mortgage or auto loan. From The Company, and they were clear that I needed to pay. At this time, I was collecting $740/month in disability, and incurring $500/month debt to the company for the privilege of retaining that benefit – net gain of $240/month, or about one day’s work. I thought I was still being allowed to effectively back-burner the debt, and work it out later with them.
• I got a physical letter from the company saying that “After attempting to collect your past-due insurance premiums from you, we have not received full payment. Your total amount due is $X, and if you do not submit at least $Y by [13 days from now], your insurance coverage will end as of [2 months ago].” Insurance coverage, which could only be taken to mean all my benefits. Put a pin in that one as well. And the fact that they would retroactively rescind my benefits was appalling, which would make me liable for the company paid portion of the bill.
• I went back to look at that first email I got, and decipher how the language delivered such a different message than what I was experiencing. “…if you do not pay your premiums while on leave…the company will recover premiums or benefits missed during the leave in a lump sum upon your return.” Recover my benefits? Isn’t that just a flowery way of saying you’ll take away my benefits? And what happened to that “upon my return” that we put a pin in? I guess that was tossed to the wayside.
• In true debt collection fashion, they started kind and gentle. As time went on and arrears accrued, they got more and more aggressive in their language. The Company’s annual net profit is over half of a billion dollars, and 15 out of the last 17 years, including through COVID, we’ve continually posted new “Best Year Ever” profit benchmarks.
• In early to mid August, I dropped off $200 in cash as a good faith payment. I couldn’t commit to much more than that at the time, not knowing what the future held and seeing our savings shrink week on week.
• I got a letter from The Company dated 2 days after I dropped off that cash. It stated very plainly: “After several attempts to collect your past-due premiums, payment has not been received.” I wouldn’t expect a form letter to mention a specific payment I made, but the language sounded like I had made no payments at all, which was not true. I made a payment that equated to 20-25% of my total amount owed, which seems like more than enough to show you’re trying, right? “Due to failure to make payment, your Vision, Voluntary Life and Voluntary Long Term Disability ended as of [2 months ago].” Wait, the last letter said “insurance coverage,” implying all benefits, but now you’re telling me it’s only certain benefits? That seems misleading at best, predatory at worst. Regardless, I was still on short term disability, and they’re telling me they’ve revoked my long-term disability so I could never collect that even if it came to a point where I needed it.
• In a panic, I called in to The Company and spoke to Marge, who worked in that Debt Collection department. I explained that I had dropped off $200 and received this letter postmarked 2 days later. “Oh, that’s just a letter from an automated system, there’s still a grace period,” she explained. Predatory. Exasperated, I mumbled out so many half sentences – “How could you,” “How can I,” How could we,” and this lady said matter-of-factly, “Well, The Company’s been paying its portion this whole time.” Wow. Remember when I said the company is self-insured? Yeah, that means The Company was paying its portion to itself. She said the bi-weekly cost was about $250, and my updated debt was about $1,000. She specifically reminded me that the pay period would be ending soon, and that would add another $250.
• On 9/5, well before the end of that pay period (I was unwilling to take any chances with these people at this point), I dropped off a check for $1,250. That would cover my entire debt and the upcoming addition at the end of that pay period. I was paying ahead of time, leaving no room for accusations.
• I got a call from Marge – “Well, you wrote the check for too much, so we can’t process it. We’re going to need you to come back and write another check for the correct amount.” A massive retail company with tens of thousands of coworkers simply couldn’t figure out a way to cash this check or handle the situation. Give me a break. I stood my ground and got her to agree to holding the check until the debt had accrued past the written amount.
• By 9/23, after when the check should have been cashed, I noticed it still hadn’t been. I had been anxiously watching our checking account and making sure we had the funds available at all times, lest The Company bounce the check and try to screw me over. I emailed and Marge told me the check would be processed on 9/26.
• In late September, somehow, it got even worse. I got a letter saying that my benefits would be revoked on 10/18, hard stop. Not because of non-payment, mind you. “As of 1/1/24, if a coworker exceeds 12 weeks of leave without working any hours, they will no longer be eligible for the Health, Dental, Vision, Company and Employee Paid Short Term Disability, Company and Employee Paid Long Term Disability.” I started doing date math in my head. 12 weeks had come and gone already, so this date seemed to be pulled out of thin air. The letter did say that I’d keep my Life Insurance, ironically. “We won’t pay to help you get better, but if you die then I guess we’ll get out the checkbook.”
• On 10/10, they finally cashed the $1,250 check that I was told would be processed on 9/26. By 10/15, I had received another email restarting back with the gentlest language: “..if you do not pay your premiums while on leave…The Company will recover premiums or benefits missed during the leave in a lump sum upon your return.” Bite me, you bastards.

I’m really sorry for all those bullet points. The devil is in the details. I’m not lying when I say I could have aired many more grievances and improprieties, but I’m trying to keep it somewhat focused. As I mentioned earlier, I really had no intention of writing any of that awful experience. Mrs. Owens, however, was about to compel me.

So, if you’ve been following along, The Company is self-insured, and pays what would normally be the “insurance portion” out of their pocket. You need to be on leave for 6 full months before you are eligible for long-term disability, but it’s our policy to revoke benefits at 12 weeks if you haven’t worked. If a coworker cannot work, they will have paid The Company for LTD that will, by policy, be revoked before The Company ever has to pay it out. The letter was clear – you may enroll in COBRA at your expense if you want to continue that benefit. Those LTD premiums must be a nice bit of profit for The Company at the expense of their coworkers.

That brings us to the day of the meeting with Mrs. Owens and my department manager, one of the Vice Presidents of the company. I’m not feeling super creative, so I’ll call him Mr. Veep. I’ve got a tremendous amount of respect for him and he seems like one of the most genuine people I’ve met at work.

I left the house with the feeling like you get at the top of a roller coaster, front car, looking straight down the drop, waiting for the weight of the coaster to shift back to front and pull you into the plummet. Terrified. Excited. Regretting my choice to be here, certainly, but ready to go on a wild ride. I walked into the meeting room with Mrs. Owens and Mr. Veep, and was surprised to see a representative from our security department sitting on a chair by the door.

Mrs. Owens first called out the elephant in the room, “I know in our emails I told you it would just be me and Mr. Veep, but after some discussion we felt more comfortable having <mumble> here,” she explained, motioning to the security person.

Oh, the irony! Initially, I had planned to bring in a visual aid to this meeting. A beautiful crystal vase, gifted to me at my wedding by the founding CEO of the company, who was in attendance on that special day. He is the current CEO’s father. The Company was different back then, and people felt like they mattered, and we were a family. But, worried that it may raise security concerns, I scrapped that idea. Ha-ha.

I never did get his name, but he did his best NPC impression start to finish, so I don’t feel compelled to even make one up for him. The company has put us through many security training courses, and the first thing that I noticed was that he was on the opposite side of Mrs. Owens and Mr. Veep, which made me chuckle. He wouldn’t be able to stop me if I wanted to make a move. Nor was I frisked, or any actual security measures taken beyond his simply attending. That inspired me to make a joke to break the ice.

“It’s okay,” I responded, palms up to show I was not offended. “I know that if you really thought I was a security concern, he’d be sitting in between us and not over by the door.”

Dunk.

Mr. Veep chuckled, seeming to take it purely as a joke, but Mrs. Owens and NPC seemed to understand the subtext: this security is cosmetic. They were not amused, but didn’t respond. There were deep lines in Mrs. Owens’s face that I don’t remember having seen in the first meeting. I felt a pang of guilt that I may have put them there. Shaking that off, I took my phone out so I could read from my script that I had already told them I would need. I’m a writer, not an orator, after all.

Owens ceded the floor to me, knowing that I had come with statements to make. Those statements were an Apology, a statement about myself and my time at the company and what I implored them to improve upon. Finally, I had a formal list of remonstrances, given only to explain how I had mentally arrived at the place I had been at 6 months prior. I made it clear that none if it was meant to offer excuse for my actions, but merely explain things that had had a deleterious effect on my mental well-being.

I won’t share those remonstrances with you, for the sake of professionalism. I will share the rest, though, because more than anything else I’ve written above, I’d like people to read this. Here is what I read to them, verbatim:

=====

1. Apology

The first and most important thing I need to do is obvious – apologize. It is more than belated, and for that I apologize doubly; I wrote this some time ago, and have in the interim hidden in that cozy contrition, and nobody at The Compay was provided the same comfort. I knew that I could not offer it in earnest, though, until I could do so in person. Know that I appreciate this opportunity to talk with you again, and do not take it for granted. You have afforded me a chance for closure.

That being said, I wholeheartedly apologize for all of my harmful words and actions. I especially apologize to anyone whose mental well-being or productivity was affected. As I became disenfranchised from The Company, I didn’t self-reflect and try to understand my feelings. I don’t think I ever had done so about anything, until I started in therapy while on leave. (Thank you for that opportunity.) Rather, I became irrationally angry and distant, and cast the company as the monster in my story.

When I felt like – assumed, if I am being honest with myself – my opinions of the company’s shortcomings fell on deaf ears, the burnout and otherness I was experiencing at work became untenable. When my words couldn’t make people agree, I tried to use them to make people feel. And then, when I judged that also as a failure and put myself in the darkest places, I used hateful words as daggers in attempt to harm. All the while, I lied to myself that it was self-defense.

I find myself still searching for words to inject a more earnest tone, or further elaborate on my repentance. I have to accept that nothing that I write or say will suffice. I firmly believe that our mission and values must not be things we periodically recite or point to on the wall, but rather they must be enacted and reflected upon daily. Likewise, my words cannot be enough, and I must work on exemplifying the changes and expectations I want to see in our company and world. For whatever little it may be worth, please take that as my promise.

Again, and with the utmost sincerity, I apologize.

2. Identity, Gratitude, and Entreaty

Next, I hope to simply tell you who I am, because over the last 18 years I’ve done an amazing job of muting that person to one degree or another. I’ve always lacked the self confidence to express myself wholly for fear of judgment from others. That has resulted in a self-loathing, as I am never sure if I am being honest with even just myself. I have at least enough emotional intelligence now to see how that has been controlling me for a long time.

Because of that ever-present self-doubt, I’ve felt a out of place my whole life. Given my age, I sometimes think I am trapped between generations. My elders have cultivated wealth and conventional success, and their rapaciousness for those things has created opportunities for many, myself included. My juniors seek purpose and scold the world of unbounded greed that’s been manufactured for them. Both of these attitudes pulled at me like vertiginous vaudeville stage hooks, leaving me emotionally dizzy. When I felt like I belonged to different groups, and only partially, it felt like I really just didn’t belong anywhere.

I also have two older half-sisters, which probably contributed to this feeling earlier in life, too. I simultaneously felt like the “baby of the family,” and an only child. I had a hard time feeling like I ever fit in. While my friends were out riding bikes and my sisters having already moved out to college, I turned on “SNICK,” Nickelodeon’s Saturday night lineup for young hermit children like me. When 10pm rolled around and Good Burger turned into Good Times for the older audience, I stayed there and watched television that was much more mature than I, splitting my identity once again. I was oblivious to many life lessons layered in the evening lineup.

The reason I bring up these outsider feelings is that now I am able to reflect, and reform a true identity for myself. In fact, as I reminisce on those sitcoms, I see many character virtues totake to heart:

Archie Bunker – All stubbornness and ignorance has limits.

Edith Bunker – Love does not (but common sense might).

George Jefferson – It’s easy for a man to forget what’s really important.

Weezy Jefferson – And he needs a good woman to remind him now and again.

Fred Sanford – Change is painful. So is resisting it.

Lamont Sanford – Rebellion and respect are not mutually exclusive.

Sam Malone – It can be hard to say what you feel sometimes.

Diane Chambers – It can be hard to feel what you say sometimes.

Don’t forget the Conners, Tanners, Taylors, and Bankses. All the families of the 90’s showed me that life is messy and beautiful. The closer I look, the more I believe the messy and the beautiful are one in the same. The bigger the mess, the more we rely on others; the more we rely on others, the more resilient and radiant the bond. I simply wasn’t mature enough to comprehend the big life lessons being served up in 30 minutes or less, “Every night on Nick-at-Nite!”

And, if we’re talking the narratives shaped and are still shaping my demeanor, I would regret not mentioning my love for professional wrestling. The characters are larger than life, but so are the cast who play them. I wish more people appreciated that. I’ve seen everything from a performer announcing their real pregnancy, to another announcing their real leukemia diagnosis. These are the highs and lows of people’s actual lives, and they weave it into fiction and lay it all out there for us. They tell stories about dreams and nightmares, fathers and sons, underdogs and champions. Of burnout, self-loathing, and disenfranchisement. Mankind has scarcely known stories or storytellers more relatable than these. And don’t we all need people with whom we can relate, so we don’t feel alone?

Wrestling aside, I wanted to bring these things up because now I see the need to clearly define my own character. I need to tell my own story, whatever that may be. It’s certainly as terrifying and exhilarating as everyone says, I can tell you that much. Maybe that will be literal; I’ll write a book about my life, or possibly short stories. I could document the highs and lows of my life thus far, and then just bid the private sector a quiet “Have a nice day.” Perhaps it’s a story where I find the compassion I lack, find God, and find my smile again. If nothing else, I hope it’s one where I stop chasing others’ brass rings. One where I no longer content myself with being a spoke on a wheel (a very successful wheel though it may be). One where I seek success on my own terms, and seek my own purpose.

That is another thing that I need to define for myself. I had never really thought about, much less sought, my own purpose. When I started with The Company, I simply had all the appetites and imperatives of a recent college graduate, but not the moxie to ask myself plainly: “What matters to you?” It was never The Company’s responsibility to give me purpose. They did for a long time, though, and I am glad for it. Following that given purpose granted me unique experiences and perspectives that have helped me grow into the person I am, and helped lead me on an unimaginable journey of self-discovery.

About eight years into that journey, I remember my erstwhile store leader, Molly, telling me one day, “People don’t change.” I didn’t know the context at all, nor did I ask. I remember Molly looking and sounding sad, angry, and maybe a little betrayed all at the same time. Today’s version of me would know to ask her “What’s wrong,” or “Is there’s anything I can do to help?” Having missed the chance, I now just perseverate on that statement – “People don’t change.” Molly was always effervescent, optimistic, and carefree. Seeing that in her, if just for a single moment, inscribed those words into me in dark and permanent ink.

Now I ask my older self, “Do people change?” I’ve waited for the answer to come up in my bathroom mirror like an 8-ball, only to find out there’s no simple “yes” or “no.” After a hot shower, I couldn’t even get a “reply hazy, try again” thanks to the damned heated mirror. Forced to answer, my selfhood automatically retreats to “You are running away from a challenge as you always have. You impostor, you!” Then I teeter with tottery defiance to “Despite how hard you resisted and denied it for so long, you still could not avoid this monumental and needed change. I’m proud of you.” (Did his first-person just have a conversation with his second-person? Yes, he/I/they did, and none of them/us are sorry about it.)

I don’t think my charcuterie of insecurities will ever allow me to accept an answer about myself, and specifically if I am able to change. At least I learned something from Molly in the exercise, though, albeit it a decade in coming. What’s more, many people of quality at The Company taught me life lessons far beyond the daily quibbles that framed them, much like their aforementioned fictional facsimiles. For that, I thank them specifically:

[Current Supervisor] – All feelings are valid. Listen to people.

Mr. Chess – Don’t be a pawn in someone else’s game.

[Honest, Experienced colleague] – Trust your decisions, admit your mistakes.

[Colleague and Friend] – It’s okay to not be okay.

[Coworker I Supervised] – And it’s okay to ask. Don’t ignore it.

Molly – If people can’t change, then they can be changed.

[Founding CEO] – We all need to know when it’s time to call “Bullshit!” and go find our own mission.

I also want to express gratitude at having been trusted with a position where I could supervise a great team of people and help them professional and personally. I have had many coworkers confide in me their and their families’ struggles. To this day, I have never been so brave as to lay my problems at someone else’s feet and ask for help like they did to me. They should all be proud of themselves; even at my lowest point, I denied needed help until it was unavoidable.

Honored though I am at their confidence in me, I also have to acknowledge the toll it took. I’ve listened to trials of spousal alcoholism, homelessness, joblessness, and more. If I had a nickel for every time one of my coworkers came to me crying that their wedding had been canceled, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice. Sorry, sometimes you just have to joke about it to stay positive. One of those two is married happily now, and the other I still worry about. And not just them, but their partner who struggles with their own mental health.

With that in mind, I implore and challenge The Company to establish better systems for their coworkers to feel supported in more tangible and everyday ways. I also challenge you to seek out those who need help, especially on mental health related matters. As I just mentioned, it’s very hard to ask for help for so many reasons, assuming you even know you need help at all. We all need help sometimes. Searching out these people in need is the action that aligns with the statements about our coworkers being our greatest asset.

In closing, all these experiences taught me that – yes! Life is messy! I know it may seem antithetical to [Founding CEO]’s catchphrase of “Life is good!”, but just as with our sitcom counterparts, I think we’ll find it all to be the same thing. We have to embrace that mess head-on. We may not get the happy ending within a 30 minute time slot, or ever at all, but we will have formed authentic relationships. Life is beautiful!

=====

From that point, I laid the promised grievances out in front of both Mrs. Owens and Mr. Veep, with both of them taking occasional notes. I made sure to save the largest one for the grand finale: an example of our executives abusing their power, and how they could bend The Company’s health care rules and requirements. The same rules that The Company had zealously bent me over for the last 6 months. It was something that I was most certainly not supposed to know. What can I say, I’ve been able to cultivate many friendships in my time throughout The Company, and our walls are very thin. Mrs. Owens chimed in promptly when I paused to take a breath, perhaps unwilling to let more compromising details be shared.

“I’m going to stop you here, because I know of your feelings about the benefits, and I feel like we’re kinda digressing back into…”

“Oh, I’m done already, that’s the last thing,” I cut her off.

I was overzealous to not cede control of the meeting at large. I had jumped the gun and had one last, important suggestion: That they should read my blog to see my retelling of the worst day of work I’d ever had. They’d heard it before, but they didn’t know I’d started a blog and written about it. It was supposed to be the flourish at the end of my list of problems I had with The Company.

“Okay, well then great,” she said with buoyant satisfaction, prepared to pivot the conversation.

It was then that I realized my omission. We sparred for initiative in the conversation, and, knowing my penchant for forgetting important details, I knew I could not submit.

“Um, and finally, I’m not even going to el-” I continued as though I hadn’t just said I was finished.

“I said that yo-,” she interjected, the buoyancy now replaced with the single-mindedness of a torpedo come to sink the remainder of my statement when it was so close to the dock.

“…I’m not even going to elaborate-” I said after a pause that ended when I realized her intent to silence me.

“No, you’re done,” she said with finality. This time I didn’t pause, and just kept on going.

“…on it any further, but I have the call with Joe McCool that you know well about, and I’ve spent the last 18 hours writing my recounting of that day, which I think was my worst day ever at work. And, I would gladly invite you to read that article on a blog I’ve started. It’s certainly not something that I’ve created to shame The Company, or disparage them, in fact I’ve gone out of my way to make everything as anonymous as possible, but I also feel the need to tell my story. And, not tell The Company story, but only insofar as it made me the person that I am today, so I can move on and talk about other things and live my life and tell my story.”

There was a good long pause, proof that I had not only retained the initiative, but back-footed them all. Mrs. Owens didn’t have a good response prepared. Maybe she was just unwilling to risk trying to speak over me again, lest she again be bulldozed by my stubbornness.

“Now I’m done,” I let the words float across the table with that same buoyant satisfaction, smiling boyishly and giving her the slight nod that she could continue. Damn that felt good.

“Okay,” she said, neutered of any further artificial ardor. She continued, “Going back to something you just said…”

I will redact this little bit of conversation, as she inquired as to how I came to know some of the things that I knew. She specifically honed in on the flouting by executives of The Company’s health care eligibility expectations. She cut me off to tell me I was done when I brought that up, then immediately started asking questions about it.

“I’m not going to elaborate further on anything that I said,” with all the confidence of someone taking the fifth on the stand. She another question or two, and got the same answer each time.

“Okay. Do you have any questions, Mr. Veep?”

“I don’t,” he admitted dourly.

“Okay,” she said, mentally reviewing the HR check boxes that hadn’t yet been inked – namely my status with the company.

“So,” Owens went on like a banker finishing home loan paperwork. “We clearly have been taking notes as you spoke, and our intent here was to give you that opportunity to be heard, and I hope you feel like you have been.”

“I do,” I said earnestly. In retrospect, I don’t know if I was listened to, but they still gave me infinitely more of a platform than they were required. “I appreciate the opportunity.”

We had a lighthearted scrap where Mrs. Owens tried to get me to say if I wanted to continue working for the company or not, and I didn’t answer the question directly for some time. I explained that my previous role was not good for me and insofar as that’s the kind of role I’d return to, I couldn’t do it. She snapped back and demanded the square peg answer that fit in the square slot question. I’d lost the will to keep playing the game. I admitted that I did not want to work for the company, because it was not in the best interest of my mental health, or me as a whole.

“Do you have things here yet, like um…” she muttered along, as though she wasn’t expecting me to give up quite so easily. By quitting, I had gifted The Company absolution from of any further financial liabilities like unemployment.

“I assumed that would have been prepared,” I said matter-of-factly. I’d been sent a picture of my cleaned out desk several weeks prior to this. The Company was not the only one that knew how this conversation must end, but we were also in agreement on it. “I’ve heard that my desk has been cleaned out already.”

“Oh, well…we don’t have your things prepared, I don’t know if your desk has been cleaned out alread-”

“It has been, I’ve seen the pictures,” I said with a boyish smile.

We went over some specifics of how to handle my belongings, and I made sure to tell them to take out a keepsake that I had found. It was a piece of vintage The Company memorabilia that would certainly be coveted by many long-standing coworkers. It was set out in a “free bin” of marketing samples and doohickies about 10 years prior. I snatched it at the time, refusing to let it just float away to nowhere as most things on that table did. I had always planned to gift it back to The Company when I was done, and I wasn’t going to be petty about it now. I let them know they should keep it.

“Is there anything else you need from us? We’ll pay you for this meeting, and today will be your last day of work,” Mrs. Owens sounded much more comfortable, back on the usual HR script that accompanies all these meetings.

“I was waiting for you to officially say it,” I said lightheartedly, knowing her earlier euphemisms about “wanting to work” would not be binding.

“Is there anything else…you’re waiting for, or you need from us?”

It seemed like the conversation should have been done there. I had aired all my grievances about how poorly I was treated while on leave. That the leave experience exasperated my mental health decline and had me considering suicide even moreso than when I was actually working. I had tendered my resignation, we had worked out how to handle my belongings. That’s it, right?

Wrong. Just as The Company had given me a platform to air grievances, it seemed Mrs. Owens wanted the same. She just lacked the tact to ask for it in advance like I did.

“I mean, I would love to comment on some of things you said, to be honest. Twofold. Number one: I don’t want to end up in your blog,” huffed Mrs. Owens.

Oh don’t worry, lady, once I’m out of here I don’t ever want to think about this place again. Do you think the department store clerk goes home and is inspired to write about the mannequins?

“And, two, two, if you’re not working for us, I don’t feel the need to do this anymore,” she said, waving her hands in the air back and forth between her and I. It looked like one of the dance moves Uma Thurman did on stage with Travolta in Pulp Fiction. “You’ve been heard, Mr. Veep will take what you’ve shared and look into what he needs to be looked into, address what he needs to address. All of the concerns that you’ve shared about everything up to this point, including how you felt about your time on leave, has been heard.”

“I believe it. I don’t know what this means,” I Travolta’ed back at her, “but I’m unburdened, I’m ready to go.”

“Okay.”

“But I’m…,” I struggled with my words now that I was the one going off-script. I needed to let her know that her wishes didn’t weigh into the story I wanted to write. “I’m going to write my story, and I will be respectful, and I’ll shoot you the link. I’ve got to go home and clean some things up still, it’s a little bit under construction, but I’ve got a website and I’ve started to tell my story. You’ll see that I’m not out there just to slander and name-and-shame, nobody is named. As I say very early on in what I’ve written, I’m also not going to obscure important details about my life, and my lived experience in order to be polite to a corporation. Even though that corporation has developed me, and has been a net positive influence on my life.”

“I appreciate that. I just would honestly encourage you to reflect on the messages you’ve sent me personally, and other people at this company, and whether they actually live the values that you feel like are so important.”

That I feel are so important? The claws are coming out.

Admittedly, some of the messages I sent had the angry tone of a victim. Remember the part where I suicidal and then I came in and detailed all the reasons that I had gotten to such a negative place, including calling out my own lack of self-confidence as the catalyst for it? I know that while I was extremely emotional, I was neither aggressive nor derogatory. But, you know what, fine. If she wants to be like that, we can be like that.

When I was a supervisor, I’d often have coworkers come to be bemoaning a snarky email they got, and I’d ask one simple question: Point to the words that are inappropriate. More often than not, they couldn’t, because nothing was overtly inappropriate. They had assumed the author’s tone in the email, and then let that tone influence the words they read. HR trained me to ask questions to defuse situations like this. They also trained me to not accept anecdotes and blanket statements, get hard details, so I knew exactly what to ask.

“Do you have specific messages that you felt were unprof-”

“I’m-. This is what I’m not going to do,” she said, again with the dance moves. The Jack Rabbit Slim’s dancing trophy is an enticing reward, after all.

“-essional…” I trailed off.

“But I just would ask that…That’s the one ask I have of you,” she bit back at me, words as venomous as a snakebite, “Having been the recipient of your emails, your messages, I would ask that you look at it from that lens.”

From your lens, the lens of someone who’s been threatening a coworker with loss of benefits while they were in the midst of a mental health crisis? Of someone who has been extorting a coworker to retain those benefits? What else do you call it when you lie and say benefits have been revoked, and then follow it up with, “J/K, but if you don’t give us $1,000 today we actually will though.” In short, I have been trying to call out where the company was not living up to its own standards, and you think you can just Uno Reverse that shit on me? Nah.

How about you look at my story from the lens of someone who has been hurt, who has hurt himself, who wanted to die, who has bore his entire truth out for you as an act of contrition? How about apologizing for some of the things I’ve mentioned, like when I had sent a message, a plea for help, to HR saying “Our insurance declined my doctor and I need to see someone soon because I’m engaging in self-harm and I need help,” and then I didn’t hear a peep back for over a week. Even then, the answer was simply, “You need to contact the insurance processor.”

There had been numerous red flags leading up to my leave, all showing that I was struggling. The Company didn’t seem to care. What they did care about was someone sending in harsh criticisms of The Company through their online comment/feedback form. They had the IT department dissect the metadata in those messages and do the digital detective work to determine who had sent them. I know how they caught me, and the level of investigation they had to do was significant. Wouldn’t it have been much nicer if, months prior when I had first spoken to HR, they said, “You’re struggling with self-harm, let’s get together and talk about what we can do.” Their priorities were laid bare.

By calling HR to help find a new mental health provider for me, I thought I was doing the right thing. The Company has a service called “Care Navigation.” More flowery HR language, to be sure. You’re supposed to call them to tell them what you need as far as medical services, and they find someone who is covered. It’s their way of finding the cheapest solution. “We’re self insured, so if we save money on your doctor visit, that’s more profit sharing!”

I’m sure my coworker, Gary, was thrilled when Care Navigation sent him not to either of the two major hospitals in our city, but an hour and forty minutes north of our city to get an X-Ray for his son’s leg. So much profit sharing, right Gary? When he recited that story, he didn’t seem to recognize the great service The Company had done for us all. But I digress…

“I know I was asking tough questions, and questions I would not get the answer to.”

“No, you were rude.”

Wow. Don’t worry, Mrs. Owens, you’ve been heard and I’ll look into what I need to look into.

That was the moment Mrs. Mannequin Owens herself inspired me to write about this entire day. After all this, laying out everything I’d been through, how I had hurt myself and been hurt by The Company, and after I sincerely apologized for everything, she just had to get in her two cents. I was rude. Fine, I won’t even argue it. I was very emotional and some of the messages could have been interpreted as rude, but once I started to make progress in therapy, I started using language like “This is constructive criticism: …,” and “This makes me feel…,” rather than anything accusatory or inflamatory.

The questions I asked were designed to hold up a mirror to the company and get them to see what they were doing and how it was not in line with their values. I hadn’t yet realized that I couldn’t force them to open their eyes. Questions like, “Who decides to take my benefits away even when I’ve been paying for them? Is that a government policy or The Company?” I knew it was our policy, since January 1, 2024. Our new CEO assumed power on January 1, 2023. Coincidence..?

“And I…And it’s the one thing I feel like you need to hear from someone on this end of things, is that you were asking us to do a lot of things. You were saying we weren’t living up our values. And I understand that’s your feeling-”

Asking you to do a lot of things?Did I say you needed to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade? Build some great pyramid? Circumnavigate the globe via hot air balloon? I asked you questions for goodness’s sake.

“That’s my belief,” I clarified with intent. My feelings were boiling over and none of us wanted to clean up that mess here. My beliefs, thanks to the last 6 months, were as cool as the other side of the pillow.

“- and you’re entitled to it. Your belief, absolutely. But I will say, at times, you were rude.”

“I didn’t call names, nor did you, but I was being hones-”

“I- We’re not gonna argue it,” she snapped, with the I’m not going to answer that again and that’s FINAL energy of a mother whose child asked for ice cream before supper for the seventh time. “I have my feelings, you have yours, and it’s the one thing I think you need to hear from our side.”

“I’m willing to discuss but if you feel like it’s an argument, then we can be done,” I replied, doing my best to match that angry mom energy. I put tamp down arguments with my 13-year-old like this.

“Great,” she squeezed through grated teeth.

“And if you don’t need anything, I don’t think we need anything more.”

“Agreed.”

What you need I certainly can’t provide.

“We’ll get you your items somehow…We’ll be in touch with how we’re going to do that. And we’ll process the ter-,” she caught herself, “process today as your last day.”

“Great.”

We all quietly stood up from our chairs, and even NPC didn’t miss his cue. Nobody seemed to be moving, just kind of standing around to wait for me to go, so I just walked myself out.

“Bye,” I said, rhapsodically, since nobody else seemed to be giving any farewells. I know I fucked up, but after 18 years of busting ass for a company, I guess I expected…I guess I don’t know what I expected. Not blank, quiet stares, though.

“Take care,” Mr. Veep said. There, I felt better then.

As I approached the exit to the building, only about 20 feet away, I looked behind me. Mr. NPC was waiting back by the door to the meeting room, hands in his pockets, only looking up to make eye contact when I turned around. His look said “If you could just see yourself out, so I don’t have to come over there and do security things, I’d sure appreciate it.”

I hopped into my vehicle and over the dash could see into the one window of the meeting room we had just occupied. For just a few seconds I watched them do the usual “post-meeting meeting” where they talk candidly about everything that just went on. Ah, I remember those days. And I’m overjoyed that I can say they’re finally over. I’d watched the company replace the planks of Values and Morals on their boat for those of large-scale corporate Success and Profitability. My problem in this “Ship of Theseus” debate is that it isn’t still the same vessel. Maybe it still is, though. For now.

When I got home, I felt the emotional exhaustion of just getting off the roller coaster. Exhilarated, queasy, adrenaline still waning, and hungry for more. Not more of what I’d had for the last 18 years, no, or even the last 24 hours. The world felt as open and available to me as an amusement park on a Tuesday afternoon. Time to get riding writing.

Disclaimer: Portions of this story, up to and including its entirety, are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.