As Luck Would Have It (25 page)

I could not have articulated these ideas as a 15
-
year
-
old, although I do remember thinking a long time about them back in 1976.  But now I am in my 60s and thinking of retiring one of these days, and even if I am enjoying life more in many ways since the second disaster I somehow miraculously survived, I think about them still.  Particularly worrisome, as we have seen already, is the resurgence of blatant homophobia over the past decade, not only in terms of what threats it may hold for Joseph and his boyfriend, not to mention our other gay friends, but also the reality that this irrational fear has permeated our society once again and has become
so widely accepted, and with almost no voice of resistance from anyone, except from gays themselves. 

*****

The environment at
work was so dysfunctional; I can only describe it as absurd.  The cumbersome and meaningless process
es
and procedures were exceeded only by the foolishness of those immersed in trying to accommodate them and keep from getting laid off or from being hated. 
We’ve already seen that despite what might seem a logical
means
for weeding out lazy or incompetent workers, strangely, the company never seemed to take advantage of that perfect excuse for letting someone go; no one in our office was laid off, and nobody was fired either, save for one middle-aged inept auditor who spent most of his time auditing pornographic web site
s
in lieu of his accounts’ financial reports.

For him, Flanders and Associates was literally too good to be true; he was paid a generous salary, complete with a yearly bonus and an attractive benefits package that included profit sharing, retirement savings, dental and me
dical
coverage, long term disability, financial
and legal
planning services, domestic partner benefits, and a lucrative 401(k) plan.  Fired for cause after 21 years with the company, the poor slob was delighted to learn that even he, the accomplished useless employee, was entitled somehow to a full severance package of two years continued salary with free medical.  Now instead of spending most of his time in the office looking at naughty girls online and getting paid for it, he could spend most of his time at home looking at the same naughty girls and still get paid for it.

I wasn’t totally different from him when you stop
to
think about it; I
too
was stealing from the company
in a sense
by not producing much of anything, and pretending to be busy and important. 
Of course I wasn’t stupid enough to surf porno
websites
at work, anyone could figure out
that the company could not possibly be so negligent as to not even do the most basic monitoring of their servers
w
eb traffic
.  And how much fun could it be to look at naked women
with an office full of people around, any of whom could stick their nose
s
into your office at any
time wondering why you skipped the meeting and what you were up to.

If the prospect of being laid off did not present a problem, the prospect of being hated by management certainly did, at least for those employees, who unlike me, wanted to either develop themselves professionally or make a contribution towards something.
 
The management team, as they pompously liked to be referred to, consisted of an odd assortment of six individuals reporting to Tim, who landed in their
current
jobs through some mysterious and inexplicable series of events which most likely had
nothing
to do with
their
managerial skills.  The most basic organizational concepts were largely
absent from this team, or more likely ignore
d
by them because that might actually require them to work together as a team, which they had no interest in doing.  A team, as we normally define that term, refers to a group of people with a common goal, most likely winning at something.  Our management team, on the contrary, had only individual goals, winning being one of them only if it meant that a particular manager won; the rest of the group was on their own.

The direction provided by this less than cohesive management team was sporadic and contradictory on its best days; the group wandering aimlessly in terms of providing guidance and feedback, and not able to collectively help steer the organization in any observable manner.  But what bothered me most about them, and which caused me to abandon even the slightest respect for more than one or two of the members, was that
they
cooperatively worked quite effectively when it came to one aspect of managing; they labeled people.  These labels stuck like they were Superglued on; once you were identified as being a certain way, be it good or bad, competent or incompetent, aggressive or passive, engaged or disengaged, they were nearly
impossible to peel off.
  The results were almost comical from my perspective, though I know for certain that many of my co-workers were not able to appreciate any humor in the situation
.
I still was more of less fascinated by all the nonsense around me because I didn’t care now
how
I was labeled, and I knew I was pretty much hated by the
management team anyway.  Why others
beset
themselves by steadfastly adhering to the idea that any of this might be different was beyond me; I knew better than to expect anything to change, which as we have already seen could not realistically
be
expected to occur.

The most curious member of the management team, and possibly one of the least hated by me anyway, was a guy named Brent
Farnsworth
.  Brent was the youngest of the group, only 32 years old and therefore much younger and inexperienced
than
many of the people that he managed,
if we
can generically still refer to what he did as managing.  Yes we can, you may be thinking, managing is a matter of style, personal taste and choice, a way to keep things running smoothly, controlling a situation; how can you say what is the best way to manage effectively?  You should recall that I was a manager once myself,
and
not a bad one in some respects, so maybe I know what I'm talking about.  And don't forget all the management seminars that I attended and all the drinking I did while attending them.  Perhaps I exaggerated earlier when I described what goes on at these seminars, and yes, maybe I did learn a few useful things from them.  I learned this much at least; Brent
Farnsworth
missed out on the seminars, the courses, the training handouts, and the team building exercises.  He didn't sleep through them as I might have wanted to; he skipped them entirely and had no business being a manager because he was uniquely untrained and unqualified to have been promoted into such a position.

He wasn't a bad person actually
;
he could be pretty friendly sometimes and I think he tried to do the right thing
,
the problem being that he had no clue as to what the right things to do were and i
n
what situations to do them.  His training and experience had been focused in just one area and with just one universal caveat; always obey the rules
and the procedures.
  And since there were so many unnecessary and
burdensome rules and procedures to be obeyed, Brent kept quite busy making sure that people were following the rules and doing what they were supposed to be doing.  In terms of providing support, developing talent, and generating results, he was inept; in terms of getting forms filled out, boxes checked, task
lists co
mplete
d
, he was exceptional.

His true strength as a manager was his uncanny ability to nit pick; no detail could be overlooked no matter how insignificant and no matter what the circumstances.  If all of the procedures were completely adhered to, then it must follow that the work was done right.  Once all the forms were filled out correctly, neatly written, properly organized, collated
and
stapled; with copies appropriately sent to processors, supervisors, assistants, consultants, and to Home Office, only then was the work deemed acceptable.  Everyone
who
worked for Brent hated him; I kind of liked him
a little bit
.  He loved baseball, particularly the White Sox
,
he was a sharp dresser
,
and never came into my office unannounced for any reason, ever.  He was really the only manager in the group that I had any degree of respect for at all, the others couldn't be trusted.  All of them hated my guts I'm sure, even Brent, but at least you could talk to him on Monday morning and commiserate
by the coffee machine
about yet another disappointing Bears loss the afternoon before.  Just wait till next season; yeah I hate those damn Packers too.

Mostly, I was content to waste as much time as possible, but there are times when I can be racked by guilt
, but
not in the way many of my co-workers
undoubtedly
experience with a sudden wave of fear during the night over some missed deadlin
e or unfinished project looming. 
You know my sleep is often disrupted, but rarely from something
ominous happening at work,
no unreasonable timelines, no stressful personnel conflicts,
no
complaining clients calling from deep within my
sleep
to startle me awake.  When the guilt creeps in,
it will be during t
he daytime when I perceive that others at the office are working hard, may be struggling in fact, with balancing assignments, conflicting demands, approaching target dates, and customer concerns and priorities.

Of course it is my luck that exempts me from all of this needless stress that the others must endure
;
luck that makes things so easy for me on any given day.  When bonuses are doled out at Christmas time each year, I am right up there at the front of the line with my hand out appreciatively, being rewarded just like the others, except that I don't deserve it and I fear that th
e
y might be starting to figure this out.  What is it you do exactly, Andrews, I can hear them ask in my mind, though in reality I am pretty confident that luck has already anticipated such an unfortunate
possibility
and has pushed it aside and out of my way.

Luck can take care of so
many problems, but it can't allay my guilt, made worse by my co-workers frequently stopping by to discuss their troubles, their bosses, their long hours, how it affects their personal lives, their health even.  I understand their need to air out their grievances and frustrations, and though I would like to tell them to just get a grip and get out of my office, I can't even consider such a heartless reaction; no, the least I can do is listen, even if I am not in a position to help them, and of course I'm not about to admit that I have plenty of time on my hands and could in fact quite
effortlessly
take some of the work off of theirs.

I easily rationalize
d
my lack of motivation and blamed it on the hated management team and the chaotic organizational environment.  Lucky or not, guilt ridden or not, I wasn't going to voluntarily accept any responsibility for the fact that I wasn't doing any work.  Even if it was eventually discovered that I was not pulling my weight, not even a fraction of my weight, maybe I'd get the same lucrative severance arrangement that the porn
o
account manager was able to pull off;
we can all agree that
sitting around doing nothing is a lot better than sitting around doing what he was doing.  I felt relieved after I was able to so successfully reason this entire thing out, so I got online and read
The Wall Street
Journal
until
it was time to go home.

I was interrupted a few times by people coming in with minor problems, but mercifully no one was depressed enough to vent too much of their troubled work lives
on me
.  For I had devised an additional strategy to employ when I deemed it necessary; I complained too.  Yes, the work is too much, I know what you mean, it kee
ps me awake at night with worry;
I
understand exactly what you are going through. 
I
t's a lie of cour
se, but so what?  We workers are all in the same miserable boat when you come right down to it; none of us look forward to Monday morning when we have to endure the glare of the hated managers
;
all of
us
looking forward to the distant day when we can say goodbye to all of this for good, when we can walk out and not care that the door is slammed behind us, never looking back at those still trapped inside.

If Brent
Farnsworth
was the one on the management team that I disliked the least, Iris
Burton
was the one I despised the most.  An unreliable and disingenuous type, she was among the least trust worthy of all the people I had worked with over the last three decades.  It seemed to me that she divided her time more or less equally between sucking up to Mr. Finnernan and talking behind his back, which more than annoyed me because even though Mr. Finnernan was not a great manager by any stretch, he was a decent fellow and never said a mean thing about anyone, including Iris.  Tim and Iris got along famously and once Mr. Finnernan said goodbye at this going away party and took off for New York, the two of them instantly formed a disagreeable bond that nauseated me.  Luckily, Tim liked me, even if Iris hated me, so for the most part they cancelled each other out as far as I was concerned, and I decided to stay far away from both of them whenever the situation would allow it, which unfortunately was not all the time, as we will soon see.