As Luck Would Have It (26 page)

But it helps to understand that Iris’ primary reason for coming to work was to make people miserable, so it was difficult to dismiss her for what she was, even if I did manage to get Tim’s backing when I needed it.  She was also ostensibly second in command, his right hand man if you will, so ignoring her presented certain difficulties even if I was fortunate enough not to have to report to her.  It’s a shame that Iris did not apply her obvious talents to creating a better office setting, but chose instead to force people to distrust one another, create conflict where previously
there had
been none, and intimidate subordinates until they were either trembling
with
fear or sweating from anxiety.  Her explanation for this, if there could conceivably be one, would be that people are best motivated to work when there is a degree of stress and agitation in the environment.  This is actually true and has been prove
n
in studies dealing with organizational behavior; the only problem being that Iris had no interest in creating optimal stress levels that would stimulate maximum output from employees.  Instead, her goal was more simplistic and required very little in the way of knowledge of management theory or anything else; her objectives were only to make Tim think that she was a good manager and to control and embarrass anyone that she didn’t like.

With Iris, there was never
any
gr
ey
area, no middle ground; she either like
d
you or hated you.  Most of the people that she hated were pretty decent, maybe not the most talented workers, but respectable employees at least.  These people never had a good day at work unless Iris was on vacation somewhere far away, say Karachi or Bora Bora.  They were fearful and timid; afraid to speak up in many situations, and miserable in virtually all of them.  Their
predicaments were
made worse by the protracted recession that had made finding comparable
employment
difficult, and so they often found themselves in the unpleasant position of being trapped in jobs that were made considerably less tolerabl
e
by virtue of Iris’ presence and influence with the other managers.

I stood up to her bullshit a couple of times and regretted it for days afterwards.  Brent
Farnsworth
agreed with everything she said, no matter how disingenuous it was
, either because he didn’t know he could actually form his own opinions and disagree with hers, or more likely, because he was looking out for himself and knew better.  He would never back anyone if it might possibly contradict Iris, no matter what the issue, no matter how strenuously they argued, or how determined they were.  All the other managers were basically the same; gutless people who would never take risks, and worse, would implicitly reinforce Iris’ behavior, which I found to be despicable.

Christine Robinson was the young Junior Account Associate that I
introduced you to e
arlier
when
she was kind enough to help me with my reorganization proposal.  She had been with the company now for nearly three years; moving to Chicago to take the position right after her graduation from Ohio State University.  I had mentored her for several
weeks
and found her to have quite a sharp intellect and an even better sense of humor. 
She was fun and could think on her own, and during football season she
might bring
up the subject of her beloved Buckeyes and what they were going to do to the pitiful Illini or worse yet, the pathetic Wolverines.  I winced a bit when I heard such disparaging comments about my favorite teams, but I liked Christine anyway because she always made me laugh with stories
she told
of her college days and the exploits of her sorority sisters.  She was a good employee by any objective standard and could see through the nonsense of office politics and get to the business of servicing clients and building relationships.  Not surprisingly, Iris hated Christine.

As luck would have it, Christine’s supervisor was on an extended medical leave when the annual performance evaluations were to be delivered, and salary increases and bonuses awarded.  Iris and Tim came into my office unexpectedly one morning needlessly interrupting my less than busy day to announce that I would be the one to take care of the discussion with Christine and deliver the ominous news; that is to say no raise and no bonus for her.  They gave me a copy of her evaluation that read like it had been written by a seventh grader; it was largely unintelligible and objectively inaccurate.  Whoever wrote this had spent virtually no time on it and was not the least bit familiar with Christine’s work.  I told them that there was no way I could give this to Christine, and if they, in their professional opinions, deemed that I was the person best suited to evaluate Christine’s performance in her supervisor’s absence, then I would have to be the one to author the document and that based on the scoring achieved and the comments contained in the evaluation itself, an appropriate recommendation regarding a salary increase, not to mention a bonus, would be forthcoming as well.

Iris had the nerve to suggest that my refusal to deliver the evaluation in its current form was in effect an act of insubordination, but I politely
pointed out
that I did not report to her, and in fact never would.  She turned red, muttered something that sounded a bit too much like what an asshole, and marched out.  Tim was flustered, but took back the evaluation form and left as well.  I thought about what I had done and what they had said and wondered what it was that made them want to do Christine in.  Insubordination or not, I’d suffer whatever possible consequences there might be before I would embarrass both Christine and myself in such
an
unforgivable
and unprofessional manner.

I looked at my watch and notice
d
with amazement that it was only 9:30; the day was just beginning.  My head was spinning a bit now from the bottles of Italian wine that
Michelle and I
had shared at dinner
with
Christian and his wife Aman
d
a the night before.  I had
tried to avoid the subject of work when they had inquired about how my job had been going, while we ate fried calamari and clams casino for appetizers
. 
I contemplated my situation and wondered what Christian would have thought if he had witnessed the exchange that I have just attempted to accurately describe.  He and Amanda were the polar opposites of Tim and Iris; advocates for the underdog and the disadvantaged, they had no desire to see themselves succeed while others suffered needlessly.  They had decided many years earlier to leave the produce business in the capable hands of their Casslemond relatives and dedicate
the remainder of their work lives
to supporting non-profit organizations and humanitarian causes.

Christian and Amanda had never even heard me speak of Christine, or Iris either as far as I could remember, yet I knew how they would recoil in disgust if I told them the truth.  Work is fine, not very challenging really, I can’t complain though.  Christian gave me that look of his that told me he knew I was lying; after almost 45 years he could easily see right through me.  Now he was nearly the age that Mr. Casslemond was when he first knocked at Aunt Doreen’s door on that spring evening in 1975, a day that I recalled so many times in the intervening years, a very lucky day for me as we have seen.  I stared across the table and beyond the Chianti bottles at him; his resemblance to Mr. Casslemond was remarkable, the same strong features, the intense gaze, the steel blue eyes; yes it seemed that I was looking straight at Mr. Casslemond himself, returned to the living after more than 30 years, still here and not somewhere in Florida, just like he had promised.  Come on Clifford; what’s up with work anyway?  I just shrugged and poured more wine for the
four
of us.  Here’s to shutting up, was about the only thing I could think of toasting to.

I probably should have kept my mouth shut two days later at work as well, but that might have proven to be exceedingly difficult given what happened.  On my way to the coffee machine that morning, I passed by Christine and saw that her eyes were red and her cheeks a little bit too puffy; she had been crying, I was almost sure of it.  I stayed in my office pretending to be productive for about an hour, wondering if I should do anything.  I was friendly with Christine’s supervisor, but she was still out of work on medical leave following some type of surgery.  The phone rang and I got bogged down with a lengthy conference call, then Joseph
wanted to chat
for half an hour about some bigot in their office who didn’t like gays or Jews, or maybe it was both.  At lunch time I had to run out to the gourmet grocery across the street to pick up something for dinner for Michelle and me that evening.

By mid-afternoon, I decided to go over to Christine’s desk to check on her.  Seeing her that morning had unnerved me and left me feeling
a bit
apprehensive through the day’s activities.  I hadn’t exactly forgotten about the obscene performance evaluation, nor had Tim taken me up on my offer to rewrite it.  How could they possibly consider giving a worker something like that in the first place, and worse, expect me to act as their henchman and try to justify its worth to an employee who I respected?  I was still plenty pissed off whenever I thought about it, but had kept it to myself, not
saying anything to the few people I trusted at work, or even to Joseph while we were on the phone.

Christine was not at her desk and it looked like some of its contents had been removed.  I asked the guy that sat across the aisle, Gary, where she was and his only response was that she had gone, she’d taken off.  Gone where, I saw her this morning?  She got up and left before lunch, said she’d had enough and was going home to her family in Ohio.  Just like that, she quit, said good luck and all th
at
, and then just left.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and now my apprehension was replaced by anger.  What uncomplimentary things had Iris said to her
;
what insults
, insinuations or undue criticisms had been recklessly tossed about? 
I went to Iris’ office
full
with resentment, wanting to hear some reasonable explanation for the pain and the damage I was sure she had caused.  She was gabbing on the phone and pretended not to notice me standing in the doorway, giving no indication that she would excuse herself from whoever was on the other end, agree to call them back,
or
explain that she had a work-related
issue
to attend to. 
For t
his was clearly a personal call she was on, wasting company resources rather than deal with the important matter at hand; yes Carla, I’m sure we can invite your friends as well, the Super Bowl party is a great idea.  I shifted about impatiently
;
then knocked on the already open door to make it completely clear to Iris that I was waiting. 
Well of course you can bring the desserts; Sharon is bringing the punch and you know how she loves to spike it!

What happened to Christine, I asked in a less than restrained voice.  Tim’s office was adjacent to Iris’ and I’m sure he heard me unless he had gone out.  She gave me an annoyed look, then turned to face the window with her back now to me and continued her conversation with Carla.  You know her friends can be quite irritating though,
I’m not sure you should invite them,
the last party they spilled red wine on our oriental rug.

Even in an office with such a pr
ofound lack of professionalism and common courtesy,
this was more than unusual, this was outrageous.  I went right up to her desk and yanked the phone cord out of the wall.  You think Carla’s party planning might wait a few minutes while you answer my question; where is Christine?  She spun around and stared at me with eyes that looked like they might pop right out.  Her face was so full of rage; I thought she might spit at me or worse.  It’s none of your business, you don’t manage anyone, I don’t have to answer to you, were all the negatives she could
fire off
in one sentence.  I asked her about the evaluation; was that why she quit?  Had she really given
that piece of crap to Christine,
was such an asinine thing even possible
?
  She yelled for me to get the hell out of her office, but I just stood there asking more questions about what she had done.

Things had apparently become loud enough by now to start attracting
considerable a
ttention.  The people milling about the office, delivering mail, heading to meetings,
going for
a cigarette
,
or for whatever reason happened to be nearby
, had stopped to hear more of what was going on.  Clifford, are you sure you know what you are doing here, you could get yourself in some real trouble,
you better be careful. 
Yes, you are quite right, things could explode at any minute now, but tell me what you would do in my situation; are you suggesting that I just walk away, act like this is OK, forget about Christine
and
not defend her now that she was no longer able to do it herself?