30 Before 30

by Marina Shifrin

  By the time I got to the correct AQ, an hour late, I was greeted by a sad sight. Jerry, my friend, my boss, the man who had invited the whole staff to his birthday party, was sitting at the corner of a long, white table with only two coworkers, a couple, Peter and Charlotte. I was mad at my other colleagues for not coming to his birthday party, but understood why they hadn’t.

  Things at the office were prickly and growing worse by the week. The company objective was pivoting every few months, and we were all scrambling to keep up. We were instructed to illegally rip news videos from reputable sites and repackage them with animation for our own channels. It felt wrong to steal other reporters’ content, but I wasn’t comfortable questioning authority, especially when I was best friends with that authority. Jerry was caught between demanding CEOs and disgruntled employees. It was making him stressed, tired, and angry. The disorganization of the company, on top of Jerry’s mood swings, was giving me motion sickness.

  It became difficult to defend his decisions to my resentful coworkers. We rarely knew what our job responsibilities were, and it was making everyone frustrated. A handful of people quit almost immediately after getting hired. Peter and Charlotte were actually in that handful.

  “Marina, you’re here!” Jerry slurred when he saw me. He got up a little too fast and stumbled over his chair. The most composed man in Taiwan was tanked. I didn’t want anyone to see him this way, especially our other coworkers. My instincts were to get him home, tuck him into bed, kiss his forehead, and tell him he was a special boy.

  “Take a shot!” Jerry yelled, sloshing his tray of drinks toward me. I noticed that Charlotte and Peter had their very own trays sitting in front of them. “There are two left, one for you and one for me,” Jerry said.

  “What are these?” I asked.

  Jerry stared at his tray for a good long moment. “Well, there’s … Let’s see … There was tequila here”—he pointed at a row of empty spaces—“vodka here, and now we have whiskey. You love whiskey.” He shoved the tray under my nose. The scent made me want to gag.

  “You should go home,” I told him. Jerry’s wheels began turning as he pieced together how drunk he was. He put the tray down. Right at that moment, when it seemed that Jerry was about to realize it was his time to go home, another coworker named Michael came in.

  Michael was newer to the team and had a passion for the job that I was quickly losing. His exuberance annoyed me in a petty way.

  Michael didn’t even sit down. “Are those whiskey shots?” he asked, eyeing Jerry’s tray.

  “Yes. Yes! Do you want to do one with me?” Jerry responded.

  “Of course, birthday man.”

  Before I could intervene, the two did a shot. Was Jerry going to throw up in front of us? We’d obviously have to shut down the company if he did. I mean, no boss can come back from vomiting in front of his subordinates. Right?

  “Karaoke?” Michael said.

  “Karaoke!” everyone simultaneously yelled. Jerry’s crushing desire to be adored was taking over his instinct to be a polished and refined enigma. His status as a demigod was quickly diminishing in my eyes. Demigods don’t get this trashed.

  Jerry pulled me aside and slurred into my ear, “Whatever you do, don’t let me have any more.” My new assignment emboldened me. Jerry entrusted himself to my care and damnit I was going to excel. “I’ll get you some water from the 7-Eleven,” I told him. When I leaned in to make sure he heard me I noticed his face looked wearier than usual.

  “Okay, thank you,” Jerry said before immediately hailing a cab to the other bar. Or not, I thought, and crawled into the cab behind him.

  The karaoke bar, MayBE, was not like the traditional private-party rooms that are popular throughout Taiwan. Instead, they did karaoke in a sing-a-long manner, with stray microphones floating throughout the lounge. They played a lot of Western indie-rock, so I was at least able to bob my head along to the wailing. It was one of my favorite places in Taipei, but that might’ve been because it was close to my apartment. My enjoyment of a bar is inextricably linked to how close it is to my bed.

  Jerry and I walked in to find Peter and Charlotte already seated with drinks. “Here you go, birthday boy!” Peter handed Jerry a cocktail, which I intercepted.

  Michael came in shortly after us and headed straight to the back of the bar, where a man, who looked like the owner, sat watching over the sweaty drunken mess of his kingdom. Michael said something in the owner’s ear, who then looked over at our crew and pointed to Jerry. They both nodded, then Michael came back to join us.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “Nothing.” Michael smiled.

  “Nothing” turned out to be a drink made specially for the Birthday Boy. It was called “Baby Sleeps Three Days” and from what I remember there were five different types of liquor in it. The drink had a sort of blue glow that stressed me out. The owner came out from behind the bar, gingerly balancing the umbrella-capped glass of poison on top of a tray, and started singing Happy Birthday. The whole bar joined in. My gaze moved from the drink to Jerry, who was the happiest I’d seen him in months. A whole bar, singing to him. Happy birthday from all of his new friends.

  The owner made it to Jerry and everyone raised their glasses. I surreptitiously grabbed the drink out of his hand as he toasted the bar. “I’m getting you water,” I told him.

  “No, it’s my drink. Give to me!” he howled, lurching toward me. I pulled the drink back.

  “Wet blanket!” Charlotte yelled.

  “BOOOOO,” Peter chimed in.

  “Oh, this is straight-up bullshit,” I sneered.

  Jerry grabbed the drink out of my hand and chugged it. Everyone cheered and I took a mental snapshot of the moment. Does that ever happen to you? You have a sobering second where you’re like, Wait, what the fuck am I doing? Everything became so clear. The drinking, the late nights, the running errands, the weekend breakfasts—my boss and I were inappropriately using each other in a pseudo-relationship and neither of us was going to get out alive. I no longer felt the need to take care of him. The spell was broken and all I saw was a lonely forty-five-year-old man with lots of money, and little else.

  “Smells Like Teen Spirit” exploded over the speakers and the whole bar devolved into head banging. I’m a sucker for a rowdy crowd and a good song so I got up and began to dance. Jerry stood up to dance with me, but he couldn’t even stand straight. “I’m going to leave,” I yelled over the music.

  “Stay for a little longer,” he pleaded.

  “No, I mean, leave Taiwan,” I told him.

  “No, you’re not. You’d be making a big mistake. You haven’t even worked on good projects yet. I promise they’re coming,” he told me. “Besides, you’re not allowed.”

  “This is an absurd conversation to have right now. You’re drunk,” I told him.

  “You brought it up.”

  “I shouldn’t have, just forget it.”

  “You have so much potential, you have to stay. Until you at least get to two years.”

  These kinds of business promises are a common tactic to get employees to stay in a job longer than they want. Sadly they rarely, if ever, pan out. I sat back, sipped some water, and kept an eye on Jerry’s alcohol consumption. By the end of the night, he’d had a total of thirteen drinks. I made a tally in my notebook.

  Around one a.m. Charlotte yelled, “I’m bombed!” and the night was brought to an abrupt end. As usual, Jerry and I shared a cab, but unlike usual, we headed to his apartment first. He couldn’t even sit up straight; I was genuinely worried he’d choke on his own vomit and die in that cab. Shadows from the city lights danced across his face while he made a series of unfortunate sounds.

  “You’re not going to leave,” he said.

  “Yes, I am,” I responded. We sat in silence for a moment. I chose my next words carefully. “I know it’s hard, because we’re friends, but you have to let your employees move on when it’s their time to go.” We pulled
up to his apartment and Jerry got a strange look on his face. His red eyes blurred behind a layer of … tears? “Are you—” before I could finish the sentence, he bolted out of the cab. I’d never seen a middle-aged drunk person run so fast.

  I paid the driver and scrambled out of the car only to sit down on the sidewalk and wriggle out of my new heels. Thank god I had those Chucks. I jammed my feet into the shoes, tied my laces, and took off after Jerry.

  He wasn’t hard to find. He’d made it about halfway down an alley before leaning up against a wall to catch his breath. Perfectly silhouetted by a streetlight, his whole body convulsed in these big heaving dips. Oh no, he’s puking, I thought. But upon closer inspection, I saw it was much, much worse: he was crying. Hard. Harder than I’d seen anyone cry. There is no bigger turn-off than seeing someone you idealize in their feeble human form. I turned around and began running in the opposite direction. “I’m going to get you some water and food,” I yelled over my shoulder. “Don’t move.”

  I ran to a 7-Eleven—seriously, they are everywhere in Asia—and grabbed two bananas, two bags of nuts, and two water bottles. When I got back to Jerry, he’d calmed to a silent cry. He was sitting on the ground, scrolling through his email and whimpering. I handed him the water and put my arm around his shoulders. We sat there for a long time. A young, directionless girl, and a broken birthday man—huddled on a curb.

  *   *   *

  I used to take these month-long sabbaticals from drinking to make sure I didn’t have a problem—and to lower my tolerance when a couple glasses of wine were no longer getting me buzzed. The last time I did one of these idiotic sabbaticals was on September 1, 2013. I was on the graveyard shift, which meant taking a break was going to be easy, considering the workday started at prime drink time.

  Our graveyard shift was a living nightmare. My coworkers and I showed up to work one day and there was suddenly a night shift. Everyone grumbled, and one person quit on the spot. I was kind of intrigued. “Maybe I’ll eat less and get thinner,” I whispered to Cathy as she sat with her mouth agape.

  As a person with shaky mental stability, flipping my schedule from day to night equaled destruction. I’d survived the first night shift, a few months earlier, but this one was different, more venomous. The apartment above mine was being remodeled and construction would start early. It sounded like two jackhammers having sex. I’d arrive home around 5:30 a.m. and the renovations would start promptly at 8:00 a.m., giving me two and a half hours of uninterrupted sleep a day. One morning I was woken up by one of my framed photos flying off the wall and landing on my chest.

  After Jerry’s birthday, I had begun to pull away. I stopped responding to his nonwork texts and stopped seeing him outside of the office. The dinners, the rides home, the drinks—I put an abrupt end to all of them. Frantically looking for a new job, and worried that Jerry would be personally offended when he found out, I began to phase out our fake relationship with a real breakup.

  One morning, in a private act of pettiness, I defriended Jerry. Not a day after the defriending, Jerry sent me a curt email. The subject line read “Your phone” and the body, in one sentence, instructed me to return it to his desk immediately. Something inside me cracked, though not because of the phone. I couldn’t care less about that thing, I barely used it (aside from navigation). It was his intentional attempt to make my life more difficult that upset me the most. Jerry wasn’t a mysterious leader with a hard shell and a soft heart; he was a trifling bitch. He was flexing his power and constricting my ability to work. His fangs were out, and they had more reach than mine.

  Even though I was checked out at that point, it was important to me that my previous nineteen months of dedication did not go to waste. I made sure to work harder and smarter than ever before, if for nothing else than a letter of recommendation.

  One day, shortly after he took my phone, I came into work a few hours early. I couldn’t sleep with the construction and wanted to utilize the company gym. Whenever my mind feels a little sick, I like to focus on making my body stronger; remind myself that it’s all just muscle matter that needs to be stretched and strengthened. I dropped my stuff off at my desk, and ended up getting roped into helping coworkers who were behind on their deadlines.

  While waiting to be sent articles to edit, I hopped onto Facebook to respond to a cousin who was trying to reach me. (No smartphone, remember?) My Gchat went off and I clicked open the tab, expecting a frantic coworker, but instead I got a message from Jerry:

  Jerry: This is ridiculous.

  I’m balancing two production slots while you’re not even working.

  You know what? You can do two slots tomorrow.

  My shift hadn’t even started and Jerry was already reprimanding me. I’ve never felt comfortable having serious work conversations over Gchat,1 so I did everything possible to keep things professional.

  Me: Okay.

  Jerry: I’m too busy for this. I’m working double time and you’re on Facebook or Gchat or Tumblr.

  Me: Just waiting on VO from Chris and Michael before we worked on the stuff we had outlined earlier …

  Jerry: I don’t need your excuses, Marina. I’m sick of it. Sick of everyone saying they can’t keep up. People think I push too hard, yet I’m not seeing any results otherwise. You’ve wasted everything I’ve handed to you … ruined every opportunity. You meet every task with a lackluster attitude … You have the possibility to accomplish great things, in my opinion, but you haven’t fully dedicated yourself to this job and that’s why you are where you are.

  The irony of him using Gchat to criticize me for being on Gchat was not lost on me.

  Gone were the days of flirtatious messages, they were now malicious snubs constructed to hurt me. We were in the shit now. The problem wasn’t his double-sided personality, it was the lack of consistency between the sides. I could not adapt to someone who unexpectedly wavered from kitten to snake.

  I watched Jerry decimate my work schedule. He stripped me off my favorite project and took away all of the responsibilities I’d worked for over the past nineteen months. It wasn’t his first time lashing out at me for something unrelated to work, but it was going to be his last.

  The next day I walked in on Michael and Jerry, nose to nose, arguing … about me. Michael was attempting to defend me because he’d noticed that I was being unfairly treated, while Jerry staunchly stood by his decisions. Jerry hated having his authority questioned. It was a surreal experience to hear my name yelled in a quiet office, with neither party knowing the subject of their argument was standing right there. They didn’t see me until I had to walk in between them to get to my desk; the embarrassed silence that followed was revolting. It was time to give notice. I emailed Jerry asking if we could set a meeting as soon as possible.

  Jerry knew every intimate detail about me and he was using his knowledge against me. When you’re the child of immigrants, your parents insist that you do two things in life: 1) Marry someone within your culture, and 2) Work harder than everyone around you. I had about as much enthusiasm for marrying a Russian man as I do for getting a back-alley vagina wax, so I focused all my energy into work. That’s why, when Jerry messed with my work schedule, my responsibilities, and finally my coworkers, I knew he was specifically targeting my emotional vulnerabilities.

  After I sent my email, I received a Gchat from Jerry saying that he would only meet with me under the condition that a manager was there. You almost kissed me on the mouth, why does our meeting need a chaperone? I obliged and immediately emailed the managers on our floor asking them to meet with us the next morning. “I’ll come in at eight a.m. if it helps,” I wrote in the email, planning on sleeping at the office.

  “I’m not getting involved in your lovers’ quarrel,” one of the managers responded. I was heartbroken. My attempt at being a work-appropriate professional woman had backfired. I told Jerry we needed to meet as soon as possible, but he never responded. This spiral of negativity is eternal
ly seared into my consciousness; never let your boss become emotionally close to you.

  Without my best friend, alcohol, to ease me through the last week of my shift, I had to get creative with my stress relief. I began to take refuge in the small oasis of tranquility that was our voiceover rooms; they were these awesome, closet-sized, soundproof rooms with padded walls. When the tension was unbearable, I headed downstairs, turned on Kanye West’s The College Dropout album (basically the song “Gone” on repeat), and slammed my body from side to side, bouncing off the padding, desperately wanting to be gone. I danced hard, kicking my knees up high. Some people had cigarette breaks, I had the voiceover room.

  The security guards in the lobby must’ve thought I was insane. I’d go to record a voiceover, be in there for five minutes, and come out drenched in sweat, panting as if I’d just finished a marathon. What if a camera caught me doing this? I thought shortly after discovering my new favorite form of stress relief. The CCTV footage would’ve been bonkers.

  Then it hit me: This should be on camera. I loved sending my friends and parents lo-fi videos with little updates—kind of the single gal’s version of home videos. The next day, I brought my Canon G12 and waited after my shift to hit record. I put on “Gone” and danced on desks, in empty offices, and in the voiceover booth. I propped my camera on books and cubicle walls. I hung it from mic stands, waiting for it to stop swaying to hit record. I awkwardly kicked open a bathroom door and hopped from side to side as it closed. The whole thing took about fifteen minutes to get on tape.

  Since the construction was keeping me up during the day, it was easy to get the video finished quickly. I spent a few days editing, and a few more figuring out what to say in the scroll on the bottom. I wanted to announce that I was quitting, but also wanted to protect Jerry, just in case he ended up seeing it: