by Megan Goldin
Bonuses were first delivered on the executive floor. By mid-morning, the bonus conversations had moved down to our floor. We knew that it was our turn when Vincent entered a meeting room at the end of our section of desks, carrying a small cardboard box that contained our bonus letters.
My desk happened to face the glass-walled meeting room, so I was able to watch his meetings unfold while pretending to do valuations on a twelve-tab spreadsheet.
Vincent kept the blinds up. I suspected it was a deliberate ploy to show everyone that the process was transparent. In reality, from what I gathered from Sam, it was as murky as a mangrove swamp.
Sam was the first from our team to go in. He tried to act nonchalant as he rose from his desk and walked down the corridor to the meeting room. I could tell that he was nervous by the way he tapped his finger against the side of his leg. It was a mannerism that I’d picked up on over the months that we worked together. He always did that when he was uncomfortable about something.
Sam came out five minutes later. His facial expression was deliberately neutral, but he couldn’t hide the euphoria that flared in his eyes as he left the meeting holding a white envelope. He winked at me as he passed my desk. I guessed the exorbitant amount of money that he’d spent on gifts had paid off handsomely.
Sylvie went into the meeting room a few minutes later with her usual graceful confidence. Her meeting took longer. It didn’t look as if it was going well. I could tell from the defiant way she held her head and the stiffness of her back. Vincent repeatedly scratched the back of his neck. He was visibly uncomfortable. The door opened abruptly and Sylvie walked out.
She paused for a fraction of a second, put on a stony expression, lifted her chin, and walked down the carpeted corridor like she was walking down the runway at Paris Fashion Week. Her eyes were like flint.
‘It’s your turn,’ she told Jules as she walked past him. Like Sam, she held a white envelope in her hand. Unlike Sam, she tossed hers onto her desk when she sat down.
I could hear Sylvie fiddling at her desk behind me. A couple of times she picked up her desk phone and then hung it up again. She was fuming. I could feel her anger radiating.
Jules came out a few minutes later with his envelope. He tried to hide a smirk but failed miserably. I heard him telephone his wife not long after. ‘Find a sitter, we’re going out for dinner tonight, honey,’ he whispered louder than necessary.
By the time he’d finished his phonecall, Sylvie had left the office. Initially I thought nothing of her disappearance, until Jules stuck his head over the partition.
‘You know how you tell if someone got screwed on their bonus?’ he whispered.
‘No,’ I answered awkwardly. I’d been told that discussing bonuses was a firing offence.
‘They leave the office, like Sylvie just did,’ he said. ‘She’s not a happy camper.’
He was right. There were a flood of impromptu coffee runs on bonus day. They were thinly disguised excuses to call headhunters from somewhere private. The headhunters knew better than anyone who was getting shafted come bonus time. Who was leaving, who was looking. And, perhaps most importantly, what other firms were paying.
‘They’re sounding out their options. They can hardly do it from the office,’ said Jules.
Bonus time was peak season for headhunters. They didn’t have to go looking – business came to them. All they had to do was wait for their phones to ring.
‘Don’t worry,’ Jules whispered. ‘Sylvie won’t leave the firm. She has too much invested in it. Vincent was trying to teach her a lesson. He’ll make it up to her next year. And she knows that, too.’
Lucy was called in to meet with Vincent not long after. She stayed for a while. When she came out, she had the usual inscrutable expression on her face. It was impossible to tell whether she was happy or disappointed. Her dark eyes were expressionless behind the thick frames of her glasses.
‘Lucy did well,’ Sam messaged me. ‘I can tell.’
‘How do you know?’
‘There’s a skip in her step. Believe me, I can tell when a woman is satisfied.’
When I received a chat message from Vincent, I rose from my seat and walked self-consciously to the meeting room. My legs quivered. I tried to fight it. I reminded myself that I wasn’t intimidated by Vincent. He’d always been good to me. My nervousness was from the tension that had built up over the course of the day.
‘I haven’t been around much over the past months to help you settle in,’ Vincent said when we were both seated. ‘I hope that Sam and the others have made you feel welcome and helped you get up to speed.’
‘They have,’ I responded. ‘It’s been a great few months. I’ve really enjoyed it.’
‘I’ve certainly heard good things about your work, Sara. HR gave me a hard time about hiring you because you’re not from an Ivy, but I told them to trust my judgement. I’m very good at reading people. From what I’ve seen so far, you’ve more than proven my faith in you. You’re a quick study. I like that in my people.’
Vincent handed me an envelope with my name on it. I held it awkwardly. Not sure whether I was supposed to open it in front of him or wait until afterwards.
‘It’s ok,’ Vincent said. Amusement danced in his ice-blue eyes. ‘You can open it.’
I tore it open and read the letter. It thanked me for my work and told me that I would be getting a bonus of $26 000 that year. That far exceeded my expectations. I’d only worked at the firm for six months. I hadn’t expected anything close to that figure.
‘Thank you, Vincent.’ I was thrilled.
‘Don’t thank me,’ he answered. ‘It’s the firm’s money. You deserve it for all the work you’ve put in. We’ve had a lot of deals since you came aboard, and the team would have struggled if they didn’t have your help.’
‘I really appreciate your faith in me, Vincent. And your generosity.’
I didn’t know it at the time, but my bonus that year was pretty ordinary, even for a newbie analyst. By the time I’d become more experienced at the firm, I realised that Vincent had screwed me over. I cringe when I think about how pathetic I’d acted, all flustered and grateful. As if Vincent had done me a huge favour. I’d earned that bonus with long hours of hard work. Sam told me afterwards that I’d made a mistake by being so gushing in my thanks.
‘Managers always remember if you’re grateful. It tells them they can throw small change at you the next year and you’ll still be thankful,’ he told me during our next catch-up.
‘Men never act grateful, we always complain,’ said Sam. ‘It doesn’t matter how much we’re blown away by the amount, we always look disappointed. Like it’s a major financial blow. Like we’ve been screwed over royally. Women act grateful and that’s a fatal mistake.’
Men, he told me, were very adept at playing the heartstrings of their managers. In the run up to bonus season, they talked about their wives and kids. The cost of prep schools and Manhattan rent. They griped endlessly about how hard it was to make ends meet with the crazy property market. Needless to say, that usually netted them more money come bonus time.
Not that any of us really knew what the others earned. It was all smoke and mirrors; speculation and misinformation. It was drilled into us that nobody should discuss their bonus. The punishment was immediate dismissal.
Even though people tried to keep a tight lid on their bonuses, it was easy to tell who did well. Within days, they’d be on their phone to luxury car dealers, getting their name on waiting lists for the latest Porsches or MGs. Or talking to realtors about investment properties. Or buying boats they’d never have time to sail.
In a good bonus season, the Rolex store would have six months’ worth of back orders for the Daytona. The starting price for one of those was $18 000, rising to over $80 000 for the high-end versions. Even more for some of the rare vintage ones. There were guys who wore a different watch for each weekday. It was not unheard of for a guy to have a $100 000 in watches.
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br /> On the flip side were the employees whose bonus fell short. Maybe it was because their department hadn’t met its KPIs, maybe their boss hated them. They were usually the ones who handed in their notice a few weeks later and moved to a rival firm. Or otherwise spent the year tripping up their colleagues so they’d come out of it looking good for the next bonus season.
Bonuses were a cake-cutting exercise. Each manager was given a pool of money to divide up among their team members. If one person in the team received a large slice of the bonus pie, then someone else would have to receive a commensurately smaller slice. Usually it was the most junior person. Or the woman in the team.
In our team, it was me. Sylvie was way too smart to get seriously slammed on her salary. As for Lucy, she made so much money for the firm that I was sure that Vincent made sure to always give her a generous bonus.
Regardless, there was always enormous suspicion and resentment around bonus time. I once heard that in Finland, every individual’s income is published annually. Everyone can find out what their relatives, or friends, or next-door neighbour earned. Not to mention the colleague sitting two seats away. The department manager, the executives. There was full transparency.
I always figured that level of transparency would be dangerous at Stanhope. If we all knew the truth it would bring out our worst, most primitive instincts. We’d turn into feral animals. We’d consume each other.
When the code didn’t work, a wave of cold fear ran through them all. They’d followed the instructions in the last riddle to the letter. ‘Enter the third digit of each number and you shall be free.’ But they weren’t free. They were still locked in the sticky heat of the elevator with no idea what more they needed to do to get out.
They were paralysed by the uncertainty of it all. No matter how they looked at the situation, they should have been freed already. They weren’t sure whether they should wait it out, or take matters into their own hands and try to escape.
Jules’s chest tightened until he felt as if the claustrophobia was choking the life out of him. He seethed like a wild animal trapped in a cage. His desperation to get out was overwhelming every last semblance of self-control. He kicked the steel doors in frustration. Three blistering kicks that made the elevator jolt. Someone gasped. His violent loss of control made the others even more nervous.
They were crammed together in the dark. Whether they liked it or not, their fates were intertwined. It didn’t help that they could barely see anything without the help of their phones. Jules couldn’t take it much longer. He bounced restlessly on the tips of his toes like a boxer. His heart beat rapidly and his mouth filled with the sour taste of fear.
Sylvie’s rage was equally visceral. They could feel her anger in the way she clenched her fists and took in frequent sharp bursts of air as if preparing for battle. Vincent worried that the situation would combust if they didn’t get out soon. The revelations from the annual reviews and bonus letter would have been awkward at the best of times. In their current predicament, they’d turned the elevator into a powder keg.
It was unheard of for them to have such insight into one another’s remuneration. The firm didn’t need to make overt threats to warn staff off sharing their salary details. Nobody talked about their bonuses for the simple reason that the most valuable commodity around was information. One person’s advantage was another’s disadvantage. Even among close friends, bonus details were rarely discussed with any accuracy or honesty.
Sylvie was mortified to find out that the firm had been lowballing her for so long. She’d always believed that she was being treated equally. It wasn’t about the money, she had plenty of money. What cut the most was that the firm valued her less than her male colleagues, despite all she’d done. And she’d done plenty for Stanhope and Sons. Above and beyond anything her male colleagues had done. She’d always felt that she had to be twice as good as them to get even half the credit.
‘Is it a coincidence that the only woman among us got the smallest bonus?’ Sylvie broke the silence. Her voice was emotionless. The calm before the storm.
‘It’s got nothing to do with gender,’ muttered Jules unconvincingly.
‘Then what does it have to do with?’ asked Sylvie.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘The number and types of deals you handled.’
‘You don’t think I’ve been as productive as you?’ Sylvie spoke in a reasonable tone that masked her fury. She knew for a fact that she’d contributed way more than Jules, who’d spent most of the year in varying states of inebriation, ranging from mildly drunk to totally wasted.
‘I’m certain that’s not the case, Sylvie,’ said Sam, trying to sound conciliatory. He was thrilled with his bonus. It would tide him over nicely, provided Kim didn’t ramp up her spending in celebration. ‘It’s one of those things. There are always winners and losers. Honestly, it all evens out in the end.’
‘Are you serious?’ Sylvie was astonished. ‘The person who has been screwed the most is the only woman and all you can say is “it’s one of those things” and “it evens out in the end”?’
‘It has nothing to do with you being a woman,’ insisted Jules, sounding faintly exasperated. ‘It’s bad luck. We’ve all been there. I don’t know why you’re complaining. Most women would be thrilled to earn what you earn.’
‘Really? Really? Most women would be happy? Oh well, that’s alright then,’ she said, dramatically. ‘What a relief. You’re right, I should thank you all. I’m such a lucky girl.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Jules. His hands trembled slightly. He really needed a drink.
‘I’ve worked my ass off. For years,’ said Sylvie. They had to strain to hear her above the rattle of the heating vent. ‘The same hours as the rest of you. The same hard work. Do you have any idea how much money I’ve made for the firm? How many deals I’ve saved from disaster because I could see problems the rest of you didn’t know existed? Yet I’m worth less than you all.’
‘Sylvie, the deals you handled this year weren’t as lucrative as theirs,’ said Vincent. ‘It has nothing to do with the fact that you’re a woman.’
‘Maybe not.’ Sylvie shrugged. ‘After all, poor Jules is trailing far behind the two of you in the bonus department. Perhaps it’s just out-and-out favouritism.’
Sylvie knew that Jules felt left out by what he sometimes called Vincent and Sam’s ‘bromance’, including lunchtime racquetball he was never invited to join. Sylvie was happy to rub salt into Jules’s wounds. She needed an ally of sorts, even if it was one she couldn’t stand.
Sylvie’s words hung over the dark elevator long after she finished talking. Jules tried to block them out. It was unfair that Sam was getting paid more. Sam, who was hired in the same intake as him. Who worked on the same deals. And yet he had always been a step ahead of him because Vincent liked him better.
Sam was Vincent’s unofficial deputy, including attending leadership meetings on Vincent’s behalf when he was away. Jules was better qualified. He had a law degree, an MBA, and a family pedigree and connections that were way beyond Sam’s modest, lower-middle-class background. Jules was better at his job than Sam. He’d proven it many times over the years.
But Sam was good looking with his fair hair and his blindingly white smile that made him look like a model in a toothpaste commercial. He was fast at taking credit. Like a fucking bullet train.
‘Sylvie’s right!’ Jules exploded. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Why does Sam get paid so much more than me, Vincent?’
The heat and isolation were fraying tempers. Making them lose control. They weren’t thinking logically. Neither was he, Vincent realised. He should have torn up the bonus envelope the moment he found it. That information had unleashed a wave of jealousy and he wasn’t sure that he could contain it.
‘Vincent.’ The bitterness in Jules’s voice ripped through the darkness. ‘You told me a couple of years ago that I was earning in the highest band possible for my job grade. You le
d me to believe that I was getting the biggest bonus in the team.’
Vincent rubbed his temples. He hated having his words thrown back at him. He’d given his team plenty of platitudes over the years. He’d stretched the truth. Sometimes he’d told them outright lies. It was all well intentioned, to keep people motivated and prevent them from becoming disheartened.
‘I still remember what you said, Vincent,’ Jules went on. He parroted Vincent’s British-inflected Dutch accent: ‘I wish I could help you out more, but my hands are tied. Once someone reaches the top salary for their job, the only way to get more money is to be promoted.’
Jules stepped towards the grey silhouette that he knew was Vincent’s hulking frame. ‘If I’m in the highest salary band, how come Sam is earning more than me?’
No answer.
‘Come on, Vincent. Admit that you lied to me.’ Jules raised his voice. He sounded drunk with aggression.
Still no answer.
Jules’s kick was loud and vicious, shattering one of the mirrors on the wall. His next kick also came without warning. It hit Vincent in the solar plexus.
Vincent groaned as he fell to the ground. He was fully expecting Jules to follow up with another kick. And then another. But Sylvie was holding Jules back. Not by force but by gently rubbing her hands on his arms to soothe him.
Vincent rose to his feet. He resisted the urge to remove the Glock holstered in the back of his pants and use it to remind Jules who was in charge. Through the pain he knew it would be perceived as weakness. His stomach ached and he wanted to vomit, but he couldn’t allow himself the luxury. His survival depended on what he did next. His instincts took over. In a single motion he picked up a piece of shattered glass, grabbed Jules by the throat and pushed him violently into the wall.
They all heard the thump of Jules’s body hitting the wall. Vincent put the broken glass to Jules’s throat. Jules couldn’t swallow. He couldn’t move. Vincent cut the skin under Jules’s chin very slowly and deliberately. It was a superficial cut but Jules could feel the warm blood running down his neck.