Barbara continued, not even picking up the meaning of Mike’s response: “This act of pent up....lust....or whatever you want to call it, brought us together. We’re very lucky that the two of us actually wound up together instead of with other people. Because if we had, it might have damaged us even more.” She looked at him. “Do you know what I mean?”
Mike nodded. “Yes,” he said, staring at the ceiling, seeing Lisa’s prone form in his mind.
“Our loneliness, our yearning for physical companionship, brought two lonely people together to help each other deal with the pain.” She looked into his eyes. “That’s what if feels like to me.”
Mike felt his chest constricting. “It feels that way to me, too.”
“Can we just lie here and hold each other?”
“Yes.”
She snuggled against him and he shifted his position on the bed to accommodate her. She fitted into his embrace, and now the touch of their skin together, the feel of their bodies pressed together, felt like more than just a simple lustful fumble in the dark. There was a spark, a connection, that he couldn’t explain. It wasn’t the same as when he met Lisa originally. It wasn’t the same when he met his first girlfriend in high school and fell in love for the first time. Likewise, it didn’t resemble the few flings he’d had in college. What he felt with Barbara was different. A connection. Between two people. After physical companionship with no strings attached. But secretly crying for more.
Mike didn’t know what lay in the future for him and Barbara, but he did know what lay in the future for his life. Starting Monday, the overtime stopped. The blind dedication to his job stopped. They could fire him if they wanted to. He could get a job elsewhere for less demanding hours for halfway decent money. He wouldn’t be pulling in the six figures he was currently making, but he would have his life back. He’d saved enough money the past five years that he could afford the time off. He would have his dignity. But most of all he would have the thing he loved most in the world.
A chance to be there for Angie when she needed him. A chance to see her grow.
And a chance to spend as much time with Lisa as he could before she finally slipped away.
Because he knew that was inevitable.
Mike started crying now, the tears running down his cheeks silently. He wished he could tell Lisa how much he loved her and that she could hear him, but he knew she was never coming back. He wished she would simply drift away and die peacefully in her sleep, easing her pain. He wished things hadn’t turned out the way they had.
And Barbara turned to him in the dark and brushed the tears away and he told her what he was thinking. And she vowed that, she too, was making the same vow; if her husband decided to remain married to the job she wasn’t going to stop him. It would be the real test of their marriage. And as they talked through the night, planning how their lives were going to be so different come Monday morning, Mike told her one other thing he wanted to do besides devoting the time to raising his daughter and loving and caring for Lisa. He wanted to get to know Barbara and perhaps love her, too, if she would let him.
And she said yes.
In time, they joined together in the darkness, as two people who are alone and longing for love will often do.
Offices
RAMONA THOMAS KNEW it was going to happen and it did. The minute her boss Sylvia started exclaiming excitedly that they were all getting bonus checks—again—Ramona settled back in her seat and began a slow burn. Three months ago when bonuses were handed out, it was to upper-level management. Two months later all the exempt employees got them. Last month it was the same thing. Ramona had seen the letter that accompanied the bonus checks, and the slow burn turned into a sizzling pit of anger. As she heard Sylvia tromp down the office happily chortling that they were all getting yet another bonus, Ramona picked up her phone and dialed the extension of David Pearce over in desktop publishing. David answered on the first ring.
“Bonus time again,” Ramona said.
“Are you kidding?”
“Would I kid about something like that?” Ramona settled back in her chair, preparing to relax for the rest of the day. “Sylvia just got a call from Ingrid; she’s bringing the checks down here in about thirty minutes.”
“‘Jeez...”
“And you can bet we ain’t gettin’ jack!”
“Are you sure?” David was always hopeful that the hierarchy of Randolph Industries wasn’t screwing them over, but then Ramona had ten years of experience under her belt at the company. She knew how things were run here: those that did the brunt of the work were discredited, lied to, harassed, made to feel inferior, and didn’t get to share in the fruit of the company’s labors. David saw what had been transpiring during the past three months and yet he still held out hope that the hourly employees would be recognized for their contributions. The boy had a lot of learning ahead of him.
“You just watch,” Ramona said.
She was silent as Ingrid from Business Administration came down with a smile on her face and handed Sylvia the bonus checks, along with yet another letter of congratulations from Peter Grant, the company’s Vice President. Ramona had seen a copy of the letter last month when she’d trekked down to her friend Cathy Martinez’s cubicle to sulk about the unfairness of it all. Cathy was the only exempt employee who understood; she’d come up from the ranks of the lowly hourly employee and had worked hard for her new position. Cathy deserved the bonus, but then so did every employee who worked at Randolph Industries.
The checks were passed out. Ramona surfed the internet on her computer as Sylvia went back into her office to gloat over her bonus. It was almost three-thirty in the afternoon and Ramona had another forty-five minutes before she was officially off the clock. She’d be damned if she was doing more work today. After doing most of the work behind the project that had enabled the company to save as much money as they had and generate more business than they ever had since their existence, Ramona was even more pissed than most of the hourly employees.
But that was all coming to a head. She thought it was a nice coincidence that the corporate hierarchies chose to bestow the bonuses on a Friday afternoon. She was equally lucky they choose the Friday of their next happy-hour. Every four weeks or so, several of the hourly employees from Randolph Industries met at a neighborhood Mexican restaurant where they sipped Margaritas and munched on Nachos while they gossiped and unwound. Tonight was no different, although the topic of conversation was deservedly on the bonus controversy.
There were six of them grouped around a large table at the outside patio of Mijares Mexican Restaurant. The afternoon sun was setting, the warmth of the day fading with a low breeze coming in over the San Gabriel Mountains. Once drinks were served Ramona turned to Cathy. “Can I see a copy of that letter Pete wrote for the bonus?”
“Sure.” Cathy dug into her purse and handed it to Ramona, who read it silently. Amy Taylor, the secretary that worked with Ramona, read it over her shoulder.
“‘Thanks to your contributions we are proud to present this bonus for your hard work and loyal dedication to Randolph Industries’,” Ramona read aloud. “Who does he think we are? Chopped liver?”
Amy was still reading it and noticed something toward the bottom of the letter. “Look at this, Ramona.” She pointed to what caught her eye.
Ramona read it. “‘Randolph Industries believes that sharing in the company’s success with our most valued employees will help strengthen the bond between management and personnel, thus, creating a stronger sense of teamwork. If it weren’t for you, our hardworking employees, Randolph Industries wouldn’t be where it is today.’” Her voice rose. “So everybody but the hourly employees are the most valued ones? What a bunch of crap!”
David was sitting at the table, munching on Nachos and drinking a Corona. “That’s what it looks like.”
“That just isn’t fair,” Ramona said. She handed the letter back to Cathy, who wordlessly jammed it back into her purse. She t
urned to David. “You and I worked just as hard on that Quadra project that did so well for them.”
“Right.” David nodded.
“Hell, in my department the boneheads that are supposed to know all the programming sat around with their thumbs up their butts while I figured out the software language for them. Isn’t that what they’re supposed to be getting paid for?”
Amy and Cathy looked at each other and shrugged. “Guess so,” Amy said.
“The tone of this letter makes it seem like everybody except the hourly staff actually do anything,” Cathy said, putting in her two cents.
“It makes it appear like we’re worthless,” Amy said. She took a sip of her Margarita. “Like what we do doesn’t really matter. Like we’re expendable.”
Ramona was about to comment on that when David cut her off. “But that’s not true because if you think about it, all of the exempt staff is expendable, too.”
That made them all think and they dwelled on this for a minute. Ramona took a long sip of her Margarita and set the glass down. “You’re right,” she said. “When you really look at it, everybody at Randolph is expendable.”
“Of course,” David said. “Accountants, Administrators, Contract Specialists, even the executives. They can all be replaced like that.” He snapped his fingers to emphasize this. “When you look at the big picture, people with so-called white collar professional jobs are a dime a dozen. They can be replaced and exchanged easy. They’re not as special as they think they are.”
“Well, neither are we,” Amy quipped.
“True, but if management is going to reward employees for the work they’ve done that has helped in their success—namely the Quadra project—they should reward all the employees. Not just the exempt staff. When they do that it does make it appear that the exempt staff is more...how should I say it? More favored than the rest of us.”
The topic centered on this for awhile and later drifted on to other subjects. Ramona’s anger faded for a moment, replaced by the euphoria of the drinks and conversation, but as they were leaving the restaurant a few hours later the subject came up again. “You know, this is the third time this has happened this year,” she said, talking to Amy and David. “And upper management really hasn’t heard anything from us on how we feel about it. Maybe it’s time they did.”
“What do you want to do?” Amy asked.
“Write a letter,” Ramona said.
“Nothing nasty now,” David said, waggling his finger at Ramona.
Ramona grinned. “Nothing nasty, but I do want to let them know how we feel about this. But I can’t do it unless I have your support.” She looked at Amy and David, who voiced their approval. “I’ll e-mail the rest of the hourly staff and see how they feel before I do it.”
The following Monday proved to be a slow day, and the idea of writing a strong, concise letter to management expressing her displeasure at the hourly staff’s exclusion of bonuses was still on her mind. She outlined her plan in an e-mail, which she fired off to the twenty or so hourly employees that were all under the Support Services Staff umbrella. Support Services Staff employees were largely comprised of secretaries, but also included Administrative Clerks, Administrative Assistants, Word Processors, Desktop Publishers, and all-around computer gurus like Ramona. Their main function was to provide services for the departments they worked in. While many hourly employees got to work on some challenging projects—many of them being very instrumental in the way the company was run and contributing to its overall success—rarely were they given a chance to share in the fruits of company’s labors or acknowledged for their contributions.
By the end of the afternoon Ramona had received replies from everybody in Support Services and the overwhelming response was one of support. Before she left that day she drafted a letter to the Vice President of the company, Peter Grant, who had written the original memo that accompanied the bonus checks for the exempt employees. Since the checks and the memo came from him, she figured her letter should go to him also.
The next day she completed the final draft of the memo and sent a copy to David for his approval. He fired back an e-mail thirty minutes later. Great job! You managed to convey your feelings well without sounding angry, which would have just made management even more angry. Let’s hope it works!
I doubt it will, Ramona thought, as she printed the letter out. Since she hadn’t signed her name to it — merely noting that it was from Support Services Staff—she placed the letter in an inter-office envelope and put it in the OUT basket.
A few days later a memo was circulated to all the Support Services Staff from Peter Grant.
Dear Support Services Staff,
Thank you for your memo. Upper management had considered including hourly employees in the sharing of bonuses, and we have heard your position on this manner. The consensus is that since hourly employees already receive benefits that exempt employees don’t share in—namely being able to work overtime for additional compensation—we feel this excludes them from receiving bonuses.
Please be aware that management does appreciate your dedication and hard work. In the end, what matters most is that your work does matter, and that you do contribute to the overall picture of the success of Randolph Industries.
Sincerely,
Peter J. Grant, MBA
Business Administrator
Did he suddenly forget that upper management had already prohibited overtime compensation for hourly employees? Ramona read the memo three times, and each time she read it the message became clearer. No matter how hard you work you will not be compensated or acknowledged for what you do.
Ten minutes after Ramona read the memo, the first e-mail arrived. It was from David. Well, looks like upper management is pretty much of the opinion that we’re mere serfs. Guess we don’t exist in their eyes. More e-mails arrived in Ramona’s mailbox echoing similar sentiments. By the end of the day the consensus among the hourly employees was unanimous: if they were looked down on by upper management as being peons, why continue to contribute their talent, their labor, their ideals, to a company that could care less about recognizing it?
Ramona and David came up with the strike plan at the end of the day. They sent their plan out to all of Support Services Staff, and were met by a unanimous agreement. Since Randolph Industries was a non-union company, they couldn’t go on strike per se. But they could strike in their own way. And the way Ramona and David outlined their plan in the e-mail was simple. Starting at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday morning, two days from now, everybody in Support Services staff was to stop working. Secretaries were to stop answering the phones, word processors were to stop typing memos, desktop publishers were to cease page layouts for software manuals. They were all to stop working and just sit idly at their desks. They were to do this for thirty minutes. That was the time Ramona and David figured it would take for the well-oiled machine that was Randolph Industries to grind to a screeching halt. Once their point was made they were to resume work as if nothing ever happened. If a boss or supervisor questioned them as to what they were doing, they were to tell them the truth: that they were doing this to send a message, to tell upper management they needed Support Services Staff more than Support Services Staff needed them. Hopefully that would send the message to the upper echelons of management that all the employees of Randolph Industries—not just the exempt ones—were to be valued.
Of course there were problems with the plan. People could be fired over this little stunt. But the consensus among the Support Services Staff was that they’d had enough of upper management’s elitist bullshit. If they were fired, so be it: they would simply get another job elsewhere, hopefully where the pay was better. In fact, it was the initial planning of the strike that kick-started those who’d become disillusioned with their jobs to agree to be a part of the strike: being fired would be a blessing because they could then qualify for unemployment payments while they were seeking work.
On Thursday Ramona looked at her cloc
k. It was nine in the morning. She stopped typing into her computer and sat back in her chair. Over the wall of her cubical she could hear the manual typewriter cease to clack; that would be Amy Taylor, the department secretary. Ramona sat in her chair, the beginning of a smile etched on her face as she imagined all of Support Services stopping their work throughout the company. A moment later the first crisis began.
The department phones began to ring.
They rang shrilly and Amy just sat there. The exempt employees were in their cubicles, performing whatever tasks they got paid for. Sylvia was working on a Power Point presentation and looked out the door at Amy as the phones rang. “Amy, why aren’t you answering the phones?”
Amy smiled and said nothing.
Ramona tried to stifle a grin and found it hard. Already she could hear phones ringing from other departments, all of them going unanswered. Their own department phone kept ringing, finally bringing Sylvia out of her office. “Why isn’t anybody answering the phone? What’s going on?”
“The phone is always for you,” Amy said, sitting jovially in her seat. “Why can’t you answer it?”
Sylvia stood there for a moment, looking stunned, then headed toward the phone. She picked it up, obviously irritated. “Development Engineering.” It was for her. She began taking down the instructions she’d been waiting for.
A moment later one of the Engineers came by Ramona’s cube. “Do you think you can help me with that Map Graph, Ramona?”
“I don’t think so,” Ramona said, not doing anything.
“Why not?”
“I believe you’re getting paid big bucks for being a tech, so why should I have to help you do your job?”
The Engineer looked at her, flabbergasted. Sylvia finished with her conversation and was about to say something to Amy when the phone rang again. She picked it up automatically.
When the Darkness Falls Page 20