by Leah Kay
Finishing the margarita, Isha heads upstairs to change and Liam puts the dinner together. By the time Isha comes down, he has arranged the meal on the back patio. A pitcher of margarita, two plates of chorizo tacos, chips and salsa sit on a square redwood patio table with chairs on three sides and a bench towards the wall. String lights hang from the trees and a chimenea is burning in one corner.
Her lips curve into a smile watching Liam fix the fire. She walks up behind him, wraps her arms around his waist and leans against him. He turns around, takes her into his arms, and kisses her forehead and both her cheeks and plants a tender yet firm kiss on her lips. The moment his lips touch hers, her mind is transported back to Nathan and she winces, barely finishing her kiss with Liam. She detests Nathan’s involuntary invasion of her mind.
Sitting across from each other, they enjoy their dinner on this crisp night. Usually, a chatty type who is capable of painting quite the picture with words, Isha struggles to start a conversation tonight. Every time she tries to share the details of the day with Liam, her thoughts drift back to Nathan and she ends up summarizing the harrowing details. Pegging her aloofness to a stressful day, Liam chooses to focus on the positives instead.
“What did you think of your new boss?”
Blood drains from Isha’s face as she shoves another meaty bite into her mouth, fighting for a minute to regain her composure.
“He seemed nice,” she says and goes back to her food. Reading her unusual discomfort like a flashing neon sign, Liam changes the topic.
Later in the night, she takes a quick shower before bed and slides next to Liam who is now fast asleep. She kisses her beautiful husband on his forehead and is struck by a strange sense of loss. Determined to find some answers, she lays awake googling entirely logical things on the internet. Dream interpretation; Dream Psychology; Psychosis; Psychosis treatment; Malibu rehab center; Celebrities who went to Rehab; the Real reason why Britney and Justin broke up. Once a montage of Liam singing Cry me a river with a look-alike of hers in the background comes together in her mind, she chooses to call it a night.
Isha is woken up by her alarm at six o’clock in the next morning. A wide array of thoughts keep her awake most of the night and her determination to sleep loses poorly to pure paranoia. Feeling two hundred pounds heavier in her head, she drags herself off the bed to get ready and jogs her way to the gym. After a short run through the neighborhood, she makes it to the Genex campus. She drops off her gym bag in the locker room and heads over to the kickboxing studio. She walks past a series of glass windows before reaching for the door. “Good morning, Isha,” Lisa welcomes her.
Lisa is a tall, wonderfully sculpted, tough-looking kickboxing instructor Isha and Claire have been going to since they started working at Genex. Isha walks over to the corner to pull down a free-standing punching bag and rolls it all the way to the left corner of the studio. She dons a pair of sterile gloves before wearing her boxing gloves. There are around eight other women, ranging from gym rats to wine aficionados warming up for the class. With five minutes until the start of class, Claire hasn’t shown up yet. Isha does a few stretches before the class begins. With her feet shoulder width apart, she lifts her arms above her head and leans forward to touch the ground. As she rolls her way back up, she glances at the studio door and in walks her paranoia trigger.
Dressed in a pair of dark grey shorts and a navy blue T-shirt, Nathan catches everyone’s attention. Several women in the class turn around to notice the new guy and shortly break into a mix of flirtatious glances and exaggerated body stretches. His workout clothes reveal toned arms and legs with sun kissed skin and trace his lean torso, all of which was modestly concealed behind his work attire up until now. The morning workout group has quite a cult-like mentality. Most of them consider themselves superior to the rest of the gym goers as they are disciplined enough to get up early and kick-start their day with a grueling workout. They tend to snicker amongst themselves when they see a newbie walk in and place wagers on how long they will last. However, they are beyond thrilled to roll out the red carpet for Nathan.
This is too early in the day for Isha to practice her poker face. She wants to roll her eyes and tell the other women to wipe the drool off their faces, but she chooses to be a grown-up instead and does the next best thing.
“Lisa, I left my water bottle in the locker room, I’ll be right back.” She exits the room without turning back.
In her panic-driven storm-out, she runs into Claire who is running a few minutes late to the class. “Hey, feeling uneasy for some reason. Take my spot, will you?”
“Are you sure? Maybe the class will make you feel better. Get those toxins out,” Claire says, trying to change her mind.
“Tomorrow, I promise! Kick butt for me.”
“You got it.” They fist bump and head out in opposite directions.
When Claire walks in and takes Isha’s spot, it gets to Nathan. He realizes it is presumptuous on his part to assume Isha walked out due to him; however, he can’t find a rational explanation for her behavior yet again. Watching a visibly frustrated Nathan, Claire lets out a soft chuckle, piecing her puzzle together.
What is this woman’s problem? Bob was fired, and I didn’t have anything to do with it. Even if I had, she has no right to blatantly ignore me. And why on earth does Ron think she is all that? He catches himself before going any further and realizes he is acting just as irrationally as she is. He is determined to test her acumen during their nine o’clock meeting while letting out his frustration on a punching bag for the next 45 minutes.
Isha steps into the locker room and unleashes her inner monologue. How stupid can you be? This insane dream versus reality play will ruin your career if you don’t watch it. You didn’t work this hard to act like a lunatic in front of your boss. No more storm-outs. If you do, you’ll lose your project. That does it. Her project means a lot to her and she would hate to have it taken away from her due to her ridiculous behavior.
With renewed determination, she gets ready for work. A small voice in her mind ponders why she was annoyed with those women checking him out earlier. She quickly chalks it up to the after effects of dream vs. reality syndrome and chooses not to dig any deeper. On her way to the elevator, she thinks about coming up with a nickname for her situation. Calling it a dream vs. reality thing is getting tedious.
Dream crap? Nah. Stranger danger? Perhaps. Crazy woman having a pre-midlife crisis? Sounds apt. Cosmic joke? Perfect. Feeling smug about her ability to nickname her crisis, she starts her computer and waters her plants.
“How’s that uneasy feeling now?” Claire leans on the wall crossing her arms.
With a sheepish smile Isha says, “I will be better. I promise.”
Shaking her head at her friend, Claire teases her. “It’s just a dream. Shake it off. Besides, he is way too gorgeous for you.”
“Get out.” Isha laughs as she storms her out of her cube.
With an hour to go before her dreaded meeting, she gets right down to business. For the past few months, this project has been her life. A lot of hard work went into designing this initiative and, if implemented right, it could result in tremendous savings across the Genex sites. She has poured over every detail of this project since day one and sincerely hopes to be part of the implementation team as well.
The Strategy and Development team is usually responsible for coming up with process improvement opportunities since they tend to have visibility across the network. Once approved by management, the Design Team hands over implementation to the respective sites. But in this case, Isha wants to monitor the health of the initiative closely so that she can course correct as needed and ensure these best practices are applied to all the sites within the network and avoid siloed mentality that certain legacy sites tend to routinely exhibit. The problem is she isn’t senior enough in the organization to be given a responsibility of that magnitude. Dee
p down, she knows she is up for the task but she needs someone to believe in her. A classic over achiever trait she inherited from her dad, Prakash Khanna, a self-made man who clawed his way to success through sheer grit and determination. He established a small accounting firm on his own at the age of 30 and grew it to substantial heights in the following decades. Her dad’s words ring in her ears; “Be a Doer, not a Dreamer. It tends to be less competitive.” Prakash’s tough love interspersed with Anjali’s nurturing affection characterize Isha at a molecular level and she constantly challenges herself to make them proud.
By nine o’clock, she feels well prepared and is determined to redeem herself. She walks over to Nathan’s office and is taken aback by the interior. She sees him on the phone and waits at the door. He motions her to come in and to take a seat while he wraps up his call. This office bears no resemblance to Bob’s. Gone are those bulky furniture pieces and in their place stands an automatic sit-stand workstation with a sleek swivel chair. No more scientific posters covering the windows, tons of natural light pouring in, and a cactus plant sits by the window. The sight of the cactus plant brings back memories of when she fell into a giant cactus plant in her mom’s garden while playing tag with her cousins. Ever since, she has hated cacti. As if turning my world upside down wasn’t enough, you have to like cacti as well.
Two simple chairs without armrests sit on the other side of the workstation, which is now in a stand position. A large frame with a picture of a pristine beach hangs on the wall. On his desk, in a small frame, is a picture of a sweet girl with her arms wrapped around him, grinning ear to ear towards the camera. Thanks to her shameless detective session with Claire, she recognizes immediately that it is his daughter. He looks blissfully happy with his daughter, which makes her wonder why there is no picture of his wife in his office.
Her thoughts get interrupted as Nathan wraps up his call and extends his hand to her. “Good to see you again, Isha.”
With a laptop in one hand and a notebook in the other, she fumbles for a bit, and in a panicked state she responds to his handshake with a nodding curtsy. Way to redeem yourself, moron.
Perplexed yet again by her behavior, he motions for her to sit down and, with a touch of the button, the standing desk lowers down to seated height. He takes a seat across from her and starts to grill her. “Let’s get to it. Walk me through your proposal.”
She spends the next 15 minutes giving him an overview of the project, key findings and important players, then pauses to see if he has any questions.
He was wrong. This nut job is actually bright, aside from the storm-outs and curtsies. Isha demonstrates a good understanding of the project and how it fits into the overall corporate strategy through her exceptional communication skills. When you have been in the industry for over 15 years, it doesn’t take too long to sniff out the phonies from the bright bunch. He is determined to test her, regardless.
“Isha, before we go into an implementation plan, why do you think I should invest in this project over several other strategic initiatives this group is working on?”
She doesn’t catch that he is testing her. “The beauty of this project is that it is proactive in nature. We have been spending significant resources over the years, trying to put out the fires, since we had no way of anticipating the next process risk. This project allows us to monitor key parameters of our processes in real time, which provides direct insight into the weakest part of the process as well as allowing us to install appropriate risk mitigation channels.”
I guess Ron may have been right, she is sharp. “What if we go through the implementation across the network and learn that tending to these issues reactively makes more economic sense than revamping the data analytics capability across the entire network?”
“That’s precisely why we plan to pilot it. Pick a few sites across the network, implement the process, learn from real examples and regroup on a routine basis to identify the value driven by this project. And if we need to, we pivot from an informed point of view.”
Not only does she have a good command over her project, but she also embodies a certain level of confidence, not usually seen from someone at her level.
“And what’s your strategy for picking these sites?”
“That has been the exciting part. We wanted a mix of legacy versus new sites to see how our process can adapt to the technology of different ages. At the same time, we took into consideration the commercial products being manufactured at these sites and ultimately built a model that highlighted the best ROI we can expect in the first year after successful implementation. Based on this, we chose Genex-San Diego, Genex-Lucerne, Switzerland and Genex-Cork, Ireland.”
“Let me see your assessments.”
She hands over a printout of the analysis she and Claire have been working on.
Excellent attention to detail. Comprehensive analysis. Great presentation skills. Good at articulating her point of view. Nathan doesn’t want to admit it yet, but he is sort of impressed. He worked with Bob previously and can quickly tell he had very little to do with this project. Bob has many strengths but taking risks isn’t one of them. He figures Ron may have been mentoring her as it shows in her work.
Isha can tell she hit it out of the park with Nathan. She is practically doing a celebratory dance in her head at this point but maintains a perfectly calm expression, waiting for him to complete a review of her assessments. Her inner monologue bursts out. Now this is what I mean by redeeming yourself. Come on, pretty boy, give me what you got. I can handle it. I can handle it all.
Before she can get carried away he says, “Isha, this is looking good. But before I can sign off on the sites, I want to make sure the team is on board with the proposal and would like to obtain any disconfirming information from them. Can you review this with your core team and call a meeting to finalize by the end of the business day tomorrow?”
“Happy to, Nathan. I will take care of those items right away.”
As she gets up to leave his office, he extends his hand yet again to congratulate her on the job well done. This time, to his surprise, she reciprocates with a firm handshake.
She is back! Tough, intelligent and utterly charming. Feeling self-assured, she exits his office with a spring in her step and makes her way back to her office.
Meanwhile, Nathan is quite impressed with Ms. Looney Tunes. First, she throws him for a loop with her weird behavior and now she muddies his judgment with her solid acumen. He was counting on her to be a phony who was getting by just from her looks. But her looks are causing an entirely different problem. He couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she looked sitting in front of him today, in a lilac dress that hugged her petite frame, with her soft hair dancing to the motions of her body as she talked passionately about her work. Her lively eyes trying to convince him of her dedication towards her project and a sweet jasmine scent that lingered, all of it is testing his masculine instincts. His soaring thoughts come crumbling down the moment he realizes she has also been ignoring him since he got here.
He is bothered by this realization mainly because he can’t comprehend the justification for her absurd behavior. As far as he knows, he has done nothing to deserve it. He stops himself before he begins obsessing over something that is entirely out of his control.
“Guess who totally redeemed herself?” Isha stops by Claire’s.
“You mean to say you finished your presentation without looking like a blithering idiot who runs away?” Claire mocks her recent actions.
“I killed it!”
“Good job, that’s the Isha I know.”
With a smug smile Isha takes a seat in her cube. “And by the way, he is not too gorgeous for me.”
Claire rolls her eyes, leaving them both in fits of laughter.
Isha’s goal is to put together a comprehensive implementation plan that indeed allows them to test the benefits of this proj
ect and course correct as needed before they move on to the rest of the network.
That involves convincing Mark that her plan has some merit. He is her loudest critic. The thing with Mark is that, irrespective of whether Isha’s plan is decent or not, he always has some contradicting information to present just to create a commotion. She realizes that if she wants her implementation plan to have a chance at success, she needs to convince him first. And that’s precisely what she does the rest of the afternoon.
After painfully long meetings, she manages to revise her plan with complete input from Mark, reviews it with rest of the team and adds finishing touches with the help of Claire. As requested by Nathan, she sets up a four o’clock meeting the following day with the team to finalize site selection and implementation strategy. She also sends him the final slides as a pre-read so that he has a chance to review the information before he meets with the team, a customary thing she did with all her managers but most came unprepared for meetings. She sincerely hopes Nathan is different. Having gone through the day without a panic attack, another quote of her dad’s comes to mind. “Whatever the problem, be part of the solution.” Feeling proud of herself for focusing on her career instead of an irrational dream, she packs up for the day.