Authors: Debra Doxer
“Oh,” Bryn replies, looking
dejected.
“Maybe the weekend after?” I
suggest.
“Sure.” Her expression brightens.
This could get complicated.
It would never occur to me that
work assignments are optional. When I’m given tasks, I do them. I don’t think I
could actually say no. That’s why when I get back to my desk and see an email
from Christopher, the new Napa member of the wireless team, informing me that
he cannot do the assignment I’ve given him because he’s currently working on
something else, I blink at it, not sure I’ve read it right. Then I reread it
and realize I have. We are all working on other things. That doesn’t exempt us
from receiving more work. Who does this guy think he is?
I fume for a while, unsure of what
to do. Then I compose a terse reply, read it over and decide not to send it.
Next, I look up his telephone number and call him. He picks up after the second
ring, unaware that his new project leader is on the other end. I know that our
caller ID only reads BTS Systems, not the name of the person calling.
“Hi Christopher. This is Andrea
Whitman,” I say in a cheerful manner.
“Oh, hi.” He seems surprised to be
hearing from me.
“How are you today?”
“Um, fine. Thanks.”
“I wanted to call you and introduce
myself. It’s kind of difficult working with new people that you’ve never met or
spoken to, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“I just got your email.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I think there’s been some
misunderstanding.”
Silence from his end.
“You see, we
all
have
multiple assignments. It would be great to be able to work in a linear way. I
would love it if I could finish one project before I started on the next one,
but that’s just not practical. There’s too much work to do. So, we all have to
make the best of it and do the work we’re assigned. You can understand that,
right?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Thanks. That’s great. If the
deadline approaches and you’re behind on the work I sent you, let me know in
plenty of time. And feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Okay?”
“Uh, okay.”
“Nice talking to you Christopher.
Good-bye.”
“Bye.”
I hang up the telephone and turn to
see Nate eyeing me. “What was that about?”
“Nothing,” I reply, shaking my
head. Christopher’s voice had a dull monotone quality to it. I’m picturing a
turtle now, and I know I will every time I think of Christopher. Now that we’ve
had a brief conversation, will he quietly work on his assignment from me like a
good employee? Somehow, I doubt it.
Just as I’m turning back to my
laptop, Ken comes down the hall and stops outside my cube. “Hi Andrea.”
Even though he sits one aisle over,
I hardly ever see Ken. He’s originally from somewhere in the south. He talks
very slowly and with a slight accent.
“You know I don’t travel,” he
states.
“You don’t travel?”
He shakes his head. “Rob never
assigns me customers that require on-site visits.”
I eye him incredulously. “You’re
completely exempt from all travel?”
“That’s right. You can ask Rob if
you like.”
He’s refusing his assignment, too?
I already do not like this new position.
“Fine,” I reply, knowing I sound
annoyed and not caring. I can feel the tension building in my shoulders. “I’ll
rethink your customer list.”
“Thanks,” he says and then quickly
disappears.
If this is how other people operate
around here, why aren’t I the president of the company by now? I look over
Ken’s customer list and realize that in order to reorganize his assignments
I’ll have to move other people’s assignments around, too.
I turn to Nate, easily getting his
attention. “Would you mind…”
“I’ll do it.” He volunteers immediately.
“You don’t even know what I’m
asking you yet.”
“Yes, I do. You want me to exchange
some customers with Ken and do his traveling for him.”
“Well, actually, yes. Not
necessarily all of that though. That wouldn’t be fair.”
“It’s completely fine. I’ve got to get
out of the house. The baby never sleeps. She cries all night long. I can’t take
it anymore.”
I find myself laughing at him.
“It’s not funny. You try not
sleeping for weeks and see how funny you think it is.”
“I’m sorry Nate,” I reply, laughing
harder now.
“Where are his customers anyway?”
“Colorado and Arizona.”
“Sounds good to me.”
I shake my head at him. “You’re
fine with leaving your wife all alone to deal with the baby?”
“Hey, I have to feed my family. If
earning my paycheck means there’s some business travel involved, so be it.”
“Fine. I don’t like being a party
to this, but you could be out of town for nearly a month if you plan it right.”
“Great. Thanks.” He rubs his hands
together in evil scientist style and turns back to his work, humming a cheerful
tune.
It has been weeks since my fateful
date with Ryan, but a smidgen of hope still bubbles to the surface every time I
see the message symbol appear on my cell phone. Of course, he hasn’t called.
Why would he? Now, I also find myself logging into my personal email account on
and off, looking for a message from Karthik. What could he possibly want to
email me about? Why couldn’t he have spoken to me about it when he saw me? I
was only with Bryn, and she certainly isn’t involved in any BTS business. There
was no reason for him to feel hesitant about talking to me in her presence. Of
course, no email from Karthik has materialized, causing my nerves to fray a
bit.
What does arrive is a voicemail
from David Rose. His familiar high-pitched tone is asking me if I want to do
something on Friday night. Not Saturday night. For some reason, he feels the
need to clarify that in the message. Why would he specifically say that he
isn’t asking me out for Saturday night? Maybe he wants me to think that he’s
such a popular guy he’s already booked his Saturday night. So far, I am neutral
to not interested where David is concerned. This is exactly the type of
situation for which the three date rule was created.
My first week as project lead
passes in a haze of frenzied work, trying to get the sales collateral done and
becoming frustrated with the amount of coddling that is needed to ensure that
my team members get their work done. At my previous job I had one marketing
writer, Chloe, working under me. She was not someone I had hired myself, nor
was she someone I would ever have hired. I managed her work, similar to my new
project lead position here, but I was not her actual manager, so I did not deal
with human resources issues where she was concerned. But it was my experience
with her that gave rise to my suspicion that I am not cut out for management.
Her attitude was terrible. She frustrated the hell out of me, and I actually
came to hate her by the time I left. She did not take her work seriously. She talked
endlessly about her boyfriend who was either the best or the worst, depending
on the day. She always strolled into the office just after nine and was out the
door like a shot the minute five o’clock rolled around. Because I had no actual
authority over her, I could do nothing when her work was turned in late or
shoddily done.
The tipping point for me came the
day she ambled over to my desk and told me that she’d found a spelling error in
the text I’d written for a product brochure. She seemed very pleased with
herself, too.
“What’s the error?” I asked.
“Onus,” she said, pronouncing it as
awnus
, turning a printout of the page toward me and pointing to the
word.
“What about it?” I asked, perplexed
now.
“It’s a mistake, right? You must
have meant
only
or something.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “Do
you think
only
makes sense in that sentence?”
She turned the paper back toward
herself. “I don’t know. I guess not.”
“Chloe, the onus is on you to look
up words that you don’t understand.” I sat back, pleased with my sentence.
She appeared confused for a moment.
Then she scowled at me. “Is that your way of telling me that onus is actually a
word?”
I nodded.
She pursed her lips together as her
expression soured. “And you’re an anus.” I heard her mumble as she turned and
stalked away.
I left the company soon after that.
Not because of Chloe, but because I simply wanted to be an individual
contributor without any management responsibilities. I wasn’t interested in the
hassle. But that was over three years ago. I still like being an individual
contributor, but I don’t want my career to stagnate. So I accepted the project
lead position without much thought of Chloe and my past experience as a
manager, until this week. Chloe has been on my mind quite a bit as I continue
to receive emails from my team members concerning their inability to either get
information from engineering, contact the customer in question, or meet the
imposed deadlines. Nate is the only person keeping his head down and getting
his work done alongside me. I feel more like a babysitter than anything else.
Don’t these people have their own resources? Am I supposed to hold their hands?
I do the best I can with each fire
as it arises, but my own work time has completely disappeared. Completing my
assignments requires extra hours every day. I even find myself doing the work
of some of the others because it’s just easier than chasing after them to do
it. How has Rob handled these people in the past? Are they taking advantage of
me, or do they behave this way with him? The next time I run into him, I’ll
have to ask.
In a fairly immature move, rather
than call David back, I get his email address from Laura and I contact him that
way. When he receives my email, he replies right away, seemingly happy with
this form of communication, as well. We spend the latter part of the week
exchanging emails, making our plans for Friday night. Per his suggestion, we
decide on a movie. I don’t know if he’s trying to impress me, but he suggests a
French film playing at a small independent theater downtown. I haven’t heard of
the film and I don’t prefer to read my movies, but I don’t want to shoot down
his plans either. So, I easily agree. He also suggests a late dinner afterwards
at a place a friend has recommended to him. He has thought the evening out
carefully, and I can’t help but be flattered and impressed by that. Then, the
last email he sends on Thursday, ironing out the time, changes my mind.
He intends to take the train into
the city and wants to meet me at the theater. He is not going to pick me up. I
recalled him telling me that he preferred not to drive when possible, but this
is supposed to be a date. I call Laura to gripe about it.
“Well, he really doesn’t know his
away around Boston very well.” She reasons, obviously disapproving, but not
wanting to berate the guy she has hand chosen for me. “You could take the T,
too. It’s a short walk from your house. Or you could park at the T stop.”
“That stop doesn’t have any parking.
I won’t be back until after midnight. I don’t want to walk half a mile home by
myself at that time of night.”
“No, you shouldn’t do that.” She
agrees. “Well, I guess you’ll have to drive into the city and pay for parking.
It’s not that big a deal. I’m sure once he gets his bearings, he’ll drive
more.”
“We’ve lived here all our lives and
we still don’t have our bearings. You just say a prayer and hope the road you
took last time is still there. That’s how it works around here.”
The Big Dig, the biggest public
works program of its kind when it was taking place, has spent over a decade
routing and rerouting the roads of Boston to supposedly make driving through
the city easier and to accommodate the growing volume of traffic. Boston, a
city whose roads were an unplanned system of paved-over cow paths, has always
been a hard place to navigate by car, but at least we natives knew where we
were going. Now, no one does.
“Just make the best of it, Andy.
Try to have fun.”
“If you hadn’t fixed me up with
David, would you be so judicial about this development?”
“I think so,” she says. “We’re just
too judgmental in general when it comes to this stuff.”
“So the guy shouldn’t always pay?”
I ask.
“No,” she replies quickly. “You
know what I mean. Just go out on Friday and have a good time. Don’t over think
things. Okay?”
“Okay.” I hang up and glance at my
schedule for Friday. In order to get home in time to change my clothes and feed
Tiger and then drive into the city for a seven-thirty movie, I’m going to have
to leave the office fairly early, and I can hardly afford to this week.
I’m a tense, disgruntled mess when
I finally pull into a parking garage around the corner from the theater.
Escaping the office had been nearly impossible with both Anand and Ken emailing
me constantly from their desks ten feet away. Finally, I got up and walked over
to them. Their surprise at seeing me standing there was amusing, but the
in-person visit hadn’t really helped.
When I got home I threw some food
in Tiger’s bowl, threw on a long skirt with boots, kept my black sweater
on, touched up my makeup, fixed my hair as best I could, and flew back out the
door again. The upside to this is that I was so rushed, I didn’t have time to
feel nervous.
David is waiting for me outside the
theater entrance when I arrive. The days are getting shorter, and it’s already
dusk as the yellow and red neon theater lights provide a bright contrast to the
muted purple horizon behind them. He smiles when he spots me and hugs me
hello. Again, I notice his slightness and the fact that we’re just about the
same height. He has on cologne that tickles my nose with its musky fragrance.