The Corporation

CHAPTER THREE

THE MUSIC AT the Lone Star Saloon near the El Paso Airport was loud and Michelle wasn’t paying attention to the conversation going on at her table. She looked around for the waitress, hoping to catch her attention. She was two tables over, flirting with a pair of guys who looked like they were in college. Michelle sighed and turned back to the table, trying to feign some semblance of interest in the conversation but finding it hard to do. Here it was, nine-thirty p.m. and her co-workers were still talking about work.

“If Goodman wasn’t such a goddamn bastard we could get moving on this credit issue and—”

“—I told her the price increase will reflect that in the table. What you have to do is run the Stock Transaction file and—”

“—four hundred thousand dollars in missing inventory? I mean, how can you have that much missing at your main plant?”

Michelle took a sip of her drink, listening to the Trace Adkins song playing over the sound system. It was April 30, almost four weeks since she’d started her job at Corporate Financial Consultants and those four weeks had been good. They had gone by in a whirlwind. The first week had been nerve-wracking and exciting at the same time; meeting her co-workers, settling into her cubicle, attending company orientation, sitting in on strategy meetings on the latest projects, learning the layout of the building, getting used to the daily commute. It was exciting and thrilling and she loved every minute of it.

Within three days she was knee-deep in her first project; assisting a Data Base Administrator in rewriting some SQL code for a data warehouse. She did most of the work at the office, only stopping in at the client’s office in Adamstown twice to do some manual tweaks on their server. She spent another two weeks working on the layout and design of a technical manual, and she sat in on some meetings for this latest project, which she learned would take her to El Paso, Texas, where she’d be the main architect for the project—design, plan, write, and develop an online and printed technical document for a powerful Human Resources software system. Sam Greenberg presented the project to her a little over a week ago late one afternoon, visiting her in her cubical. “You think you’re up for your first jaunt outside the state?”

“Absolutely!” she’d said.

The work thus far had been pleasing; the paychecks even better. She was getting acclimated quite well, was getting home by five-thirty, five forty-five at the latest, and that was enough time to prepare a light meal. Sometimes Donald beat her home and he prepared dinner. She’d splurged on her first pay check and treated them to a nice restaurant in town and a play at the Fulton Opera House. She’d gone out the following day—Saturday—and gone shopping at the Park City Mall, buying a few new outfits and some new shoes. Then she’d had her car washed and detailed. It felt good to have some money left over after the bills were paid. She was going to look forward to this new job. The SQL stuff she could do without, but she was learning a good overview of Corporate Financial Consultants and the clients they dealt with. And the clients they had on their roster were impressive indeed.

One afternoon Sam Greenberg took her on a tour of the data center in the building. “We keep all our client information on a rack of servers located at our Corporate Headquarters in California,” he said. “These servers,” he indicated a row of racks where IBM Servers resided, “hold local data and run local jobs. Our IT guys work closely with the Corporate IT Team in California. This is not only a climate controlled room, but this section of the building is built to withstand severe weather and earthquakes. There’s a backup generator that is switched on the minute power on the main switch is lost. Last summer, this particular grid lost power due to a lightning strike but we didn’t miss a beat. The generator did its thing and we kept right on ticking.”

That afternoon Michelle learned that nearly every major corporation in the U.S. had, at one time or another, done business with Corporate Financial Consultants. “Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Universal, Time-Warner, Bertelsmann, Citibank, Kroger’s, Home Depot, Sears… all of them had been clients at one time or another and some are still clients.” Sam nodded at one of the Systems Admin Techs monitoring the servers as they walked by. “Anything new for those clients gets handled out of our Manhattan office now. California handles Administration and they keep all the master records. We’re strictly second tier businesses—manufacturers, mid-sized retail chains, software companies, healthcare companies.”

“Healthcare?” Michelle had asked, thinking about Red Rose and all the trouble Donald had been having with them. The night before, Donald told her that even Dr. Schellenger’s expertise had been unable to sway the suits at Red Rose to approve payment for the surgery for Donald’s testicular cancer patient. Donald was advising the young man to go ahead with the surgery anyway; the patient was stuck between a rock and a hard place financially, and was currently thinking about it.

“Blue Cross, Kaiser, Aetna, Red Rose,” Sam rattled off as they exited the Data Center. “Pretty much all the major HMOs and PPOs in the area. Well, Kaiser isn’t here; they’re in Baltimore, but they’re close enough. Their California division deals with our Los Angeles office, so it’s only natural for them to work with us out here.”

“Of course,” Michelle had said.

There was so much to learn, both as far as the company history and what they did as a firm—as well as her duties—that the days flashed by so quickly that before she knew it, the trip to El Paso was upon her and she found herself kissing Donald one Sunday afternoon after having packed her luggage and her laptop. “I’ll be back Friday afternoon,” she told him. “Be good.”

“Knock ’em dead, kid!” Donald said, returning her kiss.

She’d flown to the El Paso Airport, rented a car, and drove to the Hampton Inn near the airport where Sam had made reservations for her. The next morning she’d driven to the client, a manufacturer of metal roofing and accessories on Mesa Street. She’d come prepared for the trip and sat in the company boardroom listening to input from the corporate bigwigs on what they wanted their documentation to convey. She’d spent the rest of the afternoon talking with the IT techs and accepted an early evening dinner and drinks with some of the other members of the team.

And now she was bored.

The table she was seated at numbered half a dozen. Sitting at her left was a web developer who worked for Building Products, a rail thin dark-haired guy named Jay O’Rourke, who seemed to have cigarettes growing out of his fingers and between his lips; every time he finished smoking one, another magically took its place. He was leaning back in his seat, a cup of black coffee in front of him, looking as bored as she felt. Michelle caught his eyes and offered a smile. “You look bored.”

“No shit? Ya think?”

Michelle’s grin widened. Jay had sat in on the latter part of their meeting today and she found him extremely likable; he was witty, brutally honest, and had a biting sense of humor. She also got the impression he was one of the few people at that meeting—and here at the Lone Star—who knew what the hell he was doing with his job. “I’ve been bored the past twenty minutes. You’d think they’d talk about something else besides work.”

“These guys? Hell no. It’s all they talk about because it’s all they do.” Jay’s voice rose a tad and the inflection indicated he was deliberately trying to provoke some kind of response from the others at their table. “If these losers had any kind of a life, they wouldn’t need to talk about the same boring shit all the time. Sometimes I wonder why I even agreed to tag along with these morons.”

Michelle laughed and the guy sitting to Jay’s left, Alan Perkins, another Corporate Financial Consultant from the Manhattan office, heard him and grinned. He nudged Jay playfully. “What’s up, Jay? Are we boring you already?”

“Hell yes, you’re boring the shit out of me! Can’t you talk about anything else besides Building Products and this clusterfuck project? Jesus Christ in a chicken basket!”

One of the employees from Building Products heard Jay’s comment and turned toward them. Michelle thought she caught the faint sense of disapproval on her face. “Must you go through another one of your worthless rants again, Jay? I mean… really!”

“I suppose I don’t really have to,” Jay began, “but the more I sit here listening to the conversation, the more it’s pissing me off. You’d think that when a group of co-workers gets together to hang out after work and shoot the shit, they’d find other topics of discussion besides their jobs. You know, the weather, the latest movies and cultural events, what’s going on in the world outside of work, maybe even idle chatter about families and kids. Not you guys. You guys are abnormal.”

Another Building Products employee, the team leader, said, “Guess that just means we’re more dedicated than you, Jay.”

“More dedicated my ass! You guys need me more than I need you! I wrote that ASP code for the website in my sleep. I also know when to walk away from this shit and live life. Something you guys have a problem doing.”

“You didn’t have to come, Jay,” the first Building Products employee said. Michelle thought her name was Barb. Barb was dressed tastefully in a blue business suit and had impeccable fingernails. She was nursing a glass of whiskey. To Michelle, she looked like a disapproving teacher or parent. “Sometimes I don’t know why you come to these things.”

“Well, let’s see, I wanted to talk to Paul about the project he was working on and I wanted to hear about his daughter Amy,” Jay said. “You remember what happened to Amy, don’t you Barb?”

Barb’s forehead grew creases. “Wasn’t she in an accident?”

“Yeah. She was hit by a car two weeks ago. Paul’s been out of his mind every day since and has missed over a week of work, and all he gets is a bunch of shit from those numb-brained managers about missing work because of it. What kind of shit is that?”

“Isn’t Paul in Sales?” Barb asked.

“That’s him,” Jay said.

“Well, I’m sure Jim has very good reasons for leaning on him about missing work,” Barb said. Whatever everybody else was talking about at their table was forgotten and became focused on Jay and Barb. “I mean, I sympathize with what he’s going through, but he should be thankful his daughter’s alive.”

Jay was looking at Barb as if she were from another planet and Michelle felt her admiration for him leap into the stratosphere. It was rare to meet a man who worked a white-collar job who held such unapologetic views about taking time away from the duties of work to tend to the needs of his family. Of course, Donald was very much like Jay in this respect, but then Donald was a doctor. Different ballgame, different mindset. “Man, you don’t get it, do you?”

“What’s there to get? His daughter was hit by a car, it was a terrible thing, she lived, that’s that! He should be thankful things weren’t worse. That’s all I’m saying.”

Jay took a deep drag on his cigarette and leaned forward, his lanky frame hunched over the table. He was dressed in a pair of black khaki’s, a blue long-sleeved shirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows exposing his tattooed forearms. “So if it was your son you’re telling me you wouldn’t be home with him right now; you’d rather be here wasting time with us idiots?”

Scattered laughter around the table. Barb managed a slight smile at the jab. “I suppose I would. Does that bother you?”

“Does it bother you?”

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Why should it?”

“Is your job more important than your son?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“What do you mean, what kind of question is that? It’s a very simple question. Is your job more important than your son?”

“That’s asinine.”

“Asinine,” Jay said, his voice a mocking snort of dismay. He dragged on the butt of his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray. “That’s right. It’s asinine to be more concerned for your kid than your day-job, but what the fuck do I know, right? I’m just the grunt that maintains the website and fixes the shit whenever some hacker releases a new Trojan on the internet.”

“Jay, I think you’re making a big deal out of this.” This comment came from Harold Tyler, one of the men who was in the meeting and who’d tagged along to Lone Star. He was at the far end of the table. Michelle didn’t know what his working relationship on the chain of command at Building Products was, but Michelle got the impression he had some kind of seniority over Jay. “Besides, Paul isn’t here anymore.”

Michelle was thinking this, too; she’d met Paul briefly when they first entered the Lone Star and hadn’t paid much attention to him as she tried to get involved with the conversation of her Corporate Financial Consultant colleague Alan, and the rest of the Building Products team. Jay and Paul had sat on their end of the table and talked and Michelle hadn’t really paid much attention to them until she happened to notice Jay was now alone. Paul had left, and Jay was nursing a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette. Everybody else was nursing beers, except for Barb, who had been drinking bourbon on the rocks since their arrival. A few of them were getting tipsy, and Jay was watching them with what appeared to be a faint sense of scorn. It was then that she’d taken a step back and began listening to the conversations around her; they were talking about work and the project, and it had been their sole source of conversation for the past hour and a half.

“Yeah,” Jay said. “I guess I should have left when he took off.”

Barb gave Jay a look again, one that seemed to say I got the best of you, then turned to the rest of the party. Alan and Harold and the others slipped back into their conversation and once again the topic was work. They slipped into it so seamlessly that it was as if they hadn’t stopped the conversation—they just picked right up where they left off. Michelle was a little taken aback. I guess they were really itching to get back into whatever it was they were talking about. She picked up her glass, which was a quarter filled with beer, and took a sip.

She met Jay’s gaze over her glass and shrugged. “Well, just for the record, I’m still bored,” she said. Jay laughed.

“So is Paul’s daughter okay?” Michelle asked. She scooted her position so she was a little closer to him. Jay appeared momentarily surprised by her question but recovered. He began filling Michelle in. Yes, Paul’s daughter was fine, although she suffered a mild concussion, a broken arm, and a compound fracture in her left lower leg. She was still in the hospital but was going to be fine. Michelle said, “Well, I’d be out of my mind if it were my kid.”

“So is your job more important than your kid? Or should that be plural?” Jay asked. He lit another cigarette.

“It isn’t plural, and I don’t have children.” The little painful memory flashed briefly as it always did whenever anybody asked if she had children, and was quickly gone. “But if I did, my child would be more important than my job. What about you? You have kids”

“I have a son. He’s a year old. And it’s really nice to hear you’re not like the rest of these dolts.” Jay leaned back, fresh cigarette in hand. “You’re a breath of fresh air. And from Corporate Financial—you must be new.”

Michelle blinked, not sure what Jay meant by that remark. “Well, I am new. I just started with Corporate Financial a few weeks ago.”

“Really? Do you like them?”

“So far so good.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.” Michelle took a sip of her beer. “Why do you ask?”

Jay shrugged, took a drag on his cigarette. “I always wondered what it was like to work for them. I hear the perks are pretty good.”

“They’re the best I’ve had so far.”

Jay appeared to think about this for a moment as he smoked. Everybody else at their table was still talking about the project, which Michelle had no interest in now. She shared Jay’s opinion regarding after-work discussion with co-workers. She’d worked jobs in the past where she went out with co-workers to a bar or restaurant after work to unwind and hang out and their jobs rarely came up in discussion. When it did, it was to complain about them. There were a few times members of management came to these after work drink-fests, and occasionally they would talk shop, but even they, too, eventually found other topics of discussion more varied than the office. Michelle commented on this to Jay, leaning toward him so she wouldn’t be overheard by the rest of their group and Jay leaned over the table so he could hear her, nodding in agreement. “Exactly!” he said. “I dig ya. That’s normal. These guys,” he indicated the group with an impatient gesture of his cigarette, “aren’t normal. They behave like mindless zombies.”

“Are they always like that?”

“Pretty much.” Jay took a drag on his cigarette. “It got worse after Corporate Financial started doing some work for Building Products.”

“Oh?” Michelle prepared herself for the slam against the company she worked for. Not that it would bother her; she’d learned long ago to separate her working time from her personal time and, as a result, things like what happened to her at work rarely bothered her. Even criticism against the company she worked for didn’t bother her. She wasn’t her company; that’s how she was able to take the criticisms levied against her employers. She didn’t make corporate decisions. Some faceless drone in a suit did. “How so?”

Jay regarded her a minute and his eyes flicked briefly to the group at their table. They were still deeply involved in their discussion of the project. Jay’s dark eyes went back to her again. “Well, I can tell you’re cool because of what you said earlier about choosing your personal life over your job. Don’t construe this as a slam against you or anything, or a slam against your employer, because it isn’t.”

“None will be taken,” Michelle said. Despite having quit smoking seven years ago, the urge to take it up again was strong now, mostly having to do with breathing Jay’s second hand smoke.

“I’ve been at Building Products for five years,” Jay began, his voice lowered slightly. “And it was cool when I first started, but like all jobs it has its ups and downs. You know? Office politics, management bullshit, that kind of thing. I don’t give a shit about any of that anyway. Never have. They pay me to come in and do their website and maintain their servers and do anything internet and web-related and that’s what I do. I don’t give a flying fuck if my boss is fucking his secretary, or if Barb over there is a closet alcoholic who neglects her kids—which she does, by the way—or if some know-nothing executive wants to initiate some stupid bullshit policy that will end up costing the company thousands of dollars in productivity because it’ll make his bottom-line look good to the stockholders and it completely wastes my time when I can be doing stuff that’ll keep the company running. I don’t really give a shit, long as I get paid on time and have my medical insurance and 401k. I just come in and do what they ask me to do and I try to do as good a job as I can, to the best of my abilities, and in my humble opinion I think I’m pretty goddamned good at what I do. There are times if I see something that will be a waste of time, I let my boss know and many times he agrees. If he doesn’t, that’s cool. Whatever. Like I said, I don’t give a shit. They want me to put porn on their website, I’ll do it even though I think it’s wrong, know what I mean?”

“What about bestiality photos?” Michelle quipped.

“Then I tell them to go fuck themselves and I walk. I can always find this kind of grunt work anywhere. Although now that I think about it, a lot of this shit they’re sending overseas to India where pretty soon they’ll be replacing human beings with trained monkeys since a monkey will work for less than five dollars a day.”

“And if that happens you just find another way to make a living,” Michelle said. “Right?”

“Hell yeah. I mean, I’ll work as an auto mechanic again if I have to. I’ve done that before too. I can do it again. Sometimes I find that line of work more preferable than what I’m doing now. Less bullshit to deal with.”

“So how have things been bad at Building Products since Corporate Financial came into the picture?” Michelle asked in a lowered voice. She didn’t want Alan Perkins to hear her; God forbid word traveled back to Sam that she was gossiping.

“Building Products wanted them to develop this Human Resources software,” Jay began. “They had a shitload of meetings for, like, six months, talked to everybody in the company from the receptionists to the CEO to get their input. Like input from the receptionist matters, know what I mean?” Another drag of the cigarette. “Once they got that together, they started working on the software and I uploaded a couple of Beta-versions of it to the Intranet server for some in-house testing. And ever since then, everybody who works in this place has walked around with a severe stick up their ass. It’s like working at Building Products has become the most important thing on the planet. There’s guys working long hours and on weekends for nothing in return—they’re not getting overtime, they’re not taking comp days or anything. One time I joked with one of the office managers about it and he was all serious. ‘The work has to get done Jay. There’s no other way around it.’ I’ve been suggesting real subtly to my boss and other people that we could really use another IT tech at this place and nobody will listen. They’d rather pay two guys to do the work of four and five people and when shit happens and work piles up, they want you to sacrifice everything to make shit happen. Fuck that.” Jay took another drag of his cigarette. “I don’t play that shit. You get what you pay for is my opinion.”

“I don’t either,” Michelle said. Talking to Jay was like a breath of fresh air, cigarette smoke notwithstanding. “My life is too important to miss out on the good things in life.”

“Exactly. There’s guys here that miss activities their kids are in. Barb… she’s a complete whackfuck if I’ve ever met one.” Jay’s dark eyes centered on Barb briefly. “She’s in the office by six-thirty in the morning and leaves at seven-thirty, eight o’clock at night. Sometimes later. And she’s here on Saturdays, too. Sometimes Sundays. She has two kids, and she’s married, and one of her kids is out of control at school, getting in trouble and shit. Her husband works too, so he ain’t around. She makes more than enough money to enable him to stay home, or at least take a part time job and make sure one of them is around for their kids, but they don’t.”

“Maybe they have a lot of bills,” Michelle suggested.

“With her salary? She’d have to be spending money like the Federal Government to be that deep in debt.”

Michelle shrugged and took a sip of her dwindling glass of beer. “Well, they say the more money you make, the more you spend.”

“Barb really gets off on this shit,” Jay said, his voice still lowered. “She was always like that, but she’s been worse since Corporate Financial stepped in, and a lot of people, especially those at the managerial level, have become like her. It’s kinda creepy in a way.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s like that Jack Finney story, Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

Michelle grinned; she liked Jay even more now. It was rare to meet somebody who worked in the corporate world who was well-read. “I gotta admit it does sound like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Managers will get like that when the suits above them initiate some bullshit policy or something. They all lose their perspective and fall into line. They stop thinking for themselves or what’s best for their departments or the company in some cases.”

“Well, it ain’t just the managers at this place. It’s most of the other employees, too. They’re not as bad, but I can definitely tell something’s up. But then I might just be overreacting to this shit. I mean, I’m one of the only people here at Building Products who would rather be doing something else, know what I mean? A lot of the people who work here actually went to school to learn their jobs. You know… they all majored in Accounting or got MBAs because it’s what they wanted in the first place. Me, I just fell into this shit because I saw it was a way to make some good money. I could easily do something else.”

“What would you rather be doing?”

Jay looked at her, as if he were deciding whether he could trust her. “Let’s just say I have my own aspirations for a vocation that has nothing to do with Building Product’s corporate goals and visions and leave it at that.”

Michelle could dig it. She was wearing a similar shoe.

“Besides,” Jay said, dragging on his cigarette. “Even people who really like what they’re doing here have changed. They’re more into the company than they ever were. The shit they’re doing, the work they really like doing, has taken a back seat. At least that’s how it seems. It’s like they’ve lost all focus of what makes them happy and wakes them up in the morning. They don’t realize that what it all boils down to is, what we’re doing here at Building Products are just jobs. They’re not saving the world or anything, but some of them are acting like what they’re doing is the most important thing in the world.”

“If that’s the case, what are you working at Building Products for, Jay?”

Michelle started at the sound of Barb’s voice and turned toward her, feeling slightly embarrassed. Barb was regarding them coolly, a fresh glass of whiskey in front of her. For a closet alcoholic she didn’t appear inebriated yet.

Jay didn’t look surprised or embarrassed that his comment had caught Barb’s attention. He fixed her with his patented stare and said, “What do you think? I’m there for the paycheck. Isn’t that what most people work for? The money?”

The conversation had caught the attention of the rest of the group and Alan was leaning back in his seat, looking interested. A couple of the Building Products people were silent, some grinning as if waiting for the fireworks to start between Barb and Jay. Barb took a sip of her drink. “It’s not why I work at Building Products. What about you Gregg? Bob? Mark?”

The other guys shook their heads. Barb nodded at Alan. “What about you Alan? What motivates you to work for Corporate Financial?”

“I enjoy interacting with my clients and helping to improve their business,” Alan said. He leaned forward, catching Michelle’s eye quickly. “What about you, Michelle?”

For a brief moment Michelle was at a crossroads. She was still new to Corporate Financial Consultants, and didn’t know Alan well enough to let loose around him. She was quick enough to respond with a neutral answer. “I enjoy the work, I’m good at what I do, and I like the compensation.”

“Of course you do,” Jay said, and Michelle could tell from the vibe she was getting off of him that he understood where she was coming from, that she was trying to avoid getting into trouble with her co-worker at Corporate Financial. “That’s the sane answer. It’s always good to like what you’re doing as well as the money. But if you were a millionaire would you be doing this?” This last question was directed at Barb.

“Of course,” Barb said. “What else would I do?”

“You wouldn’t want to spend more time with your kids? Do the things you’ve always wanted to do?”

“I’m already doing what I’ve always wanted to do.” Barb answered.

“So if you had all the money in the world, you’d still be working twelve and fourteen hour days, six and sometimes seven days a week for Building Products?”

Barb smiled. For a brief moment Michelle was chilled by that smile. It was utterly devoid of emotion. “This is what I do, Jay. What you do for Building Products is what you do. That’s how it works.”

“No shit? And it’s like this for everybody?”

“Of course it is.” Barb had her attention wholly centered on Jay. “You heard the consensus from the group here at the table. This is what they do, too.”

“So you’re telling me that despite overwhelming opinion polls that indicate the majority of workers would rather be doing something else for a living, what they’re really doing is what they’re meant to do and they would continue working the same mindless jobs that provide them with no emotional or personal satisfaction even if they were financially able to quit?”

One of the men at the table—Michelle wasn’t sure what his name was—frowned. He was fat, wore glasses, and was wearing a suit with a white shirt and a tie that was still knotted. “You’re suggesting you wouldn’t be working at Building Products if you were financially able to quit?”

“Fuck yeah! Wouldn’t you?”

“No.” The man said. He managed a small grin that reminded Michelle of Barb’s smile; it was cold, emotionless. “Like Barb said, this is what I do.”

“Fine. Maybe it’s what you do, but what about seventy-five percent of the population?” Jay was on a roll and Michelle was now silently hoping he would shut up. She agreed with him one hundred percent, but she was afraid he was putting his job in jeopardy by letting his mouth run.

“You’re suggesting that most people don’t want to work? Is that what you’re saying?” This question came from one of the other guys at the table. Unlike Mark and Barb, he actually appeared to be mulling this question over.

“Shit yes!” Jay said. He stubbed the butt of his cigarette in his ashtray. “You talk to most people, they don’t want to work. They’d rather be on a permanent vacation in California or Hawaii or some shit, going skiing or traveling or partying twenty-four seven. Maybe some of them would be doing shit they really like doing like painting portraits or writing poetry or watching old movies all day or going bird watching. They wouldn’t be pushing paper for some faceless corporation or standing behind a check-out stand all day.”

“Then why do they do it?” Barb asked.

“Because they need the money! Why else?”

“You really think the reason most people go through all the trouble they go through to get a job is for the money?”

Jay was looking at Barb as if she were the stupidest person on the planet. “You can’t be serious?”

“I am,” Barb said, still fixing Jay with that patented glare.

“You’re telling us that people manipulate their way—sometimes even outright lie—to get jobs they feel no overwhelming desire to do otherwise?”

“Yeah, they do.” Despite Barb’s smoldering gaze, Jay didn’t back down. He matched it with his own. “I’m sure not everybody does it. I know there’re people that genuinely like what they do for their chosen career. People who know what they wanted to do when they were ten and then went out and did it when they got out of high school or college or whatever are excluded. I’m talking about everybody else, the poor saps who either had no fucking clue what they were going to do when they got out of school or those unlucky enough to fall into the jobs they currently have. Those are the ones who would rather be doing something other than what they’re doing. They exaggerate on resumes, they mislead, they manipulate their way into job interviews. Then they do this thing called performance art when they finally get the interview. They do every-fucking-thing they can do to convince the person who is interviewing them that they are the best and most qualified person for the job. They do this because they need the job to make money to pay their bills, put food on the table, and keep a roof over their head. If they didn’t have to do the dog-and-pony show to get the job that would give them the paycheck which enables them to provide for themselves and their family, they wouldn’t do it.”

“So you’re saying most people lie on resumes and in job interviews to get a job because they only want the job for the money,” Barb asked.

“Yes.”

“They actually lie?”

“For the most part, yes.” Jay lit another cigarette. Somehow his coffee cup had become empty since Michelle started talking to him. She was already pegging him as an ex-drinker by the way he instantly pegged Barb, as well as by the quantity of coffee he was drinking. Stick an ex-drunk in a bar with drinkers and coffee is usually their drink of choice. “They might be telling the truth mostly in their interview regarding their skills and shit, but get them in an interview and ask them stupid questions like ‘what would be your prime motivation for working for our company,’ and they’ll bullshit you. They don’t give a damn about being a part of some bullshit company mission statement and all that teamwork crap. They say they do because they know HR managers get their rocks off when they hear the shit.”

Michelle wanted to cringe but refrained. She liked Jay, could tell he was a nice guy, and she liked his honesty. She didn’t want him to jeopardize his job by shooting off his mouth, but it appeared that’s what he was doing.

The fat guy sitting at their table frowned. “It might be wise, Jay, if you refrained from… saying this kind of stuff.”

“Why? I’m not at work. I’m at a public place, I’m not on the clock, so technically I can say whatever the hell I want, when I want.”

“Mark’s right, Jay,” Barb said, regarding Jay calmly. “Perhaps you’d better tone it down. You are with business colleagues.”

“Maybe the same rules should apply to you,” Jay told her. “Maybe you shouldn’t be drinking like a fish and getting fucked up. You do have to drive home, you know and after all… you are with business colleagues.”

Barb’s eyes flared briefly in anger and Michelle quickly stepped in. “It is an interesting discussion,” she said quickly. “I mean, the whole topic of an employee’s personal privacy is a big topic today. It’s a topic Jay and I found interesting.”

“Regardless, Mr. O’Rourke needs to learn to tone it down at times,” Barb said. Her voice was icy. “Even when he is at these so-called public places.”

Jay snorted. “You’re delusional.”

“And you’re immature!”

“And you’re a—”

Alan quickly cut in. “Your point has been made, Jay.” He glanced at Barb. “You too, Barb.”

“I suggest if you don’t wish to talk business at these little gatherings you refrain from attending, Mr. O’Rourke.” Barb’s tone was complete business. “When you gather with colleagues from the office, you should expect that the course of discussion will be the business of Building Products.”

“Maybe in your world, but not mine.” Jay lit another cigarette. “I like to shoot the shit with the people I work with, especially the ones I like. But if you want to have those stupid bullshit rules, fine with me. I’ll stop coming. Next time I want to hang with Paul or George, we’ll go elsewhere.”

“Be thankful nobody from HR was here,” Alan said. He drained the rest of his beer. “I know we’re all here on our own time and that, technically, this isn’t a business meeting but more of a social gathering, but you still have to be careful about what you say around those you work with.”

“Like I give a shit? Barb and Mark aren’t part of management. They can say whatever the hell they want to HR if they want to. It’s their word against mine, and what I say in public outside of work, on my own time, is my own business. When I’m at work, that’s a different story. But here? Outside of work on my time? Fuck that!”

Michelle retained her steady, solid front. She drained the rest of her beer. “You know, it’s getting late. I should get back to my room.”

“Yeah, I gotta go too,” Jay said. He rose from his chair. “Hey, this lively discussion was fun while it lasted but as they say, all good things must come to an end. Let’s shoot the shit like this again tomorrow.”

Michelle got up and was relieved when Alan Perkins, her Corporate Financial co-worker, got up, too. “I want to get back to my hotel and put the finishing touches on that spreadsheet,” he said. He pulled on his coat.

The other people at their table rose to their feet as well, and

Michelle quickly gathered her purse and followed Jay out of the restaurant.

Once outside she paused for a moment, waiting for the rest of their party to join them. Alan nodded at her. “See you tomorrow, Michelle.”

“Have a good night,” she said, drawing her coat tight around her.

“See you tomorrow,” Jay said, cigarette jutting out of his mouth. “Nice talking to you.”

“Nice talking to you, too.” They shook hands quickly and Michelle said, “I hope you won’t get into any trouble for what you said in there.”

Jay’s expression was immediate and easy to read: what, me get in trouble? “Nothing’s gonna happen. Most of the people that were here tonight have heard me say much worse. Besides, we’re not at work or on company time. You can’t be fired for talking about basic human psychology and behavior during your off hours, which is what this all boiled down to. Besides, I’ve got a solid work record to back me up and I’ve never had a negative mark in my review.”

“Yeah, well, Barb didn’t look too happy.”

“She never looks happy,” Jay said, casting a casual glance behind them at the restaurant entrance. The front door opened and a couple of patrons exited. Some of their party was among them. “Besides, despite all that bullshit she said in there, she can’t do shit. She’s not a manager, much less a supervisor. She’s just a lowly corporate ant like the rest of us. She just likes to kiss the butts of everybody higher up than her.”

“Is she the type to go squealing to the higher-ups?” Michelle asked.

“Probably.” Jay glanced at the loosely-knit throng of their Building Products colleagues and turned back to her. “Listen, I don’t want you to get in trouble so I’m gonna split. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Jay took off into the parking lot and Michelle headed toward her rental car in the opposite end of the lot. The early Spring night was cool and the wind ruffled her skirt about her legs and she shivered. Right now all she wanted to do was get back to her room, turn the heat up, give Donald a quick call, and crawl into her pajamas and into bed. Maybe watch a little TV. Then she wanted to get through the rest of the week quickly and get the hell home.

The evening’s discussion, especially Jay’s rant, flitted through her mind quickly and out of left field came a thought that hadn’t entered her mind in a long time. That little painful memory that emerged when Jay asked if she had kids. It settled in her as she let the car warm up, and as she drove away she found herself wishing she was home with Donald, where she was safe and secure and comfortable with the feeling that everything was going to be all right.

SHE WOKE UP at three a.m. not even aware she was crying, and when she realized it she could only sob harder. She buried her face in her hands, still lying on her tummy from the position she’d been in when she woke up and, with the painful emotions from that old memory still fresh in her mind, and the aftermath from the dream it had left still tender in her consciousness, she curled up on her left side, drawing herself into a fetal position, and cried herself back to sleep.