6-APR
We wanted to do our jobs—was that too much to ask? We were tired of planned server outages and mandatory training sessions to learn the latest updates to Adobe Acrobat Pro. We a little bit hated cake day and whoever came around to force us to attend, despite the fact that we’d already announced quite publicly that we were trying to eat Paleo this month. We couldn’t understand who was still clicking on those virus emails that prompted the proliferation of so many more emails aimed at encouraging us to stop clicking, but without fail, one of them popped up in the right-hand corner of our screens the precise moment we were trying to close out of Outlook to do actual work. (Wait, was email actual work?)
We were always signing last year’s, this year’s, or next year’s beneficiary forms with a frequency that defied the calendar and our ability to recall our dependents’ Social Security numbers. We had an inkling that face time requirements were an instrument of the oppression. We would prefer 65 percent less networking, but likely needed to do at least 50 percent more of it. There were a hundred things small and large that stood between us and our jobs every day, ranging from the incidental to the nefarious. So when we said that we would prefer not to have to be asked to smile on top of working, we meant that: we would like to do our jobs, please. When we said that we would like not to hear a comment about the length of our skirt, we meant that: we would like to do our jobs, please. When we said that we would like not to have someone try to touch us in our office, we meant that: we would like to do our jobs. Please.
We wanted to be treated like men at work for the same reason that people bought smartphones: it made life easier.
Ardie had been trying to do her job while battling a slow computer connection this morning when the two men in suits had passed by her office window on their way to Ames Garrett. It had been one day since Sloane hired Helen Yeh to file suit against Truviv and Ames, a lawsuit to which Ardie had made the decision to become a party. With the looming possibility of Ames being announced as the successor CEO any day now, time had been of the essence.
Two hours after the men in suits had passed her office, a meeting invitation appeared on her screen to request her presence in HR in twenty minutes. She chose “accept” and the meeting appeared on her calendar.
Ardie was a single mother—did that mean she had the least to lose or the most?
The two men in suits had stayed in Ames’s office for approximately forty-five minutes before leaving. Whether this was a long period of time or a short period of time, Ardie wasn’t sure. She watched the clock. Her own twenty minutes managed to be both long and short, too.
She got up, pulled her blazer off the back of the door, and stuffed her arms through the sleeves. Sloane waited for her at the elevator banks.
“And so it begins,” Sloane said. “You ready for this?” Ardie had never understood the strategy of focusing all one’s energy on appearance when something important was going on, but that was clearly Sloane’s MO today. She wore a crisp, royal blue skirt suit with a white blouse, her hair tied into a sleek, low ponytail, not a hair out of place. It was like she was Corporate Wonder Woman and this was her superhero costume of choice.
“I’m sure as hell not letting you do it alone.” Partially true. Or, perhaps something could be wholly true without being the entire truth, in which case that was what she meant.
Sloane pushed the button. Moments later, from out of the restroom, Grace appeared.
“Well,” she said, “if we need someone to wield the bloody tampon at them, I just started my period for the first time in fifteen months.” The three of them stepped onto an empty elevator. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to get my period while I was breastfeeding. What the hell?”
You’re going to need me.
That was the text message Grace had sent late the night Sloane had decided to sue. She wondered if Grace could tell how much Ardie had misjudged her, whether it was broadcast on her face.
A short ride upstairs, and a bald man, who had neither mustard stains on his shirt nor glasses but seemed like the type of person to have both, stood in the foyer waiting to greet them. “Al Runkin.” He clasped each of their hands with both of his. “Come on down, ladies, let’s see what we can do you for.”
Sloane and Ardie exchanged a look. There was a physical difference in the landscape between the ninth, where HR resided, and fifteenth floors. Like taking the train from the Upper West Side into an only partially gentrified neighborhood in Queens. The employees here mostly occupied cubicles instead of individual offices. The staff trended younger, except for the exceptions, who, because of their juxtaposition against their colleagues, seemed stuck.
Al Runkin ushered the women into a conference room. He took a seat in a cracked leather ergonomic chair opposite them and laced his fingers behind his head. The salty remnants of underarm sweat haunted his dress shirt. “So.” He looked down his nose at the stack of papers on the table in front of him. “You’re aware of this.” He squeezed his chin down his neck, the skin folding.
Sloane folded her hands on the desk. “It’s probably best we get the obvious parts out of the way. Yes. We’ve filed a suit as co-plaintiffs against Ames Garrett, as General Counsel, and against Truviv, Inc., more generally, under Title VII. While I’ve experienced direct harassment under Ames Garrett’s tenure at this company, my colleagues Ardie and Grace have brought their claims under the same act beneath the unsafe work environment umbrella, which permits claims where employees have been indirectly but negatively impacted by the harasser’s behavior. There. That should save us both some time, don’t you think?”
“Lawyers.” His thin lips drew thinner. “How refreshing.” He sat up abruptly. The hinges on the chair squealed. “Here’s the thing: We have procedures in place for this sort of thing. A lawsuit? Well, I understand that you all are lawyers, so this is your—how do you say it?—milieu, but it’s not necessary.” He made a face as though he had smelled something bad. “In fact, an investigation is already underway. In the future, we have a hotline that allows you to call in these types of complaints. Helps to avoid the expense of lawyers and filings and such for everyone.”
Ardie wrapped her hands around her knee. She didn’t know how she would feel about being in this room. The sickly overhead lights. The coffee mugs filled with pencils. “A hotline,” she said, “that’s often routed directly back to the person about whom you’re making the complaint. It doesn’t exactly require a doctorate to determine who then is making said complaint.” There, Ardie sounded like herself there. Her heart started beating. Presumably it had been beating all along.
“We have a policy that allows employees making a complaint to skip the usual steps and go directly to senior management.”
Grace—“The person about whom we’re complaining is senior management.”
He threw up his hands. His forehead was a shiny ball of wax; the reflection of light kept moving across its surface. “What do you want us to do?”
Sloane, who sat in the center, put a hand on each of their chair arms. “We think Ames Garrett’s employment needs to be terminated, for starters.”
“Like I said, it’s under investigation.”
“How long do you expect this investigation to take?” Ardie worried that “investigation” was a stage that had an ability to last until anyone who’d previously cared had lost the will to. It came with an image of endless accordion folders stacked on storage room floors, replete with meaningless papers. Maybe this was offensive to the hard work Human Resource workers otherwise performed, but it was Ardie’s particular bias and she allowed herself to carry it.
“It’s hard to say. I would expect three days, a week at most.” Al shrugged.
“Great,” Sloane said in a voice that said she didn’t think it was particularly great. “Then we’ll expect to hear a follow-up at that point. In the meantime, I’m sure you’ll be hearing from our attorney.”
Our attorney. Ardie could imagine a person who was not an attorney feeling more powerful at the chance to use that phrase, but Ardie had peeked behind the curtain to the Wizard of Oz.
They stood as one. Southern etiquette dictated that Al jump to his feet, too, but his lap got hooked between the chair and the table, so he hunkered awkwardly while trying to stand and wave.
“Ardie.” He pushed the wheeled chair free and it clacked against the back wall. She paused in the doorway. “It’s nice to see you again. It’s been a while,” he said, voice lowered.
She hesitated. “Yeah. I think you had hair back then.”
Ardie Valdez hated Al Runkin.
Employee Statements
14-APR
Kimberley Lyons: |
No, I wasn’t there when it happened. You see, I take care of the secretarial coverage during the lunch hour, which means that my lunch hour is late and so I had just left about fifteen minutes earlier. I’m sorry. It’s difficult for me to talk about. I’ve never known anyone who has died before, other than my grandparents, and that was when I was too young to even remember. It’s a shock to everyone on the fifteenth floor. We’re like family. |
Kunal Anand: |
The women went crazy. If anyone says that isn’t the case, they’re lying or trying to be P.C. or something. They were like rabid dogs, thirsty for male tears. Rabies makes you thirsty, in case you didn’t know. I saw it on Viceland. |
Katherine Bell: |
I just started here. In fact, I moved from Boston, so I’m new to the Dallas area as well. This is a difficult first impression, I guess you could say. I really wasn’t involved in office politics. |
Al Runkin: |
I’m not aware of anyone exhibiting any violent behaviors, no. Our department takes personnel and, particularly, mental health issues very seriously. Think of us as guidance counselors for grown-ups. Homicide? I doubt that. |