Jon Graeme stifled a yawn as he sat in the reception area of Building A. It was nine a.m. on Monday and he had been waiting for just over an hour. The room seemed chilly, and he wondered whether it was the granite walls or the sterile decor. The waiting area would have made a dandy mausoleum. The opulent furnishings had been selected more for display than for comfort.
Jon was beginning to think that John Balis had forgotten about him when he saw an African-American woman approaching. He remembered her from the day he had been hired by HTPS Industries. Her name was Doris Sydnor and she was an administrative assistant in the personnel department. She had a stocky build, streaks of gray in her hair, and wide brown eyes that were friendly, as was her demeanor.
“Jon Graeme?” she asked.
Jon stood and introduced himself.
“Could you come with me?” the woman requested.
Jon followed her out of the reception area and then down a long corridor to her office.
“Have a seat, Jon,” she said as they entered.
She sat behind her desk and began to sort through Jon’s personnel folder. When she reached the page she was looking for, she wrote something on a sticky-note and handed it to him. “That will be your new annual salary.”
Jon couldn’t believe his eyes. The salary increase was over one hundred percent. He had been expecting a raise, but not on this scale.
Doris smiled. “Someone in the front office must like your work. It’s not often that an employee as new as you are gets a promotion like this.”
She got down to the business at hand, updating Jon’s tax, 401K and insurance information. Finally she issued him a new security identification card. He was surprised and relieved to see that it specifically gave him permanent access to the Advanced Programming Division.
“Well, that’s just about it, Jon. You can report to Ted Blume on the sixth floor of Building C. He’ll be your new boss.”
As he took the elevator to the sixth floor of building C, Jon felt a rush of excitement. He had risked everything to help Harry Sale. Not only had he not been fired, but he had also received a payoff far beyond anything he could have expected. People usually worked at HTPS Industry for years before they were promoted into the Advanced Programming Division. He knew for a fact that it had taken Lettie better than five years to earn her place there.
He wanted to celebrate. Maybe he’d take Lettie out, somewhere fancier than Miller’s. The thought made him smile as he rode the shuttle to Building C.
Jon went directly to Ted Blume’s office. He had met the man before. He was affable, middle-aged and quite overweight—most of his extra bulk centered in his Buddha-esque belly. He had a reputation for giving his staff a free hand as long as they were effective but was also for being notoriously hard on people who didn’t get results.
“I didn’t even have to check your personnel folder to know about you, Jon,” Ted said after shaking Jon’s hand and adjusting the suspenders that were clearly an essential accessory. “I’ve already heard plenty about you and, of course, Matt O’Reilly filled me in, too. He had nothing but good things to say about you. And anyone who can pry technical information out of Harry Sale has my respect.”
After another five minutes of casual talk, Ted led him down a corridor to a section Jon had never seen before and showed him his new office.
“I’ll let you get settled in. At one-thirty we’ll have a post-lunch department meeting in the conference room down the hall. I’ll fill you in then on your new responsibilities.”
As soon as he was alone in his new office, Jon went immediately to the large double windows. He had a spectacular view of the park below, with its ornate fountain in the center. In the distance he could see a forest of pines. Lettie had told him she could sometimes see deer from her office. Jon wondered if his new office was close to Lettie’s. He certainly hoped so.
Circling back around his desk, he nearly tripped on a large corrugated box filled with books and papers. He surmised that it belonged to the previous occupant.
He had just seated himself in front of his desk when there was a knock on the door.
“Come in!” he called out.
It was Lettie. She froze when she saw him at the desk.
“What are you doing here, Jon?”
“This is my new office, starting today,” Jon said. “Isn’t it great?”
Lettie did not reply. She appeared completely dumbfounded. Her mouth gaped open and her eyes were fixed. Jon wasn’t sure what to say.
The look of shock gradually disappeared. Her teeth ground together and her eyes flashed angrily.
“You bastard!” she said. “You absolute bastard! You planned this all along. You just pretended to be a friend. You were after my job.”
It was Jon’s turn to be dumbfounded. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” she shouted. She skewered him with her eyes and took three steps forward to pick up the box of books and papers.
“I d-don’t understand,” he stammered. “I really don’t understand.”
“You can just go and ….” She bit down on her lower lip, stopping short of cursing him out. Instead, she snorted in disgust and fled, not bothering to close the door behind her. She just stormed out into the hallway, her heels clicking loudly on the floor.
Jon ran after her, calling out her name. She didn’t turn back. She picked up her pace and rounded the corner on her way to the elevators.
Jon shut the door to his new office, crossed the room to his desk and collapsed into the chair. Why had they given him Lettie’s office?
Later that day Ted Blume filled him in on exactly what had happened. Jon had been promoted to Lettie’s job, Senior Technical Writer for the Advanced Programming Division. Lettie had been demoted to Jon’s old job in the Commercial Programming Division, writing documentation for the ZDX Smart Memory project. And that wasn’t all. George Ludwig had also been demoted to the Commercial Programming Division. His new office would be right across the hall from Lettie’s.