I sat in my windowless office, feeling all of the beige close in on me. Beige ceiling
tiles, beige wallpapered walls, beige phone with an extra long beige cord,
beige keyboard and monitor, beige carpet, beige coffee mug containing burnt
coffee with creamer – so much beige. I was sure I could smell beige, and it got
caught at the back of my throat. It was going to suffocate me.
The beige was in striking contrast to my job which was
filled with the exciting energy of negotiations and deadlines, travel and
decisions, product procurement, packaging and profits.
Until recently I hadn’t noticed all of the beige surrounding
me. For the most part, I enjoyed coming to work. For the other part there was
Mark “the Troll,” my boss. His behaviour since passing me up for promotion had
been mean-spirited and personal. His wiry black hair went wildly in all
directions, round black framed glasses constantly slid down his oily nose,
stubby fingers pointed up at me manically as he spat his rage over how no one
in the history of our company would beat him as the youngest-ever Vice
President, which he hit at age thirty, two years earlier. Most especially I wasn’t
going to beat his record.
The job I loved had become claustrophobic and highly
political. It was both physically and mentally draining. I was exhausted.
At my desk, I pushed the palms of my hands into my eye
sockets and took in a deep breath. As I leaned back in my chair covered in
nubby beige polyester (the only relief a thin thread of light blue ran
throughout in a plaid pattern), I heard a click from the ceiling where, and
above me, a whoosh of frigid air escaped from a vented metal square.
May was here. The oversized blue wool cardigan I didn’t wear
all winter was on a hook behind the door; time to put it on. Air-conditioning
season had arrived.
To better focus on my thoughts, I quietly closed the door against
the steady hum of machines: fax, copiers, dot matrix printers and the telex
combined with the chatter of staff from one cubicle to the next. I settled back
behind my desk, my thoughts anxious and relentless. My phone rang. I checked my
watch; it must be the lab calling with my weekly product test results review.
“Hello?”
“Lee,” followed by a pause, “this is your father speaking,” he
said, as though that voice could be anyone else. His resonant bass, the voice
that invited no contradiction or rebuke, was unmistakable.
“Dad? What’s wrong?” my voice rose in alarm. All previous
thoughts flew from my mind and I gripped the handset a little tighter. The great
man himself never called without his secretary announcing that he was on the
line. This had to be bad news. Surely someone had died.
“When are you getting married? I want to know when I will be
a grandfather,” he demanded in a tone I had not heard before.
Where the hell was this coming from? I was relieved and
somewhat amused.
“What? This is completely out of the blue, Dad.” I wasn’t
even dating anyone. “What’s going on?”
“Well, Barb* and I were talking over the weekend and we have
a few concerns.”
“Oh, really. What concerns do you and your new wife have
that pertain to me?” I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice, and failed.
“Now, don’t be like that. Barb* has only your best interest
at heart. She loves all of you girls. I think her concerns are valid or I
wouldn’t call you about them.”
“This is just so unexpected. In my twenty-six years on earth
you have never mentioned any interest in being a grandfather, or offered any
opinions on my love life, ever. I just find it weird.” And unsettling, but I
didn’t say that part out loud.
“We’ve decided it’s time for you to seriously think about growing
up. You’re not getting any younger and it’s time for you to settle down,” he
said, imposing the royal we again. “Have I made myself clear?”
As I hung up the phone, I felt like I had been given a directive
from god himself. Our conversations never took more than two minutes, tops.
This one just happened to have more life-altering demands than the others.
I was rattled. Grow up? Was he kidding? I was personally
responsible for the development and maintenance of over 500 private label
products earning millions of dollars in profit for the US operations every
year. That was pretty grown up if you asked me.
One thing I knew for sure, his demands would not be satisfied
if I remained in this job or even in this town. There was only one thing to do:
make a plan.
I dialled Mary, the secretary I shared with Mark, who sat
outside his office. “Bring me a legal pad and two pencils, and hold my calls
for the rest of the day. I’m working on a project and can’t be disturbed.”
“What do I say to Mark?”
“Whatever you want.”
I was not normally curt with Mary, but since her recent
defection to Team Troll, aka job security, I was not in the mood to deal with
her concerns.
Squaring up the pad, I carefully considered my situation,
and within minutes the yellow lined legal pad was filled with words, pencil
marks in all directions, plenty of pink eraser dust, and, at the bottom, a
rough plan, one that would deal with both my Mark problem and my Dad problem.
Six months later, there was another click from the ceiling
where, from a vented metal square, came a whoosh of hot air. But by then I was
long gone to a new job and a new country.
*"Barb's" name
changed to protect my butt!
Lee Currie spent
part of her adult life in the grocery industry and another part raising her
four children. Now she’s trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her
life! She’s a trained life coach, a Desire Map facilitator, recently passed the
Ontario real estate exams, certified oracle guide, trained astrologist,
talented natural light photographer and devoted maker of memory books where her
photos are married with stories. Storytelling is the constant through all of
her life and she enthusiastically attends many of Brian’s workshops, courses
and events in the hope that writing becomes a much bigger part of her life.
Much to her surprise and that of her children, she happily remains in sleepy,
suburban Oakville with her two lively Australian Labradoodles, Tuck and Finn.
See Brian Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops, weekly writing classes, and weekend retreats
in Algonquin Park, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Collingwood,
Cambridge, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo, London,
Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Saint
John, NB, Sudbury, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe,
York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.
