Nearby helicopters shook the floor-to-ceiling windows of our conference room. All were ushered in as we each took our places amongst the folding chairs, arranged in rows like pews in a church. And as it so often happens in nature, the individuals naturally split up and segregated into groups.
The group I belonged to, data research, was sat near the back like the outcasts we were, while the team leaders managed to be up front as always. Carla was among them, the team leaders, as was Dixon, and for the first time that day I laid eyes upon her.
Fortunately, she hadn’t spotted me, it felt less awful being ignored if the other person wasn’t doing so willfully. And I don’t know why these thoughts occurred to me, or why to such extent they occupied my mind. But I suppose even the negative emotions Carla stirred within were a sort of reprieve, a sort of vacation from the hauntingly dire reality of our situation.
Everett Kinney was the last one to enter, just after the final stragglers. Mr. Kinney was the branch manager, a distinguished man of about sixty, sixty-five years of age, with silver hair and a fair complexion. He was short and slightly overweight with big ears and a wide, toothy grin.
My few interactions with him were always pleasant, as he was a pleasant man with a very agreeable disposition. In many ways, he reminded me of my own father; down to earth and professional, but never cold, never unyielding, always warm and somehow gentle.
I feared he wasn’t long for the likes of the newer generation of upstart careerists, like Dixon or a handful of the other account managers who acted like the world was their oyster, their plaything. But I imagine he had had to battle with the likes of them his whole career, and it mattered little to him their obtuse behavior either way.
But on that day, as with so many of my other colleagues, the fire behind his eyes was extinguished. The misery in that room was so palpable, so vivid – and the silence, the silence was omnipresent. You could hear the building flex and shift with the wind, you could hear the sheet metal of the air ducts ping with every expansion and contraction.
Everett took his place at the center podium and withdrew a few papers from his breast pocket. There he looked out at us, seemingly taking his time to look at everyone individually before diving into the proceedings.
“Before I begin, can everyone hear me?” He said, his voice slightly muffled by the face mask. “These damn things…” He lamented. “You’re all so young, you get to be my age and everything sounds like fuzz anyways.”
A slight laughter broke out, fleeting but with its expiration an epiphany of normality. Pure exhilaration.
“Well, I don’t think I need to tell anyone here what extraordinary circumstances we find ourselves in. The human spirit is long enduring, long beyond that of brick and mortar… of business, and of enterprise. Working with you and getting to work for you, all of you, has truly been the highlight of my career.”
Everett’s voice broke at the end as he paused, his words lingering amongst us all like physical objects breathed into life. He held a wrinkled finger to his face and wiped his eye before continuing.
“Some of you may have already inferred and some of you already know, as to the nature of the colored cards. This company surely isn’t the only one experiencing tremendous hardship right now, so it might come as no surprise. Nevertheless, on to that matter, if you received a red card, I am truly sorry, but you are to be laid off effective immediately.”
A collective gasp rang out, followed by a few sobs. From the sheer number of those who reacted, I could only guess that the vast majority of the group got red cards.
“For those who received yellow cards, your hours will be dropped down to an ‘as needed’ basis. As hard as it may be to continue on here after today, especially on such terms, we ask that you help us weather this storm. And finally, for those who received blue cards, as of right now your schedule here will be unaffected.”
A fucking card? That’s how they chose to deliver this information? Cowards.
“While we do hope these cutbacks to be only temporary, a career guidance counselor will be on hand today for anyone who might need it. Anyone with a red card, you will be paid for today, no matter if you choose to finish out the day here or go home.”
Some people were out the door before Everett could even finish talking, some even taking the opportunity to make clear their opinion of the company in general and Everett in particular. And with every insult hurled at him, Everett just stood and nodded sympathetically towards them.
Withstanding such a verbal barrage was unenviable, even if the method they had chosen to deliver the news was, in the kindest terms possible, regrettable. After he was done, he stood there looking broken, on the verge of tears and yet remarkably stoic. I felt bad for him then, truly.
I wanted to be one of the last people to leave, with no earthly desire to somehow run into Carla or, god forbid, Dixon once more. I don’t think I could have faced Dixon in that moment, happy as I was to be one of the few with a yellow card, because I just knew, somehow I just knew that the smug bastard had a blue card.
Of course he’d have a blue card, you can’t get rid of your rainmakers when time is slow, that’s just bad business. Carla was most likely a blue card also, although in her case I would have understood. She was the definition of a rockstar, a genius.
To be honest, I don’t know why I got a yellow card when so many others didn’t, like Josh. Josh wasn’t even in, who knows why. Couldn’t sleep? Didn’t want to risk going out in public? It was unnerving to think of the possibilities – I liked Josh.
When I made my way back into the main area with all the cubicles, the mood was somehow even more dour than when I first arrived that morning. Some were crying as they went about cleaning their desk. Others were calling their loved ones with the news. It was morose, it felt like someone had died.
Cynthia was among those who got red-carded, and I passed her on the way back to my cubicle. She was sat at her desk and sobbing quietly into her hands, but she couldn’t even remove her face mask, she couldn’t so much as blow her nose for fear of being “infected”.
Throughout this, no one even wanted to touch anyone else; the friends and coworkers who had gathered around her to console her didn’t reach out to touch her shoulder. They didn’t hug her or pat her on the back as if to say everything was going to be okay.
Arguably, that was what made this whole thing objectively so much worse, that our mere ability to comfort someone had been taken from us. It was something so small, so intangible and yet realer than almost anything we had in this life, and it was gone.
Back in my usual chair I opened up my series of spreadsheets and programs and stared blankly at the numbers. It hardly seemed important then but at least numbers were easier to make sense of. If you took two and added it to two you got four, simple.
Except it wasn’t simple, it rarely was, because if Carla and my college math professor were to be believed, the whole world was math. Although I never did ascribe much to that theory. Certain things in life transcend arithmetic, like the sight of Carla’s unmistakable head of red hair making its way slowly towards me.
I doubt any possible calculation could have told me to expect that. Suddenly my collar grew hot and I felt a sweat break out despite that it must have been near seventy degrees in that office.
Carla, most likely realizing she couldn’t possibly walk any slower, eventually poked her head over the high wall of my cubicle and looked in at me. Prior to that weekend, such a visit would have been welcome, but given the circumstances it felt instead like a violation, like someone was peeking in on me in the shower.
“Hey.” She simply said. The metal nose clip of her face mask was just barely visible and I thought silently to myself a quite unimaginable and awful thought, that I might never really get to see her face ever again.
“Hey.” I replied.
“How are you?”
“I’m… fine?”
“You are? What I mean is, uh…” Then she brought her voice to an almost imperceptible whisper. “How are you feeling?”
“I feel fine. Is there something I can help you with?”
“No, no. I’m just -”
“You’re just? Curious how I’m feeling?”
“I suppose.”
“You want to know if I’ve slept.”
“Shhh! I am not asking that.” She continued whispering.
“Yeah, you are. It’s fine if you are. You’ve got a right to know. But if you’ll remember…” Then I lowered my voice to match hers. “Friday night? That was kinda before all this. And I’ve slept since then. And I take it you’ve slept since then?”
Carla nodded without saying a word.
“Then I think we’re fine.”
“No, we’re not. No one is fine, Ben.”
Carla, as usual, had found a way to leave me too stunned to speak as she walked away. In that moment I wanted nothing more than to be mad at her. I was the heartbroken one, at least I think I was heartbroken. I felt heartbroken. Why wasn’t I mad at her? And the fact that I found myself utterly unable to be mad at her infuriated me.
Thank you for reading Part VII of “Wake up, Young Man”. Please do like and share this article if you enjoyed it, it really does make a difference.
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