Commencement

Tim was nervous as he got in the elevator. He had put in his request for a leave of absence on Monday, and didn’t think there would be any problems. Then he got a call from human resources telling him that Standoff and the President of Business Consulting wanted to speak with him in reference to his request. Tim was thinking that maybe they were upset that he had taken so much time off in addition to his vacation for medical procedures. Tim had tried to offset his absences by coming in earlier and staying later. And it wasn’t like he was faking. Tim always brought in notices from his doctor after every visit. He only hoped he wasn’t jeopardizing his severance pay. After all, there were only two more months that he had with the company before he would be let go. It might even be sooner, since things were going ahead of schedule. The web site was now up and they had done a couple of test runs. It wouldn’t be long before the memos were sent to the departments letting them know about the change in services. Hopefully, Tim could stay employed until then. He didn’t want to have to worry about explaining what had happened with his job on top of dealing with his disease. “One day at a time; one battle at a time”, he told himself.

  When Tim got off the elevator, he went down the corridor to the two big brown mahogany doors where Standoff’s name stood emblazoned upon a bronze placard. Tim opened the door and walked up to the reception desk in the waiting room.

  “I have an appointment to see Mr. Standoff and Mr. Silver.”

  “You must be Tim, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have a seat, and I’ll let them know you’re here.”

  Tim sat down. Under less strenuous circumstances, he would have taken the time to admire the opulence that Standoff’s position afforded. All Tim could do was to wonder just what this meeting was about. He hoped it wasn’t an ambush. After all, he knew he wasn’t Standoff’s favorite person in the world.

  “Mr. Russell?” the secretary called, interrupting Tim’s thoughts.

  “Yes?”

  “If you’ll come right this way.”

  As Tim followed the young woman to the office in the back, he tried to steel himself for what may come. When they entered the office, Standoff was chatting pleasantly with Silver who had taken off his jacket and was reclining in one of the leather chairs in front of Standoff’s desk.

  “Tim, come in and have a seat”, called Standoff rather jovially.

  “Thank you, sir”, said Tim trying to put on a confident pose as he

  took his seat.

  “So, Tim, your department has got the whole company talking.”

  “Good things, I hope.”

  “Very good things, indeed. The reorganization is now proceeding ahead of schedule, true?”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve already done several runs of the website, and everything seems okay. We should be able to bring it to the employees by the end of the month.”

  “That’s good news. The sooner it gets up the more money we’ll save.

  But onto other matters. You must know why you’re here, don’t you?”

  “I assumed it was to discuss my application for a leave of absence.”

  “Yes. You’re right. That’s part of it. I hear you’re going away to get a

  second opinion for a serious illness. Now, you don’t have to disclose this illness whatever it is, but I’d like to know if you feel that eventually you would be able to return to us or whether this leave would be indefinite.”

  “I would love to be able to give you a definite answer, but I can’t. At least not until I’ve gotten the second opinion. After that I could probably give you a time table of surgery, recovery and when I could return.”

  “I see. Makes sense. And how soon do you think you’ll have the results of the second opinion?”

  “I have an appointment for the week after next. If everything goes as scheduled, it should be no later than the middle of the week following.”

  “Would you be willing to keep in touch with us?”

  “Of course. Would you like me to send an e-mail to HR.?”

  “That would be good, but don’t send it to the general mail box, send it directly to Mr. Silver here.”

  “Yes, I will. Does this mean that my request for a leave of absence has been approved?”

  “Oh, certainly, that goes without saying. But I wanted to talk to you more about it because there’s something else that needs to be discussed. You see one of the associates in Business Consulting has decided that she is leaving in a few months to take another job in Seattle. Silver and I were thinking of who could replace her. We came up with a short list, and after the big turn around in business services, we thought you would be perfect for the job. Are you interested?”

  “This is kind of sudden. I never would have expected…”

  “Neither did we, but in these last few months, you’ve demonstrated that you’re capable of handling more responsibility. That turnaround in business services was nothing short of miraculous.”

  “But I did have help. Preston was there, and I like to believe we were the recipients of God’s favor.”

  “Yeah. You would need God’s favor to work with that guy. You don’t have to be a nice guy, Tim”, joked Silver. “I think everybody in the whole company is aware that he was no help.”

  “Even I’m willing to admit he was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made. He didn’t even get the idea for the website on his own, you know. Got if from Casinoff.”

  “He must be good for something”, said Tim in Preston’s defense.

  “Let’s not dwell on Preston. Do you think you’d be interested in working in Business Consulting? Since you seem to have a keen insight for running the systems of your department, we thought that your skills would transfer well to helping us with planning long-term solutions for the company.”

  “Yes, of course, sir.”

  “Good. You can take your leave of absence to think about it. The position doesn’t open until June or July, but remember to keep in touch with us. We’ll expect to hear from you in a few weeks after your second opinion.”

  “Thank you both for this opportunity. I promise I will get back to you as soon as I can.”

  “Thank you for your work in this company.”