CHAPTER twenty-five
I had to get out of this place. The morons weren’t only running the zoo, they were being advised by professional morons who they paid handsomely for their moronic advice. Rationally, I supposed, if I thought about it, I could understand where Cleve was coming from. Irrationally though, I wanted to spit in Cleve’s face.
I forwarded my phone to voice mail and picked up the board documents that I’d been waiting to give back to Harold. I saw that his office door was still closed so I went into the bullpen where the legal assistants sat and headed for Jackie’s desk.
She was bent over an open file drawer trying to jam a file folder into the already packed filing cabinet. She looked up at me helplessly.
"I know, I know," I said. "I promise we’ll go through these drawers soon and get rid of all the dead stuff. Give you more room."
"Why don’t I make a current list of everything in the cabinets and you can just mark on it which files I can dead store. That’ll make it easier for you," she said. The girl was always thinking. Jackie had been in the department for about a year now and she was worth her weight in gold. She was keen and had a great work attitude.
"Great idea. And I promise I’ll look at the list. Listen, I’m going out. Harold wanted these documents revised," I said. I handed the pile to her. "He doesn’t want to be disturbed and I’m sure as hell not going in there. If and when his door opens, put these in his basket. And keep an eye open for a courier package from Scapelli’s. Cleveland Johnston’s sent over some urgent documents and Harold needs to look at them right away. In fact, if the package arrives, send Harold an e-mail telling him it’s here. He might be checking his messages in there. Either way, wait until his door opens. And if anyone asks, I’ll be back when I’m back."
"Uh, sure Kate." She hesitated a moment. "You will be back this afternoon won’t you?"
"Don’t worry Jackie. I won’t leave you to be eaten up by the wolves. Yeah, I’ll be back. I’m just going out for a walk. Clear my head."
"A walk? You’re sure? But you don’t walk Kate."
"Maybe I’m starting. See you later."
I came out of the office and stood at the corner of King and Bay Streets. I was confused about which way to go. I’d never deliberately gone for a walk. Sure, I’d walk to get something to eat, or walk to my doctor’s office four blocks over. But to walk for the sake of walking was something new to me. I turned left and hiked south on Bay Street. At Front Street I looked right and left. Nothing interested me either way and the looming Union Station just depressed me even more. I continued down Bay through the underpass towards Lake Ontario and Queen’s Quay. I mentally patted myself on the back as I passed two sidewalk vendors selling hot dogs. I dodged a few homeless people panhandling for money. My pace was by no means brisk, but I walked as fast as my short legs could carry me, although walking briskly wasn’t something easily accomplished at lunchtime in this area of the city. The sidewalks were teeming with people and I managed to hit every red light. The road was torn up as usual at the entrance to Lakeshore Boulevard, and I stepped carefully over the construction debris littering the street.
There was less traffic noise and things were more peaceful when I finally reached Queen’s Quay. The sun was bright and the reflection on the lake hurt my eyes. I found an unoccupied bench facing the lake and I sat down heavily. I rummaged in my purse for sunglasses and cigarettes. I wasn’t out of breath and felt good. I wasn’t sure if the walk could be considered aerobic exercise because I hadn’t worked up a sweat. But I had walked. And I reminded myself as I lit a cigarette, that I hadn’t walked for exercise, I had walked to get away from the office.
I leaned back on the bench and tilted my face to the sun and thought about quitting. The job. The so-called career. I wondered if there were places to work out there that treated their employees like people. Places that realized that the workers were people. I laughed out loud when I realized that those types of places only existed in brochures describing working conditions in communist countries. I knew I was cynical but I had earned the right. I had been watching grown men play at being powerful executives now for so many years it was a joke.
How important was it all, I asked myself. In the whole scheme of things, how important was the business our company was in? In two years, we’d be selling customers something completely different because technology changes so quickly. Our executives clearly didn’t care about our customers. Look at how many of our former customers have us tied up in litigation. We weren’t working on a cure for cancer. We were selling technology. Big fucking deal. I flicked my cigarette butt into the grass.
So Kate, if you quit, what’ll you do? I had always been cocky enough to think I could get a job anywhere. Enough people had told me they wanted to hire me. I could make a list as long as your arm of the number of high-powered executives in this city who had patronizingly told me what a fantastic job I did. "Hope they pay you well, Kate," several had said to me.
Right. I made excellent money for a secretary and I had surpassed the salary ceiling for that field of work. But you’re not a secretary Kate, I reminded myself. You’re a paralegal. And paralegals make less money than secretaries. There was no way I could go to a law firm and make the money I was making at TechniGroup. I was making more now than many junior associates in law firms.
I mentally kicked myself for not going to law school when I had the chance. I had the applications filled out and had taken the LSAT exams and was ready to take the plunge. There was enough money saved to get by and Mom and Dad had promised to help if things got rough. But then I met Tommy. Whirlwind romance. Every time he’d kissed me, the thought of law school got further and further from my mind. By the time the dust had settled and we were divorced I had no more ambition. I’d quit the law firm and started doing temp work in the city. There was a different job each week and I had started to really enjoy not getting attached to the people I worked with. Like a homeless person wandering the streets, only I wandered the offices of Toronto. It was a great healing time for me.
I was ready to settle down again when they offered me a full-time job at TechniGroup. And now I had the seven year itch. Seven years at TechniGroup. I knew there wasn’t anywhere else for me to go in the company in terms of advancement. But who was I kidding? There’s only so far you can go as a secretary or for that matter, a paralegal. You work with one of the top dogs and you do all their dirty work. Day in and day out. Most times the work was interesting but after a while, it was the same. If I went to another company I’d be doing the same thing after six months. Working for one of the senior people and as soon as I got the hang of the company and all the inner workings, I’d be back in the same boat. What a vicious fucking circle. Maybe it was time to get into a whole new field.
I put my elbows on my knees and cupped my face in my hands and stared out at the lake. Shit, this was depressing. I felt my shoulders getting heavy and knew that if I didn’t shake out of this mood I’d be in sad shape by the end of the day.
The assholes were getting to me and I was feeling sorry for myself. If my mother were here she’d jack me up and tell me to snap out of it. "There’s always someone worse off than you," she’d say. And she’d be right.
I had a job. A nice apartment. A car that worked most of the time. I had friends. And family. And what did I care about those idiots at TechniGroup? I cared about what they were doing to Jay. And how he was going to get fucked worse than Rick Cox. At least Cox’ll get a very generous severance package. And his stock options. Jay’ll get nothing.
I smiled to myself when I thought about the severance for Rick. Right now we were telling the public he resigned. But when we disclosed the terms of his settlement package, as we were obliged to do under securities laws, we’d have to disclose the fact that we paid him severance. Any shareholder in their right mind should ask the question, why pay severance when someone resigns
? I’m sure the company was banking on the fact that shareholders had short memories. The company would part with over a million dollars just to get rid of Rick Cox. And Jay is on the street, without a reference and no severance. I was starting to get pissed off again and being pissed off felt a lot better than being depressed.
I started walking back over to Bay Street and dreaded the thought of the long walk back to the office. Fuck it, I thought. I’d had enough exercise to last me a month. I hailed a cab.