Good for Nothing

by Brandon Graham

  With one part of his mind, Flip takes a few notes and asks a couple of penetrating questions that he believes will demonstrate he’s aware of how the corporate structure works. He sits up straight and smiles when Myrna looks his way, nods encouragingly, and is careful not to fidget. But another part of his mind is thinking of Byron. Dean’s words must have been working on him.

  The summer before he abandoned his family, Byron had packed his beloved International Scout with camping supplies and forced Flip to go for a weekend of fishing. They drove along back highways for hours, had a lunch of chilidogs at a picnic table next to a roadside restaurant with a walk-up window. Yellow jackets buzzed around the mouth of Flip’s bottle of Hires root beer, and he left it on the table, unfinished.

  They took a red dirt utility road into the woods, the windshield brushing branches slowly aside, the front bumper bending down the tall grass that grew down the center of the path. At the top of a hill, Byron stepped out and turned a dial on the front hubs and pulled a lever inside to engage the four-wheel drive. He put the car in drive, but didn’t step on the gas or put his hands on the wheel. He just sat, his hands resting on his legs, his feet tucked back from the pedals. The engine idled, the Scout edged forward, bouncing slowly down the hill toward the secluded lake, the wooden dock, and the fishing cabin below.

  Byron grinned warmly as Flip’s eyes got big, watching the car drive itself.

  “This old car has been to this lake so many times, I don’t even have to steer it,” he’d said. “The car remembers the way.”

  Something about being back in a business suit was like that for Flip. He could just let go, and his mouth would find an easy way down the worn ruts of past conversations and tired, comforting jargon. He barely needed to be present at all.

  Myrna stops her presentation and sets her packet of information down. “That about does it,” she says. “Do you have any other questions?”

  “I was curious about the bonus structure. You say ‘performance based.’ I imagine the bonus is given to the head of each department based on the department’s contribution to meeting or surpassing sales goals. Is that accurate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah,” he nods his head meaningfully. He asks a series of follow-up questions, just hoping to demonstrate his knowledge.

  At one point she says, “I bet that’s true. It makes sense.”

  He’s not even sure what he had said. “While we’re on the subject, Myrna, may I ask another quick question?” He decides to push his advantage.

  “Yes. Of course you can. That’s what this process is for.” She sounds very earnest, but she still checks her watch to be certain they’re on schedule.

  He asks about the bonus structure and stock options, he asks about vacation days, flex time, and sick days. Myrna answers all of his questions thoroughly and to his satisfaction. She finds the appropriate folders and fliers to point to as she speaks. But he barely registers her replies.

  What else had Dean said? Something about a curse being a blessing, and the other way around. Is it really a blessing to be back here, back in the world I was forced from, to a career I don’t care for and barely even have to consciously think of in order to perform in?

  When she stops again he asks, “Speaking of stock options and stock matching, I’m curious about one detail: is DynaTech a privately held company, or is it publicly traded?”

  “It’s privately held.”

  “Oh. That’s good. Thank you.”

  Myrna nods and continues to read and point and slide pages at Flip. When she’s finished the entire stack, she asks, “If you don’t have any more questions,” she doesn’t pause for an answer, “then we should get started on the tour.”

  “Actually,” Flip says, gathering the materials she’s provided into his workbag. “I do have one more question, and I think it would be better discussed in your office, rather than in the hall.”

  “Yes?” She turns her slight wrist and glances at her watch again. She moves around the end of her desk and continues past Flip, heading for the door.

  “I don’t know what the salary range is for this position.”

  “Oh. Well. The range wasn’t posted intentionally.” She holds the door open for Flip, but he stands facing her, giving no indication that he’s ready to leave. After a moment she lets the door close again.

  Flip says, “I know you can’t, and shouldn’t, divulge insider information, so to speak. And that isn’t what I’m asking. I wouldn’t ask that. I’m simply curious about a ballpark range. Just to get an idea. This is a big decision for my family and me. Did I mention I have children?” He reaches for his back pocket as if he’s about to remove a wallet and intends to subject her to pictures, though he doesn’t carry a wallet and doesn’t intend to share his snapshots. They’re only for him.

  As he expects her to, she stops him. “Yes. And I can only imagine how this kind of decision will impact your family.” She waves off his attempt to share by flapping her tiny pale hand. “As you say, I can’t tell you a specific number. But I can tell you, the salary you listed for your last job is near the bottom of the range that DynaTech would consider to fill this position.”

  Flip’s chest constricts. For the first time today he feels like this opportunity is real. The salary he listed for his last position was a generous exaggeration. If he could come in at that number, he would be happy. The notion of getting more than that makes his head swim. His eyes feel fat in his head, and his neck itches.

  At his last job, he had reached the end of his potential advancement. Here, even starting with the inflated numbers he supplied, there’s potential for more growth over time. He begins to hope.

  But, as soon as he does, the preponderance of recent life experience warns him he’s about to be disappointed. That brings him back to reality. He gains control over the distracted, loopy feeling from wishful expectations and back pills. There is no way they will offer me this job. He feels he’s adequately impressed Myrna Mays with his knowledge of corporate nuance, artfully gleaned information from her, and positioned himself for any potential negotiation that might take place. He gives a polite smile and a nod and follows her out the door.

  Myrna hustles to the elevator while narrating: “The third floor is home to Human Resources, as you know, Bookkeeping, Payroll Services, and other internal financial departments.”

  In the elevator she pushes the button marked with a four and says, “The second floor is all Mail Room, Print Services, and the cafeteria. You can see that sometime. For now, though, I think we should push ahead.”

  The elevator doors open and Myrna strides out. A man and a woman in similar business suits step aside to let them pass. The man gives a friendly nod and the woman lifts her coffee mug in a pleasant acknowledgement. The mug reads: We Can Do It, over an image of a woman rolling up a sleeve over a muscular forearm.

  “Oh, hello, Rob. Hi, Tonya. See you at three thirty,” Myrna says, waving over her head as she passes. Flip is impressed with Myrna. She’s a little dynamo.

  “That was Rob and Tonya,” she tells Flip. “So, this is the fourth floor.” She leads him in a circuit of the floor, amid a maze of cubicles. Only the color scheme is different from the image he’d formed in his mind.

  “So here we have the Marketing group, the Graphic Design team, and Video Production.” She waves to a few people. At the end of the first hall she peeks into an open door and gives a cursory knock as she enters, leading Flip behind her. The fiftyish woman at the desk looks up, removes her reading glasses, and pushes a laptop away.

  “Flip Mellis, please meet Kris Harmon, VP in charge of Marketing,” Myrna says.

  Kris Harmon is a little on the heavy side, but very lovely. When she stands she’s surprisingly tall. Flip approaches and she leans over her desk to shake his hand. She has warm, dry skin with rough places. Something about her wide, honest face says gardener to him.

  “I’m interviewing for the Director of Internal Communications position,” he s
ays.

  “Of course. Great,” Kris replies. “Well good luck. If you get the job, we will be working together a lot. DynaTech is a good company. I’ve been here nine years now. Best job I’ve ever had. So, good luck and see you around.”

  “Aren’t you meeting with Flip upstairs?” Myrna asks.

  “I was supposed to, but I got pulled into a phone conference with the Columbus job. They need a lot of hand-holding right now.”

  “I didn’t know,” Myrna says.

  “Just happened.”

  There’s a clear current of tension in the exchange. Perhaps Myrna thinks Kris should have informed her of a change in plans. Perhaps Kris feels she is too high-level to be concerned with Myrna’s feelings. But they both behave professionally, and not knowing them, he can only speculate. He backs toward the door and waits for Myrna to finish.

  Myrna says her goodbyes and glances at her watch again. Flip looks at his watch too, but doesn’t really register the time. He’s bored. Bored by the whole familiar corporate song and dance.

  “Nice to meet you,” he calls to Kris.

  “You too,” she says, pulling her laptop close and bringing a phone to her ear.

  Flip falls into pace with Myrna. They complete their circuit; Myrna gives an occasional greeting or points out the minuscule distinctions between one set of contiguous cubicles and the next. They return to the elevators and wait for the doors to open.

  “She seemed nice, Kris Harmon,” he comments leadingly.

  Myrna smiles and nods, but her eyes stay narrowed, similar to how she looked at Larry. He feels proud of his finely honed observational skills. No wonder he is such a talented manager. The elevator opens and Myrna’s finger depresses the five button.

  They make the same circuit of the fifth floor. “This floor is devoted to our computer engineering department,” she explains. Flip nods and tries to care.

  Back in the elevator, they ride to the top floor. “The sixth floor is where the Communications department, the Executive Offices, and the Corporate Sales Office is located.”

  He takes it as a good sign that his future office would be near the top executives. Proximity leads to access, access leads to influence and job security. They step out, into a space that looks like a high-end law office. There’s rich wood paneling, wide, open spaces, and groups of dark leather chairs positioned between walled office suites.

  “Wow,” Flip says.

  “I know. Nice, huh?” Myrna replies. “It’s a different world up here compared to my shotgun office.” She uses her head to indicate the direction they are headed and leads the way a few yards to the door of a glass box conference room. She opens the door for him. There’s a long, high-polish wooden table that could seat sixteen, complete with rolling, black leather chairs.

  “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Mellis,” Myrna says. She smiles sweetly at him, just as Kristin used to, when she started misdirecting her daddy issues onto him.

  “Flip,” he reminds her.

  “Nice to meet you, Flip,” she corrects herself. “And really, I hope the interview goes well. You will be fine. You’re a natural.”

  “That’s sweet of you, Myrna. And regardless of how things go here, it was nice meeting you too. I’ll be sure to mention how gracious and professional you were. You’re a very good person to have representing this company to potential new employees.” While it seems like the right sort of thing to say in order to further endear himself to her, he also kind of means it. He shakes her hand warmly, giving an extra little squeeze at the end.

  She looks appreciative. “They should be in to see you in a moment. Make yourself comfortable. There’s water and coffee across the hall there.” She points through the glass back wall to a lounge area. “If you think you can handle it, you’ll have to make your own introductions. I’m sorry.” She taps her watch face and shrugs her slight shoulders.

  “I can handle it. I’ll be fine. No worries.”

  “Take care.” She leaves.

  Flip moves to the far side of the table and chooses a chair near the middle. For a moment, he considers sitting at the head of the table, but worries about seeming too presumptuous. He pulls his notepad and pen out and glances at the questions he fashioned before coming in. He refreshes his memory by reading the few notes he had scrawled in Myrna’s office. They don’t amount to much. He spends most of his time trying to decipher his chicken scratch and muse over what Seemingly left dog could possibly mean. He gives up, and writes the name “Kris Harmon” and her title. He documents some of the departments he walked through. He absently doodles a blocky handgun in the margins of the page. Motion catches his eye.

  Through the glass wall he sees three white men in dark suits demonstrating corporate-style, jovial camaraderie. They all carry similar workbags and manage to look casual and loose in their expensive suits while they joke and jostle each other. Flip has a sense they are happily retreading some old incident. As they near the door to the conference room they stop to finish their conversation, and one of them checks his BlackBerry. The other two, caught in a corporate Pavlovian response, take out their matching BlackBerries and scroll around the screens for a moment. There is a jocular exchange about some memo they are each reading separately yet simultaneously.

  When they’re done, they turn into the room and start introducing themselves. Flip stands and tries to look as relaxed as they are. He pretends they’re all gathering to compete in a good-natured sporting event, like a company softball league.

  “JonJon Baur,” the first man says. He’s middle-aged, of medium build, medium height, with a moderate amount of thinning, dusty brown hair. He dresses in layers of expensive-looking and lushly textured earth tones. “I’m VP in charge of National Sales Strategies.”

  “JonJon,” Flip says, as they grasp hands across the table. Many people repeat names upon introduction in order to commit a new person to memory. Flip simply believes self-important people like to hear their own names. He has no illusions that he will remember JonJon’s name by the afternoon. “Flip Mellis. As I am sure you know, I’m here for the Director of Internal Communications position.”

  “Yes. Of course.” JonJon turns to his companions and makes introductions. “This is our Director of Government Relations, Connor Craig.”

  The tallest and lankiest of the three stretches his long arm diagonally across the table, not really needing to get any closer.

  “Connor,” Flip says.

  “I like how you said I’m here for the job not I am interviewing for the job. Like you’re here to claim what’s yours. Very cool,” Connor says. Connor has thick, blond hair cropped so short on the sides Flip can see his head has a reddish tan. His suit is dark and his tie brings out his scalp.

  “And this,” JonJon continues, “is the newest member of our team, the highly esteemed Mr. Amos Zimmerman.”

  A short, stocky man in his forties with a shaved head and a full beard comes around the end of the table and takes Flip’s hand.

  “Amos,” Flip says.

  “Flip,” says Amos. Amos looks a little scuzzy; his beard looks as if it was trimmed by gnawing rodents, and his black suit looks as if it has been slept in. Flip can easily imagine him sitting on a flattened cardboard box and jangling a cup full of change in the mouth of some alley.

  “What department are you with, Amos?”

  “I’m the VP in charge of Computer Products and Networking Services.”

  “Good to meet you, Amos.”

  They all take seats and each of them hoists a computer bag into an adjacent chair. JonJon and Connor on one side, Flip and Amos on the other. They each turn to search through their bags and pull out copies of Flip’s resume and application. JonJon clears his throat as he looks at some notes, obviously preparing to lead the discussion. Flip readies himself to pay close attention to his tone, rhythm, and energy level, in order to emulate it.

  “So,” JonJon says in a conversational tone. “Why don’t you take a moment to tell me what you know abou
t DynaTech.”

  “So,” Flip says, in a conversational tone, arranging his arms and tenting his hands in a casual variation of JonJon’s physicality. “I would love for you to fill in the gaps as I go. But as I understand it, DynaTech is a national data management and technology consulting firm that employs computer engineers to create proprietary computer programs and networking packages to serve particular industries. Namely health insurance and medical care facilities.” Flip impresses himself with his capacity to reorganize and regurgitate the stream of information Myrna has already shared with him.

  “Yes. That is basically accurate,” JonJon agrees. “But DynaTech is not just national. We have two offices in Europe and one in Canada. We are preparing the way to open an office in South America.”

  “And we don’t sell just a few products to a few industries,” Amos adds. “While it’s true all of our largest clients are hospitals and insurance companies, each of those hospitals has different needs. So each program and network we design—”

  “And maintain,” Connor says.

  “And maintain,” Amos agrees, “is actually designed specifically for each client. It’s a huge undertaking.”

  “Impressive,” Flip says. “I was aware of your reputation, of course, but not the scope of your operation.” Flip knows flattery is the coin of the realm with upper managers.

  “Your resume indicates an impressive amount of experience in writing and communications. But, tell me, is it safe to say you don’t have a depth of knowledge in programming? Is that fair?” Amos asks.

  “Yes. Absolutely,” Flip says.

  “How do you hope to write about what we do with limited background knowledge?”

  “Good question, Amos.” Complimenting the questioner is always a good place to start. “And I understand your concern. In fact, I share it with you. But I understand the Director of Internal Communications’ role in the company is as an interface between your department, Amos, and that of Marketing and Corporate.” He looks around the table to see heads nodding. “I don’t have your knowledge about computer engineering. Clearly. But I am capable of capturing the most important elements of the work your department does and relating it to Sales and Marketing in a form that they can use to find more clients, and to communicate with existing clients.” Again, more nodding. He directs this last comment to Connor. “And of course boil it down into a persuasive set of bullet points that can be communicated to state and local politicians, help them understand how increased efficiency can save money and improve service in a cost-effective way. Which in turn eases the way with regulators and utilities whose services support the good work DynaTech does.” Flip stops talking and leans back in his chair. He wants to keep talking. He finds the silence scary. He wants to fill it up, keep selling. But he wills himself to breathe.