Revenge of the Cube Dweller

by Joanne Fox Phillips

  Perhaps arriving home with a $90 lobster tail from Mahogany’s will keep Nancy from tossing poor Hal out on his ear tonight.

  Once home, I shower, wrap myself in my robe, and head out to the balcony for a smoke and telephone chat with Lucy.

  “I was up all last night shooting at those damn coyotes,” she says. “I’m not sure my strategy is working very well.”

  “Told ya.” I laugh.

  “Oh hey, I forgot. Bumby says that NYU wants the first tuition payment by the end of the month. Will you be able to take care of that?”

  “Absolutely. And by the way, watch the news.” I tell her about the Tulsa World inquiry from the meeting on Monday, but not about my misappropriation. Like my two cigarettes a day, that is my little secret.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It is always interesting to see how companies handle mass layoffs. Employees generally watch the HR staff for the subtlest signals to fuel the rumor mill. Once, at a client’s back in the day, I stumbled upon a whiteboard in a conference room that had been left and forgotten by the project team detailing a reduction in force. HR does not typically attract detail-oriented people. Perkiness seems to be the attribute most important for that career. But there will be no perkiness today at the Bishop Group.

  A meeting notice is sent out to the entire corporate group at 12:01 a.m., indicating that an all-employee meeting is being held at the Hyatt down the street from our building at 10:00. Due to the large volume of attendees, employees are to observe meeting room assignments. One group will be in the main ballroom, and the “overflow” will watch on a closed-circuit TV in a smaller space. Employees assigned to the ancillary meeting room will be notified by a separate email. My separate email arrives shortly after the first, at 12:02 a.m. It is clear to me that there will be no closed-circuit feed, but rather tables of HR representatives who will process our severance while in the main ballroom Baldwin will deliver his congratulatory speech to the surviving members of the Bishop family.

  People start leaving for the meeting around nine thirty; just as in the case of the bomb scare, it is hard for everyone to get out at the same time. Frank and Moe stop by my cube as they head to the crowded elevator bank.

  “I’m taking the stairs,” I tell them. “We’re only on six, for heaven’s sake.” I grab my manila envelope and put it carefully into my purse before heading to the stairwell. I really need to start getting more exercise before my La Costa stay so I won’t pass out during the morning hikes.

  “Good idea,” says Frank. “I’m in the little conference room, and I want to make sure I get a good seat.”

  I start to laugh as I follow the many others with the same idea, going down to street level, leaving the Bishop building for what maybe only I knew was the final time.

  The mass of Bishop employees is funneling onto the Hyatt escalator up to the ballroom area. A sign at the top indicates that the main ballroom is to the left and the slaughterhouse is to the right. The herd parts at the top, and Frank, Moe, and I check in with a woman holding a clipboard at the entrance to the room. There are no HR processing desks set up, but there are no TVs, either. Moe and Frank become uneasy as they try to figure out how we will view the meeting. Our little room is filling up. I nod at Mazie and Amy, and they wave me over to sit next to them. Their boss, Rosie, is there, as are most employees in the Accounts Payable group.

  “They’re outsourcing us,” I overhear Rosie whisper to the woman next to her. “They kept two of the managers to handle the transition, but they will be gone in three months.” Amy and Mazie shift in their chairs when they hear this.

  Cindy is there, and so are Sophie and Todd from IT. All in all, there are about one hundred employees, mostly older people like me, but enough youngsters to thwart an age discrimination suit. When the last arrive, the doors are closed, and Skip Perkinson stands on a platform to address the group.

  “Thank you all for coming,” he begins. “As you know, the Bishop Group has had an unfortunate event that has affected our family of employees.”

  Skip drones on for a painful ten minutes before getting to the point of his address. As marvelous as Skip tells us we are, we have been in effect voted off the island. HR representatives are standing by in the adjoining room to process us. We will not be allowed to return to the Bishop building, and all of our personal items will be packed up and sent to us by courier.

  Mazie raises her hand. “Mr. Perkinson, I have medication in my desk. May I be allowed to go back and get it?”

  Good one, Mazie. I am sure that she and Amy are trying to figure out some way to cover their tracks, horrified that some stranger will soon be rifling through the enterprise they ran out of their cubes. Relax, ladies. First, no one in HR will ever be smart enough to figure out what you were doing, and second, to avoid looking like chumps the Bishop executive team gave you two a get-out-of-jail-free card. But of course, Mazie and Amy don’t know that.

  Skip refuses Mazie’s request and offers to have one of the HR flunkies go back to her desk and retrieve her meds while she waits to be processed. Sophie and Cindy are crying, along with several others, while we wait for our names to be called so we can enter the processing room. Frank and Moe pace at the back of the room, cell phones attached to their ears. Mazie and Amy are not crying.

  Thinking for a moment, I ask Skip if it will be all right if I go out for a smoke. He says okay, and Mazie and Amy join me, as I knew they would. We travel back down the escalator and find a shady spot by the valet stand.

  “What are you going to do?” Amy asks.

  “Me? I’m getting a goddamn facelift and an extended stay at a fat farm. How about you?”

  Mazie laughs. “We have family in New Orleans. Maybe we’ll go for a fresh start there. Who knows—when God closes a door, He sometimes opens a window.”

  I remember my conversation with good old Buster Connelly at the airport and how he considered pipeline explosions a tragic but necessary cost of doing business. I search around in my purse, pull out a business card, and hand it to Mazie. “You might want to look this guy up,” I say. “I met him at the President’s Club at the Houston airport. He owns an oil company down there, and I think he may be looking for a new secretary. He’s a big LSU fan, so I would brush up on my Tiger football stats. Tell him Tanzie from Tulsa sent you.”

  I put my cigarette out and chuckle at the thought of Buster being bilked by these two as I head back to Salon B.

  When my name is called, I walk over to a small area that has been partitioned off to allow the minimum level of privacy.

  Brenda, my HR representative, sits with her laptop, opens my paper file, and explains my “package.” It comes to two weeks’ pay—less my recent sick time, of course—and the opportunity to sign up for COBRA health benefits for a whopping $700 a month. She does her best to project real sympathy for my situation, and I am impressed with her sincerity, given that I am about her twentieth client this morning.

  “Brenda,” I begin. “Would it be possible to get a copy of the review I was given in March? I didn’t take a copy at the time, but I want to have a one in case I need to show it to my future employer.”

  Brenda flips through my file and pulls out the Bishop Performance Management Report from the blue cardboard divider. “Um, let me see if there’s a copy machine around here.”

  I watch Brenda get up and consult with an older supervisor, then disappear from view. In her absence, I take out the manila folder and place my forged pay change authorization form in the back of the file. I smile at the outstanding job I have done forging Hal’s and Skip’s signatures on the approval line.

  “Here you go,” Brenda says when she returns as she cheerfully hands me the requested report. “If you will please sign your exit agreement, Tanzie, we’ll be all done.”

  “Brenda, I have a question,” I say, looking up from the form. “I don’t think my title is correct here. Last month I was given a title change to Audit Consultant. I remember signing a form, but I didn’t kee
p a copy. There wasn’t a pay increase, but Hal gave me the new title as sort of a pat on the back for a building security audit I did. Can you please check my file?”

  Brenda gives me a look and then eyes the stack of ten or so other folders still needing to be processed.

  “Please,” I repeat. “It’s really important that I give the right title on my resume.”

  Brenda thumbs through my file again and stops when she finds the change form. “Oh.” She looks at me. “I guess this just didn’t get entered into the system.”

  Brenda starts clicking on her laptop and then walks over to get her supervisor. I worry for a moment that the supervisor might question it, but she, too, is looking at a very long day. And so, just as I envisioned, my title change is finalized in the interest of moving the process along. Brenda crosses out and initials my exit agreement with the revised title. I shake hands with both women after I sign the amended agreement.

  “I’m sure you’ll find something soon, Tanzie,” Brenda says.

  “Thank you. I’m sure you will too, Brenda.” I turn away and leave the makeshift processing station.

  Five minutes later, I am in my Lexus pointed south on Highway 75 toward Houston. With any luck, I will be enjoying a late dinner at the club with Beth and Grant.

  After several months of monitoring email accounts, thanks to Baldwin’s predictable password selection, and attending secret meetings via conference calls, I have compiled quite a bit of damaging evidence. Although none of it can be used in court, it could certainly prove valuable in squeezing information out of others at Bishop.

  I call my old friend Bill Matheson, the Houston lawyer who has been working on the explosion settlements. “Bill, this is Tanzie Lewis. Remember me?”

  “How are ya, Tanzie! I’ve been trying to reach you for months now. Thanks for finally calling me back. What can I do for ya?”

  “I need to find out about attorney-client privilege,” I begin.

  “Why is that, Tanzie?”

  “You have something I want, and I have something you need.”

  In October 2010, the Houston Chronicle reports that a Houston sewer contractor has admitted liability for the pipeline explosion, for not observing the “call before you dig” protocol required, and I know my time has come. I send bundles to the Justice Department, DOT enforcement, the FBI Houston District Office, and good old Dan at the Tulsa World.

  I suddenly have a ringside seat to the biggest corporate implosion since Enron. Jury awards to victims of the explosion are predicted to set records, as the recent BP Deepwater Horizon fiasco in the Gulf of Mexico is creating a lynch mob mentality toward oil companies. Bennet’s fear of margin calls and a credit squeeze were spot on.

  Bad publicity makes creditors nervous, and one by one they call for margins and tighten credit limits on Bishop commodity trades. Plaintiff lawyers scream for potential damages to be placed in escrow to protect victims. In the course of two months after mailing the incriminating information, operating cash is drained, and bankruptcy rumors, once brushed off as nonsense, now look like a reality. Loyal coworkers who had built their careers at Bishop turn on each other like dogs after the same dead skunk.

  Baldwin and Bennet remain loyal to each other, but both are looking at very long, painful, and expensive litigation and criminal proceedings. Assets are frozen, and the trustees who will run Bishop on behalf of the bankers show up in Tulsa by the limo-full. The Bishop brothers themselves are no longer welcome members of Tulsa society. Their poor judgment has left Tulsa charities short-funded and hundreds of employees without jobs. Bill Matheson’s fortune is going to skyrocket, only immaterially affected by the loss of a particularly friendly black Lab.

  “We received your funds transfer, Mrs. Lewis,” says the freshfaced banker. “If you sign right here, the trusts will be set up and you can be on your way.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You certainly are a generous aunt, setting up college funds for all those nieces and nephews. And the Matthew Mayhew Scholarship at SMU. Any chance you would like to be an honorary aunt to my two?”

  I laugh as I get up, grab my purse, and shake his hand good-bye. “Thanks for your help on this,” I say. “It’s a wonderful feeling to be able to make a difference in people’s lives.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I arrive for my first day at my new job in my black suit, my hair pulled back with a large barrette. It feels good to be slim again and even better to have a fresh face and neck sans wrinkles and sags. Framed photos of a fleet of coal-fired power plants hang behind my new boss’s balding head. I flash a Lumineer smile as I settle into the leather chair across from his desk.

  “We expect great things from you, Tanzie. A promotion after only five months on the job is impressive.”

  “Thanks!” I tell him. “It was so nice working for people who appreciated hard work. I’m really going to miss my old team at Bishop.”

  “I read a little something about your former employer in WSJ this morning,” my new boss says. “God, what a shit-storm that turned out to be.”

  “I can’t believe it. They were just the nicest group up there; like family, really. I had no idea any of that was going on. I hope you don’t think I’m a bad auditor.”

  “Not at all, hon.”

  “Thank you for taking a chance with me. I’m certain I can get up to speed in no time.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you can. Take it slow and enjoy it. Just like you know what.” He leans forward and gives me a creepy wink.

  I take a minute to compose myself, hoping that the disgust leaching through my pores is not visible to my new boss. Still, I feel a familiar twinge of excitement as I laugh and smile back.

  “That’s a stunning painting in the reception area,” I tell him. “Do you know who the artist is?”

  “No ma’am, but it cost a shitload of money. You can be sure of that.”

  “I just know I’m going to like it here,” I say. “Thank you so much for this opportunity.”

  I get up and walk to the door, but I stop just short.

  “Have you considered performing a building security audit?”

  “Now that’s a good idea,” he says. “How soon do you think you could get going on that, hon?”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JOANNE FOX PHILLIPS is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and the director of internal audit for a midstream oil and gas company in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is a CPA, certified internal auditor, and certified fraud examiner. This is her first attempt at writing something longer and hopefully more entertaining than an audit report. She thanks her friends, family, coworkers, and editorial team for suffering through early drafts and providing encouragement and advice throughout the process.