6
THE WHIP
The first meetingof the Interoffice Relationship Policy Revision Team meets on the Monday after Ollie and I have our dinner date. There are six of us in the group: two senior managers (Ollie and Destiny), two accountants (me and Brant), and two client service workers (Lana and Niamh) whose job it is to answer questions on our customer hotline. Lana and Niamh are both in their early twenties and seem like good friends; when I enter the conference room, they are grilling each other about their weekend.
“No, but seriously, you must still be hungover,” Lana is saying.
“I had a juice cleanse on Sunday so I’m fine.”
“Was there vodka in that juice?”
“We are at work, Lana. Don’t come at me like that.”
“Don’t come at me with 2 a.m. texts that you met Chris Hemsworth only it’s some bartender in Hoboken.”
I take a seat at the table opposite Ollie, who looks silently amused by this discussion.
Destiny arrives and calls things to order quickly. “Okay, folks,” she begins. “We are here because of a serious sexual harassment complaint, so let’s take our work seriously. Our jobis to review the company policy, get some input from employees about the current guidelines, and then write a recommendation for our proposed policy revision. I have been told that one of the key expectations is that we will write up a better self-disclosure policy, meaning that people who start dating will be required to disclose it to H.R.”
Ollie and I carefully look anywhere but at each other.
“With that in mind, I wanted to mention that one reason you were all selected for this group is because nobody here is believed to be in any kind of serious relationship with another employee, so you can be fairly neutral and not push for policies that benefit your interests. Hopefully that is accurate.”
Ollie and I glance at each other. Do we need to self-disclose? Are we ‘serious and monogamous’ or not? He says nothing and neither do I.
Destiny outlines a plan for the committee: we will have a couple of initial meetings, send out a questionnaire to employees, then have an all-day meeting (probably as an off-site) where we lock ourselves in a room to work out the details of our write-up, and then revise the initial report and talk about how and when to present our plan.
The word ‘off-site’ is a red flag for me as a single mom. It could mean renting a nice conference room two blocks away where we can isolate ourselves and work, but it could also mean an all-day trip to somewhere like a sculpture garden in New Jersey or a horse farm in Connecticut, where everyone else will be enjoying the scenery and I will be fretting about how much I have to pay a babysitter because I won’t be getting back to the city until 9 p.m.
“I love off-sites!” Lana looks delighted.
“Remember that time we did a ski weekend last year?” Niamh asks.
“I remember the Baileys and hot cocoa,” Lana says. “The skiing not so much.”
“We should make them pay for a spa day!” Niamh directs this to Destiny, who already looks a little tired of their enthusiasm.
“I think off-sites could be challenging for some people,” Ollie offers, glancing my way, “if they have kids or commitments in the city.” He briefly meets my eyes, and I am filled with gratitude.
“I have kids, and I like off-sites,” Brant replies dryly. “Gets me out of the house.” I want to roll my eyes, because he has complained to me multiple times that his wife has custody of his daughters ninety percent of the time.
“Alright, let’s do a quick vote,” says Destiny. “Who wants to have our off-site outside the city?”
The vote lands in favor of leaving the city by four to two. Ollie glances at me and looks away again, and I think about how ridiculously attractive he is. Somewhere deep inside me, Rebel Laura pops up her head again, telling me to rub my foot against his leg under the table.No, I’m not going to do that.Because I’m an adult. And because Destiny doesn’t look like she wants to deal with any nonsense. And because I don’t want to look completely desperate.
I wish Vivi were here, so I could at least confess to my sexual frustration on a yellow notepad. When the meeting wraps up, we walk out into the hallway and I lean against the wall, pretending to check my phone while giving Ollie space to catch up with me if he wants to.
“Thanks, Laura,” Destiny says as she walks past. “Your input was helpful.”
“I’m really looking forward to this,” I say with forced cheer.
Ollie pauses across from me in the hallway, glancing at his cell phone as well. Brant steps between us and glances at Ollie and then at me.
“Well,” he says, “want to chat on the way back?”
There’s no way to dodge the request without being obvious. “Of course,” I say. I follow Brant toward the elevator bank.
“Ten percent,” he says to me as we step on the elevator. “They’re talking about a ten percent downsize next year. So you’re putting in some face time with the VPs at exactly the right time. I’m sure that’s why Lana and Niamh are there; some of the managers want to replace half our customer support team with artificial intelligence.”
