My Sweet Jesus - Did I Fall By the Wayside, Like the High School Guidance Counselor Warned ...

 SHORT SHORT FICTION BY JANE GENOVA

My grand niece is taking this down. 

My hands are like tree roots. 

I can't remember if it was Cravath, Kirkland and Ellis, Ropes & Gray, Paul, Weiss or maybe one of those so many law firms back then. 

That was before there were only 9 corporate ones. Where I think I was, the Executive Committee didn't know shit about technology. Probably they're not among the 9.  But you never know. To stop drinking  back in high school (those days with all the talking-tos I remember), I picked up Zen and there was a mantra: Clear Thinking, Don't Know. 

I do recall a little about closing a door. No, it wasn't my office. Sure there had been talk of unions, especially after the bloodbath in Q2 2024. Most ran the hell away from that talk. There was more fear than what my father told me about how it was at GE when Jack Welch pranced around. 

So we had to sign up for space to work. "Hoteling" they told us it was in town hall meetings. But you never knew when you would have to work. Nonono you couldn't go home to do the stuff on the anchor days. There were complaints on Fishbowl but not inside. I don't recall trusting anyone.  

Whoever was before me in that office was a fart machine. Just like everything else, I ignored that. You had to. Hoteling, after all, was a "best practice."

I fell to my knees. I prayed: My Sweet Jesus, please don't let me do harm to anyone. In the old neighborhood, my grandfather told me, they used to jump bullies. Then ride them around, like they were horses. Howdy, partner. 

A voice came to me. It seemed to be transmitted from the overhead lighting. I took that as a sign. Light. I had almost majored in English but my family wouldn't pay for that. 

The voice sounded like the high school guidance counselor giving us talking-tos in northern New Jersey. The meme was: Not falling by the wayside through poor choices. But the mystery was: What the hell was a poor choice? The classmate who dropped out of the college track junior year in high school and drove rigs - Did he fall by the wayside? 

The son who never liked me gleefully makes jokes that losing your memory is a blessing. Maybe it is. Maybe it is good that there is not much left about what I did to not fall by the wayside. Or maybe I did fall by the wayside. 

Jane Genova's novel "The Fat Guy From Greenwich" had been #30 on Amazon. Her nonfiction career guide "The First Critical Years of Your Professional Life" has been in print for decades. If you want her to tell your story, fiction or non-fiction, you can reach her at 203-468-8579 text/phone or janegenova374@gmail.com.  


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