Chapter 1
âSuccess is never final and failure never fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.â
âWinston Churchill
I BLINK AGAINST THE late morning sun (late morning, of course it looks strange, youâre never out here at this time of day comes the unbidden thought) and I force myself to concentrate on the dark green Honda in the half-filled parking lot dead ahead. My arms clutch the cardboard box blindly to me and I thinks maybe I can count steps, here, nothing to it, twenty steps to go, maybe less, blink, bright sun, blink, (donât cry donât cry,) fourteen steps now, the dry sound of the asphalt under my heels, ten steps, kid stuff, nearly there, come on (donât you do it, donât you dare cry, donât, donât) three, two oneâŠand with a loud exhale I allow the box to drop onto the roof of the small car.
The small, hollow movements from within the box serve as a bitter reminder of how few things it actually holds. Twenty-two years, and the physical evidence of my time on the job doesnât even fill a single, small box. My coffee mug. The three small plaques from the consecutive years in which my team had exceeded the corporate safety goals. My signed copies of Docâs last two books. The framed picture of Keith and our kids, smiling out, Motherâs Day 2008, the frame says, âWe Are So Proud of You!â and, and (donât cry donât do it not here not where they can see)
âŠand would they be proud today, of this, not likelyâŠ
Fumbling my keys out of my purse, the key ring slips from my fingers, and in twisting to catch them my shoulder brushes against the box and now itâs falling, itâs that kind of day, there it goes, sliding in slow, inexorable motion down the side of the car, the lid falling open, the contents tumbling, tumbling⊠I half lunge, my hands groping to try and catch something, anything, missing everything, the dull crack of ceramic on asphalt, and a higher-pitched, crisp >TIK!< and I know, even before I look, the glass covering the picture of Keith and the kidsâŠyep. A big crack, forking and reforking into a tiny splintering web in the corner.
I pick it up gingerly and a large piece falls out, tinkling into smaller pieces as it hits the pavement below and somehow thatâs it, thatâs the last straw; I know distantly that for perfect cornball irony the picture should have been something of me working happily at my job, what job Jo, right, former job, my past, cracking into sharp and cutting splinters but here, âWe Are So Proud Of You!â broken, which is exactly the way I feelâŠand itâs stupid, I know itâs stupid but I canât help it, the tears come and my breath shudders into heaving sobs and I sag against the car, bereft and so alone.
After only a moment I start to feel the wall of blank, corporate glass staring down at me from the other side of the parking lot. I imagine eyes on the other side of that glass, watching, whispering, who is that, is that Joanne Cruse, did you hear what happened, oh noâŠItâs more than I can take; in quick, jerky movements I sweep my things into my box, noting absently when the sharp edge of the chipped mug catches my knuckle and the blood starts to flow, fine, might as well leave a little blood on the ground while Iâm making my getaway, stride around half blindly to the driverâs side, toss the box over to the passenger seat and climb in, stabbing the key into the ignition and twisting it savagely, feeling the little engine catch before I smash the accelerator, revving it and then dropping it into reverse, lurching backward out of the spot, braking hard, shove the gear shift forward, stomp on the gas, the tires chirping as my little car hurtles out of the parking lot, swerving wildly onto the access road.
ONCE IâM ON THE ROAD I calm down a fraction and ease off the gas. No sense getting killed. The headlines would be too perfect: âAward Winning Safety Director Killed Doing Sixty in a Twenty-Five.â Just as I achieve a more safe and sane speed, tinny music blares from my cell phone: Bette Midler singing âYou Gotta HaveâŠFrriieeee-eennnnddss.â I smile, Jeff.
Jeffâs more than a friend. Heâs an advisor and a confidante and a defender and a wingman. If he werenât gay Iâm certain we would have generated enormous amounts of office romance gossip. (Who knows, maybe we did anyway.) Heâs a rare combination of no-nonsense, bottom-line assessments mixed with sly humor, and he runs the Quality Division of Perfect Plastics with cool efficiency.
Heâs also the first person in the company I turn to when I have a problem. A couple of years ago I had a huge problem with our old General Manager (stop saying âourâ Jo, itâs âtheirâ now), and Jeff hadnât known me very well at the time but he had seen someone being wronged and just like that, he stepped in to help. Weâve been good friends ever since, and Iâve always hoped Iâd get to return the favor someday. Seems less likely as of about two hours ago.
I grab the phone and thumb the button, âHey Jeff.â
âJoanne!â His voice crackles with cell phone static but his concern is still audible. âI just heard something insane; tell me itâs not true.â
I try to laugh. âDepends on what you heard. If you heard I no longer get the employee discount in the cafeteria, you heard right.â
âOh honeyâŠIâm so sorryâŠâ
The pained sympathy in his voice makes my eyes brim full again. Itâs the kind of friend he isâwhen youâre happy, heâs happy, and when youâre hurting, heâs hurting. Thin attempts at humor are pointless, heâll just see through them to the pain underneath. I blink quickly, trying to clear my vision.
âListen Jeff, Iâm on the four-sixty bypass and the cell phone is trying to squirt away from my ear, lemme find a place to pull over and call you right back.â
âIâm right here, doll.â I hear the beeps of the disconnect and I toss the cell phone onto the seat next to me. More ironic headlines: âEx-Safety Director Drives Blind While on Cell Phone.â Sub-headline: âBegan Defying Death Upon Exiting Office for Last Time.â
Yeesh. Get a grip, girl. There we go, Kwik Stop, thatâs exactly what Iâll do, stop real quickâŠI grab the phone and punch speed-dial. Jeff picks up immediately, âYou at the Kwik Stop?â he asks and I have to laugh. âWhatâs so funny?â he asks, mock-wounded, âItâs the only logical stop in the first seven miles from here.â A head full of trivia, thatâs our Jeff. (their Jeff, whispers the devil whoâs been living in my brain for the last couple of hours, heâs not yours anymore and I feel a stab of pain. Will I wake up in six months to discover this friendship ended the same day as my paychecks?)
âJeff, weâre not gonna fade out of each otherâs lives, are we?â I hear myself asking anxiously. âWe wonât let this be an excuse to fall out of touch, will we?â
His voice is soft and soothing. âI am wayyy harder to get rid of than that, and Iâm not looking for any excuse to fall out of touch, now listen, I need you to take a deep breath and justâŠtell me.â Such an easy request. So hard to perform. The deep breath makes some of the sobs locked in my chest break apart and start to dissolve. It feels good. I do it again. Now for the âTell meâ half of the equation.
A third deep breath and then âI got called in to see Kathy Miller right after our morning meetingâŠâ In telling it, my mind travels back. Allllll the way back to two hours ago. It feels like a lifetime. In a way, perhaps it is.
I had come into work today feeling upbeat and happy, the way I usually feel. I loved my job; I loved the people I worked with and I loved the fact that my job actually made a difference. We saw to it that people working in a dangerous environment went home whole. Perfect Plastics had the same hazards as any manufacturing operation, but had significantly fewer injuries and no fatalities on my watchâever. Not one. These men and women went home every night to their families and took care of themselves and each other every day, and as Director of Safety I played a big role in that. It felt good.
Weâd had our normal meeting this morning. Itâs just a chance to share observations from the previous dayâs work, bring up any topics that need attention. One of the reasons our record is so good is that the workers own the process; they all feel personally responsible whenever anyone is injured. These morning meetings are part of how that ownership is ongoing.
We wrapped up and I was on my way to check some figures for a study which had asked permission to use our plant as a baseline model for excellence in safetyâflattering to be asked, but I wanted to make sure their numbers were accurate. But before I could get to my desk, our floor receptionist Melissa said âJoanne, Kathy Miller wants to see you up in the Tower right away.â
The Tower: The top-floor office with huge, tinted windows which oversaw the plant floor on one side and the administrative floor on the other. It was the traditional roost of the plantâs GM and it held a certain sense of foreboding. Trips to the Tower were never fun. In fact, Jeff and I had met and bonded over an experience which began with the Towerâs previous inhabitant, who had moved on two years ago and left in his place the icily-quiet Katherine Miller.
Jeff interrupts my reflecting, âDid you have any idea what she wanted?â
I sigh, âNo. I mean, itâs the Tower, sheâs not having me up for tea and crumpets, but I figured she wanted to emphasize the importance of some upcoming benchmark or something, you know?â
âMmmmâ Jeff agrees. If you donât know him, he might sound as though heâs not paying full attention, but I know itâs the oppositeâheâs so dialed in heâs got nothing left for chatter. Listening as hard as he can. Hoping heâll hear something he can do to help.
As Iâm telling him, I canât help thinking about how dreamlike the whole episode feels, especially my memory of the elevator ride. I had pushed the top button and felt the same sense of increasing dread I had felt anytime I found myself in this dark, wood-paneled compartment. Some people compare it to an elevator to your dentist for root canal, some people say itâs actually a trick and youâre traveling down ten-thousand feet to a subterranean lair, but no matter what stories we tell each other afterward, itâs never a fun ride.
âBefore I knew it, Katherine was gesturing me into a chair and telling me she was sorry, she was going to have to keep things brief, she was sure I was aware of the challenges facing the company with profits being eroded from overseas competitors and fewer manufacturerâs placing the kinds of advance orders that keep our cash flow viable, and while I tried to think of something hopeful to say she pushed a Work Force Reduction package across her desk at me and said, âIâm afraid weâre out of options.â
Jeff stops me again. âHang on,â he says, as though seeking some hidden punch line. âShe WFRâd you? Like that?â
âOh, no it gets better,â I answer him, a small, bitter laugh escaping me. âI just stared at the package, you know, it was just jamming in my head, Work Force Reduced, me, today, now, no, it canât be, and I asked her something like âbut what will happen to the Safety Program, you can just pitch itâ and then she waved her hand, waved her hand, okay, like some petty little duchess who didnât like her dessert, and she says âThat will fall under HR nowâthe program is so smooth, it practically runs itself.ââ
I can hear Jeffâs mental gears grinding. âWait, slow down, sheâshe said your program, your program, doesnât need you?â
âThatâs right. And then she kinda smiles like weâre pals and she says, âI guess if you hadnât done such a good job we wouldnât be able to trim your office.ââ
âOh Good HeavensâŠâ I can hear from his voice that Jeff has actually tipped his head back, away from his phoneâs mouthpiece.
Thereâs a weird masochism in it for me now, a fascination with exactly how badly I can make it hurt, like poking at a sore tooth, and I tell him the coup de grace: âBut Jeff listen, she sits there after she says this and can see me, like, just, you know, system failure, blue screen, I canât process any of it, and I feel her staring at me, kind of intrigued, right, like Iâm some bug in a science project and she asks, âAre you surprised?ââ
âNO!!â Heâs aghast. I canât blame him. I am too, actually; Iâve just had a few more minutes to get used to the idea.
âYup,â I nod, as though he can see me, and then I can feel my voice wavering again. âIt was like she was almostâŠamused, you know? Like Iâm a story sheâs gonna tell to all the other executioners later, like how could she not know it was coming, what a moron!â
âJo, how could you have evâ?â
âI FEEL LIKE AN IDIOT!!â I shriek, and Iâm not shrieking at Jeff really, Iâm shrieking at the whole universe...