I'm still kind of numb from what happened today.

I may have done a great thing, I'm not sure yet, time will have to tell.

The day was going along like any other day, I was getting a few trades, but spending most of my time on research for one of our very picky commercial customers. I wasn't making any kind of effort to slack, I was just working my regular pace and taking calls as they came in between doing my research. Toward the end of the day, one of the executives on the board, walked out on the floor and started talking to Larry.

"I've just been talking to Human Resources, they've got a great group of new CSR's coming through training that are going to make up for some of the older CSR's that are slacking off. Maybe we can start getting rid of some of the dead wood around here. You, know, like those that take so much time pretending to do research instead of knocking out trades like the real professionals here. Once these new people get trained, we'll be able to start getting rid of those kind of people soon. There's simply no reason all of the CSR's can't be bringing in numbers that guarantee profitability. We're here to make a profit, its a shame some people don't see that."

The king of subtlety he was not. The pattern of speech, the volume and tone communicated so much. That tone! Oh, if you could only hear his tone! His tone was so condescending, so utterly superior, yet so incredibly ignorant, I could only think bitterness, hatred, and guile. He mocks and sneers at what he sees on his excel spreadsheets, but he can't be bothered to speak to us to find out any real answers. His Brooks Brothers suit, his shiny wing tips, the gold ring and the moussed hair, it all made me sick with rage. We haven't seen raises in a long time, but our sales make his bonuses.

I had more than a hunch he was referring to me. I didn't hear Larry agree or disagree with him. The fact that Larry didn't stick up for me, or offer even a feeble defense, that said he either agrees with this schmuck or is more of a putz than I originally thought. Whether I was paranoid or not, something had to change around here. This time I was going to get to the bottom of this, even if it meant I would be fired.

More tomorrow...

Thanks for reading,

AC

Click below to read the other parts of this series
Part III
Part II