A start to a fictional story about a Working Woman

The men on the 31st floor at 351 S. Innovation Drive were dying. Really, this was the second one that had dropped this month. Both unsurprisingly deaths, nothing brought on by the work environment.

Jeffrey had been taken down by pneumonia. You know, your immune system can’t always fight it in your 80s. Butch went peacefully in his sleep one night, the night after his 50 year anniversary party.

Rebecca had been managing the lawnmower product line for T.W. Pine for four years. She was doing well, and had achieved her annual gold star reviews and perfunctory 2.5% performance bonus each year, primarily because she was able to impress the Butch when presenting onstage at the Coconut Grove Suites, where the annual line review was held. “Introducing our new Pine Mower Pro, with more horsepower than an F150.”

She hadn’t really paid much attention when Jeffrey went kaput. He was old. People go and all. But she felt the dial turn within the product team with Butch, and it disturbed her in a way she didn’t know she could be disturbed.

It was Kathy who pointed it out, sitting out at a picnic table on the hardscape. Her flaky shoulders turning red in the sun, Kathy mused, “Doesn’t it all seem so orderly? It’s like T.W. has a death component in their talent planning memorandum,” referring to the closely held document that ranked and filed each employee at the company. The document essentially plotted the potential attrition and forecasted necessary future compensation for each head of the headcount. It was an essential annual exercise to mitigate inefficient attriting.

Ernie Schultz, the balding Head of Wheelbarrows, a T.W. tenure of 25 years, had been promoted to CPO. Glenn Rose, the Senior Product Director of Tree Trimmers, a T.W. tenure of 15 years, had been promoted to Head of Wheelbarrows. Lori Washbackler, the Product Director of the Cherry Picker line within Tree Trimmers, a T.W. tenure of 10 years, had been promoted to Senior Product Director of Tree Trimmers. Lori’s role went out for public auction, because Kathy, Rebecca’s boss, had only been at T.W. for 5 years. Kathy had joined after spending the first eight years of her career at a reverse osmosis water treatment company.

It was no secret that getting promoted at T.W. required gray hair, tenure, and death. But this waterfall of promotion announcements really put the spotlight on the fact.

It was at her niece’s birthday party that Rebecca finally realized why this made her blood pressure rise. Her sister, Kelley, introduced Rebecca to a group of Hannah’s friends in the kitchen. Spiked orange juice swirling in one hand, she bent slightly over to speak to the gaggle of pig-tailed 6 six year olds. “Hannah’s aunt Rebecca is a business woman,” said Kelley. “She works hard so she can get promoted and make money. One day, she’s going to make it to the top of her corporation and she’ll get to tell everyone else what to do. Take note, ladies. Girls can be bosses, too.”

It reverberated in her mind, even after the pigtails ran off with their paper plates of cake. “Girls can be bosses, too.” Yet for all the girl power in her, Rebecca couldn’t imagine being at T.W. for 25 years. Now that she was looking in the mirror, examining the bags weighing down her pupils, she wasn’t really sure she could stomach going to work on Monday morning. The slow clock of T.W., year after year hocking tools promising your “best spring yet.” It had to stop. This wasn’t the kind of business woman Rebecca wanted to grow up to be.