The Expediters

Some have commented that I am brave, courageous even, but if I am so it was through these seemingly never-ending trials and tribulations that made me so. I have been grown in steely ground and I seek the silky loam of a garden I have never seen. It seems that as fast as heartache and disaster comes, I am there to meet it - its brunt force striking my cheek and knocking me down. But sometimes it seems I can never meet the trouble fast enough, for it has expediters.

While I was living with my boyfriend, in my youth (see Leaving Home and Moving on), a friend of mine helped me get a job with expediters. I had no idea what an expediter was; what I learned is that an expediter helps "push" architectural plans through the department of buildings as their main function. The people I would be working for were a man and a woman who had known each other for years. They were based out of a shared office, several expediting companies divided by cubicle walls, right in the heart of the building housing the department of buildings.

My job was part secretary, part personal assistant. I would go upstairs and file plans with plan examiners, and I would remind the female partner to eat - she was diabetic and had to adhere to an eating schedule. There were already two expediting assistants who seemed to know just as much as the two partners; I felt like an unwanted step-child breaking up a happy family.

From the first day I knew that the female partner didn't like me. She found flaws with everything I did. Two weeks into me working there she began yelling at me, whatever went wrong in that office was instantly blamed on me. Unfortunately, because the company shared space with other companies, everyone who was there could hear this woman call me stupid and all sorts of jackasses at the top of her lungs. One day, she yelled at me so bad, that an intern from another company came to me, pulled me into the stairwell and gave me a hug. He gave me little pep talks almost every week. I would go home so stressed out that I couldn't turn my head from left to right.

I began noticing that the woman rarely yelled at me in front of her partner and it dawned on me - she thought I wanted her man. I asked one of my young co-workers if the partners were dating, she told me they lived together.

After weeks of being subject to being treated like an imbecile, all of a sudden she started being nice to me. There seemed to be peace in the office.

A certain plan examiner started visiting often, dropping off plans. This was highly unusual as plan examiners try to distance themselves from expeditors. One day he asked me to lunch, at the time there was an unwritten rule that I eat lunch at my desk so someone would always be in the office to answer the phone. When we went, the female partner told me to take as long as I wanted. Mr. Plan examiner and I ate lunch together 3 times a week.

One day, the female partner told me that the plan examiner wanted to take me out. I thought about it, plans were being approved at a lightening pace, and there was no more yelling. Although I knew she was pimping me, I chose to go all the same. I expected to have a nice time out - maybe dinner and drinks, but I was treated to something entirely different.

I met him downstairs and got into his shiny sports car. The first stop we made was to his dealer - he wanted to pick up some weed. I never did any kind of drug whatsoever and had no plans to do so - I was so uncomfortable as he rolled into this impoverished neighborhood and walked to a shady corner in a park and made his purchase. For all I knew he could have been purchasing crack, but I didn't have the fortitude to leave the car and go home.

Next, we went back to his place. . . I was mortified. It all made sense; I was supposed to have sex with this man in exchange for fast approval of architectural plans. I was livid. I went upstairs with him and sat at his kitchen table; he poured me a drink and began massaging my shoulders.

I stroked the glass gently, picked it up and swallowed in one big gulp. When he sat across from me I looked him directly in the eyes as he told me to get undressed. I said no, and that it was time for me to go home. He looked baffled, as though I were speaking some alien language, but after some thought; he stood back up and drove me home to my awaiting boyfriend.

I stopped having lunch with the plan examiner and the verbal abuse began again. During the last blowup the female partner had with me she actually came out and said I couldn't have the male partner. The next day I was fired.

I never let anyone speak to me like that again; not CEOs, not Presidents, not Heads of departments. I treated people with respect and demanded it in return. I am human, and I am worth something.

Tomorrow, Breaking Me. . .