“Grief is love not wanting to let go” – Earl A. Grollman
We had a bad experience with renting out our townhome in West Hill before but that didn’t stop us from renting the basement apartment to a couple of students. Lynda was very kind to them. She didn’t charge them enough to start with by considering their student status but that didn’t work out well. They started having three or four girls living in the basement. If that wasn’t bad enough for us, they started having loud parties during the week and it so happened that Adam’s bedroom was right above their living room where parties used to take place. I went down more than once in the middle of the night to knock on their front door and warn them that our son cannot sleep due to their loud music. In the end Lynda decided to evict them and rented the place out to a single mother who used to work as an instructor for the YMCA. That was a right move as we never had any problems with that tenant.
One day when I got back from work, Lynda said go get changed we are meeting Estelle and John for supper. She said they are in town on their way to PEI (Prince Edward Island). We took the kids with us to see their aunty and uncle and had a nice meal in a nice restaurant. We couldn’t possibly stay long as the kids had school in the morning. Nevertheless, it was nice to see them for a little while.
I was so wrapped up with my business undertakings that I didn’t realize that Maxine was misbehaving consistently. She had gone through multiple boyfriends in a short period of time and her current boyfriend appeared to be very demanding. Inevitably, she was not only staying out quite late but she started sleeping over a lot. As far as her school was concerned, she never had a wonderful report card to start with but recently it started getting noticeably worse. Whenever I brought it up with her either she ran away from me or started crying. Lynda wasn’t altogether content with my inquisitorial attitude and I had no idea what she was scared of. Perhaps she thought now that Maxine is not a little girl anymore, she should be provided with less restrictive environment. As far as I was concerned she never demonstrated any kind of maturity to deserve more privileges then again I was only a stepfather. I didn’t think it was that important at the moment to make a federal case plus I was also in the middle of everything with my job. Hence I decided to back off.
I updated my resume and applied for the job that Gill had suggested a week after our lunch. It took a week for them to get back to me with a date for an interview. There were three Touché Ross folks in the room. Gill was leading the process and the other two, one female and one male consultants, supposedly had the computer operation expertise to question me. Initially they allowed me to talk about my experience and I tried to be brief. However, Gill interrupted and told the other consultants that Mir’s being modest and humble about his background as I had checked his references and believe me they were excellent. Therefore, instead of talking about the past, we should ask him about the future. For instance, we should ask Mir what he would do to organize his area of responsibility, Production Control, if he is selected to be the manager, Production Control. That stopped the other two from grilling me.
I sat back and said I don’t know any fancy words to articulate the description of the function in a meaningful way but I can only talk about what I think it should be in a very simple way. Gill said that’s what we need to hear Mir. He said take it away.
I readjusted my sitting position to face the three of them and look into their eyes one by one instead of just addressing Gill as I didn’t want the other two to think that they weren’t important enough. I said in my humble opinion from an overall perspective there are the following four major components to production control:
- Predicting: You need to maintain a close contact with the user community to be in the position to anticipate their requirements which could be confirmed subsequently;
- Planning: Based on the intelligence gathered in the previous step, there’s a need to address how best those predictions can be materialized on a timely and judicious basis and then document them in a simple way;
- Scheduling: It’s a function of appraising the available computer capacity as well as manpower to determine when and how that can be utilized to perform the planned tasks and activities;
- Monitoring: It’s critical to make sure that all planned and scheduled tasks are executed successfully on time or otherwise reported back with proper explanations for an immediate corrective action for each task; and
- Reporting: The focus of this activity should be on the report produced in the previous activity to make sure that necessary corrective action was taken for each exception to the scheduled tasks on an expedient basis to minimize the interruption.
When I stopped for a second to breathe, Gill said WOW! You obviously have thought everything about this job, haven’t you, Mir. I said on the contrary Gill I lived by these rules in my previous professional life until I came to Fredericton. In other words it has been a way of life for me. Gill said I don’t know what to tell you, Mir. I am totally enthralled by listening to you but we are not in the position to offer you the job you applied for as we have to interview three more candidates. Perhaps I should have also mentioned to you the fact that your department is almost fully unionized and we have to be extra careful to proceed with this process of promoting you to a management position. I said I am not bothered or anxious about anything at this stage of life as I am planning to go back doing whatever I had been doing until I hear something different from you. On that note we said our goodbyes.
When I got to my office, I was sad. I had no reason to rush home to “unpack” everything that I had learned in the interview and look forward to listening Lynda’s comments as Lynda had been kind of dismayed with me for treating Maxine the way I did. I definitely didn’t think that I would have done anything different if my own son had behaved like that. But it could have been a question of rationality and mother’s feelings. I also knew that Lynda always blamed me about Ruth. She thought I was the reason she never wanted to live with us. I wished there was a way I could have convinced her otherwise but it appeared to be too late for now anyway.
As soon as I was getting ready to leave the office, David came along and asked me if I was coming to the pub. I said why not. It became a kind of routine for me for the last couple of weeks and I was getting home late when everybody was in bed. Most of the nights, I slept on a couch with the intention not to disturb Lynda. It’s not that we never had any difficulties with our relationship but this time was entirely different. While I was feeling nothing but like a bum with my recent drinking habits, I was getting to know a little bit about the Maritime culture. Nobody seemed to go home directly from their offices. They almost always went to the pub to drink with their friends or co-workers and relaxed before they headed home. I also noticed that most of the time they discussed business and made decisions right there while drinking. Perhaps my motivation for joining them in the pub was to demonstrate to them that I may look different but I am not entirely different as I figured if I got the job I was interviewed for, most of those folks could be working for me. This way I could get to know them better which might be a wishful thinking.
Here’s a brief background on my drinking habit. Typically drinking habit comprises three elements of cue, routine, and reward. However, in my case, I never drank when I met Lynda. She wasn’t a drinker either. She used to drink occasionally and I started sharing a drink or two with her when we used to give dinner parties to our friends. Being English, like her parents, she was a tea connoisseur and that’s all I used to drink when I lived in India.
Be that as it may, when I used to have lunch with one of my Indian friends, now and then, he introduced me to rye and gingerale. The next thing I remember, one evening when I got home from work, she had a bottle of rye and gingerale for me. Obviously, she knew about my drinking with my friend. I also remember Adam took me out in Calgary on one of my birthdays in Calgary and he was only ten years old but he ordered a rye and gingerier for me.
Yet, I was drinking regularly with my co-workers in Fredericton for an entirely different reason. I felt as I was fulfilling the two elements of of drinking habit – Cue and routine – but I never knew the reward for my drinking.
When I got back from lunch on Friday, two weeks after my interview with the Touché Ross folks, I found a message on my desk telling me that I had a meeting scheduled with the Executive Director, Gord Scott, at 3:30 PM. I had no idea about the subject of the meeting. I had deliberately stayed away from being seen with Gord since the big meeting when everybody got fired. I didn’t like to put him in a difficult position as everybody in the department was just curious about the whole situation. It was too bad that I couldn’t possibly call Lynda and chat about it. She was still mad with me and I was still sleeping on a couch.
I had only one meeting this afternoon at 2:00 PM which didn’t take too long. The curiosity was killing me. I didn’t think it had anything to do with my interview as I expected Gill to keep me posted about the next step which he had promised. Any way, I took off little early and went to a coffee shop not too far from Gord’s office where I spent several minutes before I decided to face the music. As soon as I walked in Gord’s secretary asked me if I wanted coffee and I said thanks but no thanks. She said go right ahead, he is waiting for you.
As soon as I entered his office, I saw Gord and Gill were sitting in the seating area and Gord said, come on in stranger. I grabbed a chair facing both of them and said hello to both of them. Gord asked if Lynda and the kids are okay and I said they are just great. He looked at Gill and said go right ahead Gill. If my memory serves me correctly what Gill said was: We completed the interviews and assessments for the remaining three candidates for the job that you had applied for and they, no doubt, had tons of experience and were definitely qualified but not for this job. Consequently, we made our recommendations to Gord that you should be promoted to the management position.
Gord just got up raising his hand to shake and said congratulations. He said guess what you don’t have to work from a rented basement any more, you and your staff have offices in the brand new building. I said I don’t know what to say guys. You don’t have to as you have the enormous challenge of configuring your department and assigning folks accordingly based on their skills which is going to take at least a couple of weeks. I said I am glad that it’s Friday today and I will spend some time thinking about the whole thing on the weekend. Gord said perhaps on Monday you can hand over all the documents belonging to your current project to Peter and he will take it from there. Then you go to your new office in the new building.
The only other question that I have, I said, is who I will be reporting to in this position. Gord said you will be reporting directly to me. However, Gill had made recommendations that your position should be upgraded to a director level next year depending upon how successful this whole approach becomes. Gill asked Gord if he could say something and without getting his permission he proceeded to address me. He said, Mir I don’t want you to think that you got this position only because you know Gord. I have personally checked your other references with Beaver Lumber Company and Playtex and I am thrilled to tell you that they were just excellent. You got this position on your own virtues. I didn’t know what to say but thank you and goodbye.
It was only 4:15 PM and I didn’t know where to go or what to do. I was sitting in the car and feeling sorry for myself as I wanted to talk to Lynda desperately about my promotion. I felt that she was entitled to some credit for going along with the idea to relocate to Fredericton for less money and lower position and not only trusting me but also cheering for me. She had always been there for me, through thick and thin, and had been my rock. But I knew that she was still mad with me. I kept re-examining my behaviour towards Maxine again and again and questioning myself if I was making a mistake. I knew in my heart that Maxine never liked me or our marriage and she was working on the same plan all the time to create difficulties for us and this time she was having a great success. It seemed to me as if Lynda lost all the confidence she ever had in me. It reminded me of the things the social worker told me about Maxine when we went through several months of continuous agony and distress.
Guess what? I ended up in the pub unintentionally. I thought it would be too early for anybody from my department to be there but I was wrong. As soon as I entered the pub, somebody called my name and I ended up sitting with them for a while. The table talk of course was about Touché Ross and their efforts to help the department. They wanted to know what I thought about touché Ross. I said I met them only a couple of times but they appeared to be reasonable people. They asked me if I was interviewed for any particular position. I said yes but didn’t like to go any further than that not knowing how they would react. Luckily somebody else popped in at that moment and the topic changed. I hung around until 9:00 PM in the pub and on my way home I stopped at a burger Joint.
When I got home, I was surprised to see that the bedroom lights were on which meant that Lynda wasn’t sleeping. I knew for sure that most of the nights when I got home lately, she pretended to be sleeping but this time she was awake reading her book. When I was getting changed, she asked me if I was hungry and I said I just ate. She said can we talk? I said of course. I sat in a chair across from her and said, what’s up. She said her mom was sick and she needed to go to Brampton ASAP. I said sorry to hear that but do you need me to make arrangements? She said she had already booked a flight for tomorrow to Toronto for 11:30AM and she couldn’t possibly ask her sister to come to the airport as she was working. She would take a taxi to Brampton. I said it sounded good. I told her that I needed to go to the office tomorrow morning for a couple of hours and I would get some cash from the bank and come and pick her up around 10:00 AM. She said okay.
Next morning on Saturday I went to the office to get the stuff related to my current project ready to be handed over to Peter on Monday before I took off for my new office. I went to the bank around 9:30 AM and got some cash. At the same time I got Lynda issued a debit card which she never had before and stopped at a coffee shop to have a toast and coffee for my breakfast as I was hungry.
When I got home she was all packed and ready. The kids were ready, too. While driving to the airport she said she had cooked several things for us and put them in the freezer. I said don’t worry about us, we will be alright. Before she proceeded to check in at the airport, I gave her the cash and the debit card, saying that I have transferred enough money into our chequing account and the password’s Adam’s date of birth, just day and month. She said thanks and told me not to forget to cut the grass this afternoon and I said yes, ma’am.
I took the kids for hamburgers for lunch. It was a marvelous May day in Fredericton. All the buds were bursting and birds were singing and I was still despondent and miserable. Nevertheless, when we got home, I got changed and organized my lawnmower to do both the gardens. I asked the kids if they could help me by picking up things. Once I finished the back garden, I went in to grab a drink before I started the front garden. As soon as I came out and was ready to get it going, I saw Jean walking by our front lawn. I shouted and said hello to her. She turned around and started walking towards us.
I told the kids this is Jean. She is the Business Manageress in Uncle Gord’s office. I introduced Adam and Maxine to Jean and told her that Lynda’s away for a week. They said hello to each other and then I asked Jean if she cared for a cold drink.
She said what you have got. I said come on in and check out what we have in our fridge.
She came in and said what a nice kitchen you have here and picked lemonade for herself. She said by the way congratulations on your promotion and I was going to come to your new office on Monday with a leather briefcase.
I said first of all how did find out about my promotion.
She said we have a tradition in our office we give a nice leather briefcase to our managers on their promotions. She said she found out about the promotion from Gord who wanted me to give you a briefcase. She didn’t stay too long. Just chatted for a few minutes and left me in the kitchen. I came out and started mowing the lawn as planned.
Lynda called in the evening to let us know that when she got to mom’s apartment in Brampton, she found mom on the floor. She had no idea how long she was there. In any case, she called the ambulance and transported her to Brampton General Hospital where she was being taken care of. That was indeed good news.
