Bitter Is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smart-Ass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry a Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office : A Memoir (3 page)

“Unless he’s cute, of course.”

“Naturally.”

“Ryan, you are SO my gay boyfriend.”

“I know, honey. I know.”

I cannot wait to order a mojito at the Hudson Club when I get home. I just love being more cutting edge than the arrogant dot-commers who still hang out there. Yeah, guys, the Internet boom? It’s over. And your team? Lost. Why don’t you get jobs at a
real
company? You know, the kind that actually makes things and turns a profit.

OK, so selling to those hateful dot-coms in my last job made me kind of rich. And because they threw so much of their venture capital at me, I earned sweet perks at my company, like a great title, my own office, and a pack of assistants to fetch me vanilla lattes
¹⁰
on demand. But I left those things to join this organization with its super-stable client base. And I manage a new product line, so it’s as exciting as a start-up, only without the threat of bounced paychecks. And it’s not like I don’t have the opportunity to remind others that I used to be a vice president at Midwest Investor Relations Company.
¹¹
Prediction? I will spend the rest of my career here.

I earn now in a day what I used to make in a week when I started my professional life doing data entry at a health insurance company. And my first shitty studio apartment in the city? Long gone. Fletch and I live in THE hot Chicago neighborhood of Bucktown—known for its trendy coffee shops, chichi boutiques, and the
most
fashionable clubs, in a twenty-five-hundred-square-foot timber loft with tons of space for my burgeoning shoe collection! With exposed-brick walls, fifteen-foot-high ceilings, spiral staircases, marble and granite finishes, etc., we’ve got the world’s coolest pad. Best of all, since we’re in the penthouse, I’ve got an uninterrupted skyline view from my private roof deck.
¹²
My brother, Todd, tells me we’re insane for spending what amounts to five of his mortgage payments on our monthly rent, but I’m not worried about it. He’s just jealous, and besides,
my
bills? Are paid.

Ryan gets up to scope out cute shirtless boys and their pale pectorals, so I turn my attention to Jeff. He’s a product manager on the West Coast and dresses like an extra from
Up in Smoke
. Don’t get me started on his disgustingly crusty feet…. He could climb trees with those toenails. Does this man even
own
shoes? I notice he’s just drib-bled beer on his tie-dyed top. Again. This annoys me.

“Jeff,” I ask, as he blots himself with a towel, “do you know what year it is?”

“Huh?” Jeff is puzzled. He’s been zoning out of conversations all afternoon and taking inordinately long pauses between thoughts. From his bloodshot eyes and the way he inhaled the crudités tray, I’d wager that he’s stoned. Again.

“I’m asking because I thought it was 2001, but judging from your shirt and your patchouli-scented cologne, I’d say it was more like, what? 1969?”

Like the swordfish today, Jeff doesn’t take the bait. He languidly exhales a stream of Marlboro smoke, slightly jarring his tarnished nose ring. “Wardrobe pointers from a chick who brought a”—he lifts my bag and reads the label—“
Kate Spade
purse on a deep-sea fishing trip? Yeah.” Then he goes to take another drag on his cigarette and entirely misses his mouth. He giggles.

I lean in and exclaim in a hushed voice, “Ohmigod, YOU’RE the one who got lit in the bathroom!”

No response except for more giggling. Houston, we have a stoner.

“I can’t believe you’d do THAT
at a company function
! What could you possibly be thinking?”

Jeff does a full-body stretch and says, “Guess someone’s still bitter that my sales were higher than hers last month. Again.” Ouch. He’s right. It makes me crazy that Cheech-freaking-Marin’s team sold more than mine.

And what a bang-up team I have. Out of the twenty people in my group, my “shining stars” are: Courtney, the
only
one who’s normal; Camille, who’s decent in front of clients but unbearable otherwise; and a few gals from Texas who might be good if they didn’t consider their sales calls to be husband hunts. The rest of my account executives are wholly incompetent. When I first complained about them, Fletch was skeptical. He doubts my credibility because I tend to throw that word around
a lot…
about cab drivers, sales clerks, bartenders, etc. But A) my driver got lost on the way to Wrigley Field, B) it took the cashier twenty minutes to ring up one shirt, and C) how could a bartender
not
know what’s in a dirty martini? So he didn’t quite believe my bitching.

Until he met Arthur.

Arthur, the BB gun in my arsenal, ran into Fletch at my office one day when he was picking me up for lunch at our private dining club. While we enjoyed miso-glazed sea bass and crystal goblets of Chalk Hill chardonnay, Fletch remarked, “It’s nice to see Corp. Com. mainstreaming people.”

Huh? I looked at him quizzically with a mouthful of julienne carrots. Finally swallowing, I asked, “What are you talking about?”

“You know, your company. Mainstreaming. They hired that nice kid with Down syndrome,” he replied.

I shook my head and dabbed at my mouth with a linen napkin. “Fletcher, I have no clue who you’re talking about.”

“The tall kid. He was blond with a striped shirt and gapped teeth.”

“In MY office?”

“
Yes.
He was walking by the reception desk when I came in. When I asked for you, he got nervous and started to pace back and forth. I felt bad because I think I confused him.”

“Today?”

“YES.”

“How much wine have you had?” I picked up his goblet and inspected it. Honestly, I always have to monitor that boy’s intake. He gets into his cups a little too easily sometimes.

“Whatever was in the glass you’re holding.”

“Well, if you’re not drunk, then you’re hallucinating. The Chicago office only has salespeople in it. Maybe you’re thinking of one of the suburban offices.”

Fletch insisted, “Jen,
you saw him.
He took me to your desk.”

“Noooo,” I said slowly, the puzzle beginning to piece itself together. “Arthur brought you over to me.”

“Yes! Arthur. That was his name. Striped shirt. Eager to please. Nice kid.”

“Fletch,” I said, shaking my head, “he’s one of my salespeople.”

“But I’ve never heard you mention him.”

“Yes, honey, you have.”

Fletch sat quietly for about thirty seconds, until he finally understood.

“Holy shit…was that…was that…was that
Retard-y Arty?”

I know it’s a mean nickname, but before you judge me, I challenge you to look at Arthur’s empty sales funnel. I’ve taken my valuable time to coach him in the field for six whole months, but he’s just hopeless. He hems and haws and stammers in all our practice sessions, and despite the fact that I’ve yelled at him a million times, he never seems to improve.

I’d fire him, but I don’t have that authority. Technically, although I’m responsible for getting my people to push my products, they report to Will, the totally feckless sales manager. I secretly refer to Will as
Won’t
, as in “I
won’t
force the account executives to meet their numbers because I’m more interested in having them like me.” Or “Jen, you
won’t
ever make the cover of
Fortune
magazine as one of the fifty most powerful women in American business leading this uninspired team.” And one time? He asked Camille if any of her granola friends sold pot because he needed a new dealer.
¹³
The bottom line is if I want sales, I have to make them all myself, and this is precisely why Jeff’s team beats mine.

“That’s right, Jeff…. No one’s
ever
higher than you,” I scoff.

He takes another indolent pull off his cigarette and shrugs philosophically. “Hey, it’s relaxing. You can’t argue relaxing. You ought to try it. Maybe help you sell more.” He smiles beatifically and gives his scraggly goatee a good scratch. Random bits of crud fall out when he does this. Gack!

“Honestly, thanks for the offer, but if I need to relieve stress, I’ll call on my old friends Little Debbie, Dolly Madison, and Johnnie Walker.”

“OK, whatever, Nancy Reagan. Just say no.” This cracks me up, so I raise my glass in a toast to him.

“Here’s to you, Potty O’Tokes-a-lot,” I say.

“Back at you, you ball-breaking hag.” We clink beverages.

“Waaaaait, what ah all y’all talking ’bout?” Laurel chirps from her perch on the end of the boat.

“Laurel, take some of that shit off your head and maybe you’ll be able to hear us,” I yell back at her.

Laurel, from Charlotte and in charge of the South, is swaddled in a straw hat, a scarf, and huge Jackie O sunglasses. Her nose is coated with an inch of zinc oxide, and she’s wearing a Windbreaker with a towel wrapped on top of it while holding an umbrella.

“You
are
aware that it is almost eighty degrees out here, right, Laurel?” Ryan asks. He’s back from cruising. Apparently no one was hairless enough for him.

Jeff inquires, “Are you, like, allergic to UVA rays? That would be a bummer.”

“Or has a recent bat bite made you an unholy creature of the night?” I query.

“Y’aaaaaalllll,” she whines in a honeyed North Carolina drawl. I wish I had an accent like that. The Texan girls on my team can tell you to go to hell with such a lovely magnolia-and-molasses twang that you look forward to the trip.
¹⁴
“Don’t make fun of me. Y’all know my weddin’ dress is strapless and ah’m trying to avoid unflatterin’ tan lines.”

Ah, yes. Her weddin’. How could we forget Laurel’s upcoming nuptials? She’s not only discussed this topic TO DEATH for the past three days, but also weekly on our group’s conference call, and monthly in our New York meetings. I enjoy Laurel’s company, but if I hear another word about bridesmaids, tulle, or “the most gorgeous little petite filet mignons y’all ever did lay eyes on,” I’m pushing her over the back of the boat and I am not kidding.

“Laurel, I was asking Jeff if that was St. Augustine over there,” I say, pointing at the distant shore. Oh, please. Like I’m going to share Jeff’s recreational drug use with the rest of the class?
¹⁵
Besides, I
am
curious to know more about St. Augustine. Meri says they have great shops, so I make a mental note to check out the stores when our conference ends tomorrow. I haven’t shopped
at all
while we’ve been down here. When I get back to the resort, maybe I’ll do a bit of eBaying before dinner. I considered buying a few items in the Sawgrass gift shop yesterday, but it’s mostly golf-related, and I do hate me some golf. Any “sport” where you can smoke and drink while playing is not exercise.
¹⁶
Why not just go to a bar and save the greens fee?

Speaking of Meri, she’s a shoo-in to be named manager of the year at the final banquet tonight. She runs the Houston office and helped her team raise sales almost 400 percent last year, so the fact she’s sleeping with her director is totally irrelevant. (Although don’t think for one second it’s not what we talk about every time she leaves her seat.) And who starts sleeping with their boss AFTER they get promoted, anyway? However, I’ll cut them some slack because they’re both single.

My account executive Courtney, however, is NOT single. She recently became very much engaged, which is why I’m aghast to notice her foot disappearing in the direction of Chad-from-California’s lap. (When we met, he told me I could call him
Chadifornia
or
CaliChad
, but I told him that stupid nicknames render me mute, what with all the bile rising in my throat. He laughed because he thought I was joking; I wasn’t.)

Courtney and I sit next to each other in the primo cubicles with the lake view in the Chicago office. Since I joined the company, Courtney’s become one of my confidantes, and within the confines of our jobs, we hit every networking event together. Lately, we’ve socialized outside the office, too, which is part of the reason I’m so appalled. I don’t mean to sound self-righteous, but in the seven years I’ve been with Fletch, I’ve never even flirted with another guy,
¹⁷
let alone stick my foot up his shorts
at a company function!
¹⁸

I learned about Court and Chad’s little tryst last night. I stopped by her room before heading to dinner, and it took her a long time to come to the door. I knew she was there because I’d just talked to her from the house phone. It’s not like our hotel rooms were huge and she couldn’t hear me.
Must be in the bathroom
, I thought. I knocked harder and waited.

When she finally opened the door, I saw that she was dressed for the banquet…sort of. The buttons on her summery cotton cardigan were askew; her floaty chiffon skirt was inside out and the pleats were mashed. Her normally impeccably smooth blond bob was completely bed-headed. Did she get dressed in a hurry?

“Hey, Court.” I invited myself into her room. “What happened to you? Looks like somebody rode you hard and put you away wet.” HA! I
so
crack myself up sometimes. “Have you been napping or something?” At that point, I noticed Chad, also in a state of disrepair looking sheepish on her mussed bed. A lightbulb went on in my head as I worked my way through the equation.

Ohhh…yes, there were
napping.

Together.

Napping together?

Napping together.

Napping together…Chadifornicators!

Then I remembered that she was engaged to Brad and got momentarily flustered. I don’t know how to handle it when normally good people go all untoward.

“Welllllllll, hiiiii there, Chaaaaad. It’s nice to seeeee you again.” I drew out my words because I had no idea what to say next. I started to stammer. “So, um, what have you guys been doing? Been sleeping together? Wait! No! Not like that, I mean, not together, like, you know, nap time? In kindergarten? And, um, no, no—I mean—so, are you going down on each other? Gah! With! With each other! To dinner,” I finally spit out. Subtlety has never been one of my finer qualities.