Termination Man: a novel (6 page)

“You’re being melodramatic again,” Kurt went on. “We wouldn't think of threatening your father. In fact, I’m shocked that you would even suggest that.”

Kevin just stood there, saying nothing. I am no mind reader; but I knew that over the preceding weeks and months, Kevin had been mentally rehearsing a confrontation of this sort. This is a petty indulgence that practically every disgruntled employee permits himself; and for Kevin, the indulgence would have been compulsive and irresistible. He had no doubt been scripting what he would say, and imagining what Myers would say in response.

But Kevin had probably not imagined the conversation going quite like this. Kurt was toying with him now. And Kevin knew it. But he still didn't know where Kurt Myers ultimately planned to lead him.    

“I think you’ll agree then, Kevin, that your father would be very dismayed to find out that his son had been terminated from a job for drug use.”

“You son-of-bitch,” Kevin said. “How dare you. How
dare
you! You’re threatening to tell my father that you busted me for smoking weed? That’s a violation of my—”

“Oh, I’m not threatening anything, Kevin. And let me tell you, lest you harbor any doubts, that TP Automotive would not engage in—and never
has
engaged in—a willful disclosure of an employee’s private information. That would violate numerous clauses of our code of ethics, which is posted on our company’s website. But the problem is, Kevin, that information wants to be free. And there are a lot of factors in this chain: not only TP automotive personnel, but lab employees, security service personnel, and others as well. Despite our best efforts to protect your privacy, there would be no way for us to completely guarantee that Reverend Lang wouldn't receive word of your indiscretion.”

Kurt had obviously thrown Kevin off balance. He was standing in the middle of the floor with his hands folded at his waist, looking down at the floor.

“I can't believe this. I absolutely cannot believe this,” he said.

“But there's more. Isn't there, Kevin?” Kurt Myers seemed to be having a difficult time in restraining what I can only describe as a sense of absolute, unalloyed glee. I was reminded of a quote I once heard, words that have been attributed to Genghis Khan:
“A man’s greatest work is to break his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them all the things that have been theirs, to hear the weeping of those who cherished them.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Kevin asked.

Then Beth interjected. “Kurt, maybe we don't need to––”

“No, no, Beth. Kevin leads a very colorful lifestyle. I'm sure that he's very proud of it.” Kurt began to rifle through the papers in his hands. “Tell me, Kevin: How much does it cost to take out a personal ad on a bisexual dating website? Or would that sort of service be found for free on the Internet nowadays?”

Kurt detached one of the papers and held it up so that Kevin could see it. I already knew that it was a photocopy of a personal ad that Kevin had indeed taken out on a website called
clevelandbisexualdating.com
. I didn't know anything else about this aspect of Kevin's life. I didn't know if this was just an exploratory thing for him, or if he had actually met men from this website. But for the son of a Baptist preacher, details like this wouldn't matter. The revelation contained in that single printout would be sufficient to destroy Kevin Lang—or at least his relationship with his father.

Kevin’s swagger was completely gone now. He was incredulous. He had anticipated that he would be the belligerent one in the room––the one who was pulling no punches, and maybe even skirting the rules of fair play. But now TP Automotive had completely turned the tables. Kevin wasn't just on the defensive—he was on his back.

“You would actually do that?” Kevin asked. The implied threat did not have to be spelled out.

Now Beth spoke up again. “I can assure you Kevin, that no one here wants to harm you in any way. TP Automotive is a family-friendly company, after all. The last thing we want is some sort of scandal.”

“Which is why,” Bernie Chapman broke in—the lawyer held up a printed sheet of paper in one hand; in the other he brandished a pen. “You would do everyone in this room a favor––and most of all yourself––if you would sign this voluntary resignation agreement.”

To no one’s real surprise, Kevin Lang immediately caved after that. I’ve observed more than a few employees in his shoes, and I can tell you that almost all of them do exactly the same thing: They sign the voluntary resignation agreement.

It is easy for disgruntled employees to talk tough and threaten. It’s also easy for them to imagine the sorts of threats that will get a rise from corporate managers. Therefore, most of them talk about filing lawsuits or starting boycotts. The first of these always gives managers and HR department reps pause; the latter is effective if the employer sells directly to consumers.

The rise of social media has given angry employees and ex-employees yet another means of striking back at the hand that feeds them, and occasionally slaps them: Twenty years ago, if you had beef with your employer, you had almost no chance of taking the fight into the public square unless you convinced a journalist or a big-name attorney like Howard Steinkeller to take up your cause. Now you need only go home, boot up your computer, and air your grievances on YouTube, or on one of the numerous free-access blogging sites that have proliferated on the Internet. The playing field has been leveled—a brave new world of Internet-driven democracy. Or so they say.

This new attitude of empowerment fuels the courage of the Kevin Langs of the world—until they discover that their employer (
whom they previously believed to be operating within a strictly delineated code of conduct
) has upped the ante and raised the stakes on them. Like I said, I’ve seen it before: An employee comes into a termination meeting, full of confidence in his newly empowered state—and then he finds himself confronted with his own darkest secrets. Let me tell you—Kevin Lang wasn’t the first of them to experience this reversal. And he won’t be the last.

What amazes me more than anything is the surprise on their faces, as if they believed that a corporation worth $10 billion or $30 billion wouldn’t have the foresight to protect itself in this new era of the lawsuit and the Internet. It’s public knowledge that today most companies’ human resources departments actively investigate the activities of both current and prospective employees on social networking sites like Facebook. So why should it be a shocker when a company that wants to quietly fire someone digs up evidence of a predilection for marijuana or online porn?

Or—in the case of Kevin Lang—the secret life of a Baptist minister’s son who is struggling with his sexual identity?

The rest of the meeting with Kevin Lang was anticlimactic. After he signed the voluntary resignation agreement, two security guards—who had been waiting for him just beyond the door of the meeting room—escorted him out of the building. They were two burly men who looked like ex-marines. Each one bore a discreetly holstered sidearm. I happened to know that neither of these men was a regular at GLFS; Beth had called the security firm to request them especially for today’s big event.

The security guards you see in company lobbies are contract employees dispatched by security firms. As a rule, these men and women
fall
a notch or two below the standards
set
by law enforcement agencies. More than half are
well
past their prime
s
, pencil-necked, or challenged by their expanding waistlines. The majority of them would be lucky to nab a shambling eighty-year-old shoplifter. 

But the corporate security firms also keep “special duty” guards on their payrolls: large, intimidating men who are skilled in the arts of physical coercion. Many have experience working within the penitentiary system. These sorts of bruisers can be sent to a client’s location in the event that trouble is anticipated. These are the men who are placed on duty on those days when volatile employees are told that their services are no longer needed.

But that was all behind us for today. Beth adjourned the meeting, and we left Kevin Lang to whatever future awaited him among the want ads. His termination was technically voluntary; he could truthfully tell other employers that he had resigned of his own free will—as if blue-collar workers make a habit of quitting their jobs on a lark in a poor economy. Any interviewer worth his or her salt would suspect the truth; but perhaps one of them would give him the benefit of the doubt. More importantly, the voluntary resignation meant that TP Automotive would be able to deny Kevin unemployment, should he attempt to file for it. And of course Bernie’s document contained a clause that prevented Kevin from attempting any sort of wrongful termination suit.

I was about to take my leave of them, when Kurt Myers instructed me to stay.

“
Do you have a moment, Craig? I’d like a word with you.” When Bernie, Beth, and his son made as
if
to retake their seats, Kurt genially waved them off. “No, no—just Craig and I.”

This brought about an awkward silence, a feeling of heaviness that descended over the room and hung there. At the higher levels of corporate management, there are no meaningless words or deeds. A seemingly casual remark or gesture might presage a firing, a promotion, or a shift in who is favored by the company’s higher-ups. The players who make it to the executive boardrooms are all finely attuned to these subtle currents and undercurrents, like a herd of gazelles who can detect the scent of an approaching predator.

And right now Bernie and Beth were both wondering why Kurt Myers was deliberately excluding them from a meeting with an outside consultant. After all, Beth had been my main contact at TP Automotive thus far, even though Kurt had been present in a number of our meetings. Nor did Bernie like being excluded. Lawyers don’t like to be excluded from anything.

And Shawn Myers: He was staring at me with an expression that was a complex mixture of filial and professional jealousy. Kurt was his father; and Shawn and I were roughly the same age. I had the feeling that Kurt knew that his son had some serious issues. And his son
knew
that his father knew.

Nevertheless, challenging a direct order from the top man in the room was beyond question. Reluctantly they all filed out—despite their obvious reservations.

When they were gone, Kurt asked: “Care to go for a walk, Craig?”

“I’d assumed that you wanted to talk here.”

“The walls have ears,” Kurt said cryptically.

I shrugged and stood up. Kurt wouldn’t be the first high-ranking executive I’d met who had a quirky side. In a lot of ways, in fact, Kurt was milder than many of them. He was always superficially polite; and I had never heard him raise his voice—even when he was skewering a soon-to-be-ex-employee like Kevin Lang.

I followed Kurt out of the executive meeting room. I half-expected to find Beth, Bernie, and Shawn hovering just outside the door eavesdropping; but they were nowhere to be seen.

I wondered:
Did Kurt suspect that the boardroom was bugged?
That sort of thing was not exactly common—but not exactly unheard of, either. I had done a job for a company up in Grand Rapids once, where I discovered that one of the second-tier executives had covertly installed a listening device in the private office of the CEO. You’d be surprised to learn about the things that go on in those cloistered halls of power, where everyone wears thousand-dollar suits and holds an MBA from a top university. The dirty tricks in these environments are no less dirty than the ones you find elsewhere—but the people who play them do tend to be more deliberate and smarter.

Kurt paused at a coffee machine in the hallway. “Care for a cup of joe?” he asked. He reached into his pocket for some change before I stopped him. “No thanks,” I said. I never let clients buy me coffee or other refreshments, unless it’s served at a meeting. Bad form. And it can also be a maneuver employed to instill a sense of debt.
Crazy
, you say? You’d be surprised at the subtle little techniques that experienced operators like Kurt Myers use in negotiations.

Kurt led me to an empty meeting room. It was much smaller than the executive boardroom we had just left. He directed me to have a seat at the chamber's plain imitation wood table. He sat down across from me. I could smell his expensive cologne in the enclosed space.

"Mind if I ask you a personal question?" Kurt asked.

This inquiry seemed absurd, in a way, given the exchange that had just taken place between him and Kevin. In the aftermath of that meeting, there seemed to be no aspect of anyone's personal life that was off-limits to Kurt Myers, Vice President of Strategic Operations at TP Automotive.

"Not at all," I said.

"Do you have any children?" Kurt asked.

I shook my head. "Can't say that I do."

"Is there a Mrs. Craig Walker?"

I thought about my current bedmate. The idea of Claire Turner as Mrs. Craig Walker—or Mrs. Anyone—for that matter, struck me as both absurd and infeasible from multiple angles.
And the image of Claire changing diapers?
I couldn't go there, not even in my own head.