Allan and I worked in Marketing and we were housed with about
a dozen or so other employees on the 2nd floor. We always had the option of taking the short
walk up one flight of stairs from the ground level to reach our offices and so
we were rarely inconvenienced by all of the other activity. I think there were days when quite literally
people would forget we were even in the building, as they didn’t see us riding
the elevator all that often. This left
us pretty much on our own to pursue our tasks undisturbed. An ambitious young graphics designer the
company hired just after we came on the scene used to complain that we were
being ignored, that our physical location on the 2nd floor left us
cut off from where the decisions were being made, on the 3rd and 5th
floors. He made repeated efforts to get
his office transferred upstairs, anywhere upstairs so that he might be closer
to the action.
Allan and I both thought he was insane.
We both had small, but adequate offices next to each
other. Each of us had a window that
allowed us to gaze out onto 44th Street, where we were able to watch
as the New York police ticketed all of the cars whose owners had chosen to park
in the diplomatic zone across from the building. Every once in a while, they’d come by with
tow trucks and just clear the slate, so to speak. There was a good kosher deli a few doors down
from the front door of the building and even Allan had to admit that the food
was awfully good. Sometimes we were able
to sneak away, a little further afield and grab lunch at Franchia, a remarkable
Korean vegetarian restaurant and teahouse on 34th Street. We didn’t do it often though as we were often
gone for two hours or more when that happened.
Bosco’s office was on the 5th floor, something
he’d insisted on when he sold his company.
If nothing else, he was a mover and a shaker and he demanded to be in on
everything. Bosco’s knowledge of the
industry was enormous and he commanded great respect. He was a leader in a company that craved
leadership and this gave him great latitude.
He could call meetings at any time he pleased and no one, not even the
COO or the owner could refuse his request.
But the first meeting that Allan and I were called to upon returning
from New Orleans wasn’t with Bosco.
Richard Glick, the Chief Operations Officer summoned us to his office on
the Wednesday after we got back.
Richard was probably the most intelligent person I worked
with at SlipNot. He was extremely
organized, able to keep an extraordinary array of projects going at the same
time and yet he always seemed to delight in apparently minute details as
well. I remember him once sending a memo
to Allan when he and I were first hired, regarding the mandatory urine
test. All SlipNot employees had to
submit to drug testing, once a year. When
I was notified of my “spot check”, I’d gone to the clinic and given an admirable
sample of narcotic free pee.
Allan had not been so lucky, having fallen off his self
imposed wagon of abstinence about a week earlier while attending a concert by
Grateful Dead bass player, Phil Lesh and his band. He begged off the test, claiming some kind of
bizarre malady that had been caused by ingesting the wrong kind of food at the
wrong time of year. This request had
gone through several layers of SlipNot decision makers for their input before
Richard had been ultimately called upon to render judgment. He’d read through all of the memos generated
by the various people who’d considered this case before it had been brought to
him and like an appellant judge, he’d handed down his decision in writing, about
a week later. The intervening time had
given the illicit substances in Allan’s bloodstream plenty of time to dissipate
and so there was much less danger that the drug screen would prove to be a
problem for him.
Still, Allan’s troubles weren’t quite over. He’d arrived at the clinic at the appointed
hour, after having swilled down an enormous amount of a product he’d found on
the Web called the Fast THC Marijuana Detox Kit. For $51.99, plus shipping, it boasted a 200%
money back guarantee if you should fail your drug test and lose your job. The only real problem was that the package
recommended that the user urinate as often as possible before going to take the
test. Allan drank the kits two-component
liquids and then downed an astounding quantity of tap water, heading to the
bathroom at frequent intervals. He
arrived at the clinic devoid of toxins and with his bladder as empty as a
politician’s promise. He spent several
awkward minutes with his sample cup in the bathroom before returning with what
the clinic nurse derisively called an “inadequate effort.” He sat in the clinic lounge, drinking tea for
close to an hour before he felt he was ready to try again. However, for whatever reason (maybe the detox
kit had dried him out, or perhaps he was just experiencing a bad case of the
jitters), the result was once again determined to be inadequate.
The nurse had looked at Allan with frank amazement and told
him that she’d have to write up his inability to provide a sample. A memo was sent from department to department
at SlipNot, noting Allan’s fluid retention issue and a piece of paper with this
information found its way to Richard’s desk a few days later. Allan was excused from the annual drug test
and he was given a list of urologists who were approved by the company’s HMO
for him to consult.
**********
The next installment will be posted on November 18.
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