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  Or instead I was told, “This job is too mundane for someone with your skills and education. You’ll get bored way too quickly, and we need someone who will stay with us long-term.”

  The professional side of me would thank them for the interview, but the personal side of me wanted to scream, “I have two daughters to raise, no job, and child support that won’t even pay for food, much less a place to live. I’ll scrub toilets if that’s what you need me to do.”

  It took several months to finally get a job, but in the end, it was not because of my skills. I got my very first job because my sister-in-law called in a favor that someone owed her. I was going to be a clerk in a pacemaker factory making minimum wage – $3.10/hour.

  The child support didn’t make a lot of difference, and I didn’t get any spousal support to transition me into my new life. Instead, I had an ex-husband who went out and bought a sports car.

  He didn’t understand the struggles I had when it came to money, but he did love his daughters. He made every effort to call them every Sunday and to his credit, he never missed a child support payment.

  Money was tight, but I had my girls, and that was what I treasured the most. And the three of us were a team. In many ways, they were raising me as much as I was raising them.

  It was that very first job where I learned I had a knack for numbers and working with data. It was where I realized how important stepping up and admitting our mistakes can be.

  My job was to take the information from the various production lines and consolidate the totals each day. I would transfer that information into a report and bring it to the VP of Production. It’s interesting that my fear of making mistakes has never subsided, but my understanding of taking responsibility is truly the secret to my success.

  I remember one day I was wrapping up my daily routine when I looked at the report I had turned in that morning. As soon as I saw it, I realized something was wrong.

  “Holy shit, I can’t believe I did that.”

  “What’s wrong?” Cliff my supervisor asked.

  “I just realized I gave Doug wrong information. I over-counted production today. No wonder he was so happy when I gave him the report.”

  “Okay, fix the numbers, then I’ll go let him know.”

  “No, I made the mistake. It’s my fault and there is no reason for you to take the blame for what I did.”

  After making the corrections, I made my way to the other side of the building where all the executive offices where. As I stood at the door, shaking, I gently knocked to get Doug’s attention. I knew I was going to be fired, but I had to tell the truth.

  “Doug, I… uh, I made a mistake.” He could see the tears starting to form in my eyes, but I continued. “The report I gave you earlier was wrong. I double-counted some of the production numbers. I’m so, so very sorry.”

  I didn’t realize the impact that my admitting the mistake had on him at the time. Luckily, I didn’t get fired, but about three months later, one of the supervisors on one of the lines didn’t like something I had done. He was yelling, cursing, and downright mean with his comments in front of everyone in the department. His tirade didn’t end when Doug walked up.

  “What’s going on here?” Doug asked.

  “She just isn’t doing the report the way I want her to. I’ve told her what I want her to do over and over again, but she won’t do it. She’s worthless. I’m writing her up for incompetence and being insubordinate. She obviously is stupid and can’t follow orders,” was the very nasty reply. The anger he felt towards me showed as his face and neck got redder with each sentence.

  Doug was now turning the same color, and I was afraid of what was coming next. Never in my life did I expect the words that came out of his mouth.

  “I don’t know who you think you are or what makes you think you have the right to talk to an employee this way, but you need to hold your temper. And for the record, she’s doing the report the way I asked her to.”

  He then took a step closer to Gordon and said, “And the only one who is going to be written up is you for talking to one of our employees like that. This woman has more integrity in her little finger than you have in your whole body. She is the only person in my 30+ years of working, who has ever had the courage to stand up and admit she made a mistake. People like that are rare, so don’t you ever talk to her like that again.”

  He turned his attention to me and said, “I’m sorry, no one in this facility has the right to ever speak to someone like that.”

  Needless to say, I was floored. It was at that moment that I knew I would always have the courage to stand up for what I believed. But more importantly, I learned what it meant to take responsibility for my mistakes. I promised myself that if I ever managed teams of people, I would stand up for them the way Doug had stood up for me.

  It’s significant that as I started to think whether or not I should incorporate pieces of my career in this book, I realized that it is crucial to the story. Life was happening in between the times we were together, but they became important parts of my writings in later love letters.

  That first step on my career ladder was where I got the opportunity to supervise a team, to discover my love for working with data, and where I learned that management sometimes doesn’t have a clue as to what it takes to complete a project. I literally took those learnings and have made a career out of them.

  When I look at where I am now, I’m often dumbfounded. To me, I must have been extremely lucky to get to where I am today, but it did take a lot of hard work, sacrifice, and some very peculiar twists along the way. Many people might not agree about me being lucky as they read the following, but for me, every major setback ended up being a blessing in disguise.

  • • •

  There was the time I was fired because I didn’t see eye to eye with the boss’s son.

  “Stanley, you have to do something about your son. His condescending tone is chasing away customers. He’s rude and today he told one of our clients that they could go ‘f’ themselves if they didn’t like the way we were handling things.”

  Seemed like a logical choice as to what the boss should have done, right? But the result of that meeting was me getting fired a week later. His son won the battle very easily.

  He threatened to expose his Dad’s affair if I wasn’t terminated. Yes, I knew about the affair, too, but sometimes, you just have to know when to give up.

  It was the first and only time in my life when I collected unemployment. I was angry for being let go without cause, but since Miguel and I could make it on his income, I decided to take a break. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I needed time to figure out my next steps.

  After a few weeks, my friend Calvin, who managed a check-processing center called and said he needed some part-time help. That job had two big advantages. I could spend more time with my daughters, and I could spend more time flying.

  But that dream of being with my girls full-time again didn’t last. My marriage ended shortly after I started the job, and once again, I was a single mom. I could no longer afford to work part time; I had to look for a full time position. Fortunately, I had made a lot of contacts at the banks we serviced, and within weeks, I had a new job.

  I took on the role of supervising the bookkeeping and proof department of a small local financial institution. It was less than a mile from where the girls and I were living, so not having to drive into New Orleans every day was a plus. The rumor was that the bank had been started by one of the city’s most notorious mobsters to launder money. It had never made any money, so it was not a surprise when the federal regulators came in and closed us down.

  None of us knew what our fates were going to be after the takeover by the new owners, but I wasn’t in upper management, so my job was safe. Actually, it was better than I could have ever expected. I was made a banking officer and was in heaven with my new position and salary. That fantasy, however, came crashing down when one of the senior vice-presidents told
me to join him in his office.

  “Hi Gwynyth, good to see you. It’s been a while since we talked, and there are a couple of items we need to go over. There are some additional responsibilities we need for you to take on.”

  I took a seat on the opposite end of the couch in his office. It was a huge black leather sofa, but it appeared small next to his 6-foot-5, 320-pound frame.

  “No problem, it really has been great working for all of you. It was kind of scary when the bank was taken over, but things seem to be going well. What do you need for me to do?”

  “Well, it’s a policy that we have that each of the single female banking officers chooses one of the male VPs and makes sure he has everything he needs.”

  It was something about his tone that sent a chill through me and had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. I can be extremely slow with picking up on red flags, but I had heard rumors that terrified me about where this discussion was going.

  “Michael, I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

  “It’s quite simple. You choose a VP to be your sponsor. You make sure that all his needs are met and keep him happy. We’ve given you a nice raise and a promotion – it’s time you earned that salary. You know what Tabitha is required to do for Hank. You can choose whichever VP you want to work with. It’s your choice who you want to be your sponsor.”

  And yes, by “sponsor,” he meant sexual partner. I was to be available for whatever services my sponsor required. And if that meant a blow job in his office in the middle of the day, or sex after work, then that is what I was going to have to do.

  You can’t imagine how my heart started racing. I remember getting up to leave, and my knees went weak as I tried to stand up. I thought I was going to vomit as I heard his closing remarks to me as I left the office.

  “Think long and hard about refusing to do what is now required of you. You’re a single mom with two kids to raise, and I know you need this job.”

  It’s very true what they say about when one door closes, another one opens. Too often, when that door is slammed in our faces, we don’t see the other door right away.

  However, I was very lucky again. Several of the federal closing managers that had been on-site had told me if I ever wanted to change careers, to let them know.

  I went back to my desk, picked up the phone, and called Jeremy, the current site manager.

  “Hi Jeremy, it’s Gwynyth. I was wondering if I could come talk to you.”

  “Sure, I’m here all afternoon. Come by when you can. Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, I’ll be there shortly. It’s best if we talk in person.”

  My stomach had settled down in the five-minute car ride to Jeremy’s office, but I was still visibly shaking.

  “Good God, girl, what’s wrong?’

  “I know what I’m about to tell you is going to sound crazy, and if you confront Michael, he is just going to deny it.”

  I proceeded to tell him what Michael had told me and then looked at him and said, “You and Frank have both told me that if I ever wanted a job, or to change careers, to let you know. Jeremy, I need a job and I need it now.” The tears that were now rolling down my face told him everything he needed to know.

  He picked up the phone and called Frank in DC. He had turned away from me and he was talking in very hushed tones. I heard bits and pieces of the conversation, but he was trying not to make me relive the nightmare any more than I had to.

  He turned back to me and said, “Do you care if the job is in Shreveport, Dallas, or Houston?”

  “I really don’t care,” I heard myself say.

  As he hung up the phone, he came around the other side of the desk and sat next to me. He took my hand and said, “Frank said to tell you to hang in there. It will take a few weeks to get everything processed, but we will find you a spot at one of those locations.”

  He also said, “If they try to pressure you in any way, let me know immediately. We’ll find a way to take care of the issue. Unfortunately, this type of thing is hard to prove. We’ll get you out of the situation as soon as we can, and then figure out how to handle the issue once you are safely out of the bank.”

  All I could do was say, “Thank you,” through my tears.

  Chapter 9 –

  Moving On

  In a very short time, I was packed up and moving the girls and I to Shreveport, Louisiana. They weren’t happy about it, but they knew it was for the best.

  I was ready for my next adventure, but just not sure where this journey was headed. As I have done with every job, I threw myself into my work. I never had the ambition to be in senior management, but I was happy in finding my niche supervising teams.

  I attribute my skills of adapting to new situations to a chat I had with my grandmother when I was a teenager. I can count my visits with her on one hand, but we made good use of the little time we had to get to know each other.

  I remember sitting in the kitchen with her and my great-aunt on one of those rare visits. They were putting the finishing touches on a homemade chocolate cake and making what we used to call White Mountain icing. One of the items on my bucket list is to make a cake like that one day for my own grandkids. I have a very simple bucket list.

  Me: “Wow, I can’t believe you and Auntie are going to mass on a Saturday night. The church just changed those rules. Most people I know are having a problem with that. The big discussion in catechism class is how it’s all wrong.”

  Grandmommy: “Sweetie, if you only learn one thing in life, it should be to accept change. It is inevitable. And the more you resist change, the more difficult your life will be.”

  Her words of wisdom were the foundation for my philosophy regarding parenting. Learning how to cope with change was the one ability I wanted to give my daughters.

  • • •

  My new role was proving to be a challenge, but it was giving me an opportunity to do some very interesting things, as well as meet some fascinating people. Before, my circle of understanding was only that of people who were like me – Southerners. Now I was getting to know people from all over the country, and the differences didn’t stop at whether or not you ate grits for breakfast or knew what scrapple was.

  It was while I was on a two-week assignment in Washington, DC that I met Reid. There are some people that you instantly bond with. Meeting Reid was like looking at the other half of my soul.

  “Hi Reid. I’m Gwynyth from the Shreveport office. I’m going to be helping Rhonda write the documentation for the new asset servicing software. I was told you could help me.”

  “Sure thing. What do you need to know?”

  I liked Reid instantly. He had a soft-spoken way about him. As I got to know him over the years, I realized nothing ever fazed him. He would never get upset about things the way others did. He would just take the issues in stride and bring a peace and calmness to every situation.

  I have to admit that when we first met, one of my first thoughts was – oh, no – another blond-haired, blue-eyed man with a gorgeous smile in my life. But the wedding ring on his finger told me instantly that there would never be a relationship with him.

  I was very wrong with that thought in one way. We were never an item; we never crossed any lines, but we did have a very different kind of bond.

  And it all started with the simple question he asked me during our very first meeting. “Have you ever read the book Illusions, by Richard Bach?” That one question has led to some of the most spiritual conversations I have ever had with anyone.

  “That’s one of my favorite books,” I responded. We talked for hours on the spirituality of the self, the trinity, and the roles each piece brings to the understanding of ourselves.

  It was meeting Reid that got me thinking about the concept of soul mates. I had always believed that Rune was my mine. I thought that a true soul mate was someone you had a unique spiritual, mental, and physical relationship with.

  But then I was always reading about how
two soul mates couldn’t make it work as a couple. By definition, I thought being with our soul mate should be easy.

  I was confused because of the relationship I had with Reid. Here was another man that I was instantly drawn to, but it was on a very spiritual level. Our debate about the trinity that is within each of us is still going on today.

  “How can you say the physical isn’t as important as the other sides of the trinity?” I asked.

  “It’s simple, we don’t need the physical to understand who we are. It’s the spiritual side of us that lives on forever.”

  “True, but God, or whomever you call your higher power, has given us the gift of the physical to enhance the other parts of the trinity. It is the vehicle that allows us to experience the other two sides. The physical is like a magnifying glass. It allows us to understand everything we are and share it with others.”

  “We can share without a physical body,” he would argue.

  “I don’t think that is true. Part of the theory behind reincarnation is that our soul continues to grow. We learn more each time around, building and progressing based on what we learn. We find a new body each time so that we can heighten our awareness. But more importantly, it gives us the ability to share our learnings with others.”

  I’ve always thought that the basic teachings of spirituality, regardless of how you believe, were rooted in the concept of the trinity. Having grown up Catholic, there were just some things that you didn’t question or think about.

  Reincarnation was one of them and spirituality was confined to believing what the nuns where teaching us in school. I had a difficult time with some of the concepts being taught and was quite a challenge for the nuns. I always joked that the following exchange is what made the nuns finally ask my parents to take me out of Catholic school.

  Even at 13 years old, I was thinking things that just didn’t mesh with the teaching that I was supposed to be embracing.

  Sister Mary Catherine: “Today’s lesson is on God’s presence in the universe. Nothing can exist without God. Therefore, God is everywhere.”