Chapter 45: One Last Try

September 1, 2000, Chicago, Illinois

“Hi,” I said sheepishly when I walked into the sunroom where my dad was waiting to cuddle.

“Good morning, Pumpkin,” Dad replied. “Come share some cuddles.”

I hurried over, climbed into the chaise with him, and snuggled close. He wrapped his strong arms around me and I felt safe and loved. Dad had run and taken a shower and I smelled his soap and deodorant. It was wonderful and I loved how he smelled.

“I really am sorry, Dad,” I said. “I shouldn’t have told Suzanne about the coupons.”

“You know why I was so disappointed right?”

“Because I did something after you told me not to. And you trusted me when I said I wouldn’t. And trust is more important than anything.”

“It is. What would happen if I couldn’t trust you?”

“We wouldn’t be close anymore, and I would be really sad.”

“I’d be really sad, too,” Dad said.

“Am I really grounded for the whole weekend?”

“Yes.”

“Including the party on Monday?”

“That is what I said.”

“Because actions have consequences,” I said, trying not to sigh too much.

“Yes, they do.”

“And because you love me.”

“And to remind you of the right thing to do the next time.”

“I’ll never do it again, Dad. I promise.”

We cuddled until Mom came to say breakfast was ready, and then we went to eat. After breakfast, I gave Dad a hug before he left for work, then went to the coach house to talk to Jesse.

“I have to hand it to you Sis,” Jesse said when I walked into the kitchen. “A four-day grounding, including the party! What the heck did you do?”

“Something Dad asked me not to do.”

“Seriously, Birgit? The one thing we all know will bring the hammer down, and you do it?”

“I know,” I sighed. “It was dumb and now I have to miss the party.”

“Cynthia will be here soon, but I wanted to ask you a question. But you can NEVER say anything to anyone.”

“I promise I won’t. I messed up with Dad and I won’t do it again.”

“I got Francesca’s number. You know, her grandma’s. Would you call from your cell and see if you can talk to her?”

“Who do I say I am?”

“Use one of the names of the girls in our class. Maybe Sheila? Say you got Francesca’s number from her step-dad.”

“Why?”

“I want to tell her I’m going to ask Kelly to be my girlfriend.”

“Whoa! Really?”

“Yes, but probably not for a month.”

“A month? Why?”

“I have something I want to do before I ask her.”

“What?”

“I can’t say. Just try making the call, please.”

I agreed and he gave me the number so I dialed it. A woman answered, but it wasn’t Francesca’s mom.

“This is Sheila, a friend of Francesca’s from her old school. Is she there?”

“No. She moved to Iowa in July. Let me give you her new number.“

“OK.”

She read the number and I wrote it down, then said ‘goodbye’ and hung up.

“She and her mom moved to Iowa!” I said.

“What?!” Jesse gasped. “When?”

“In July, the lady said. I guess it was Francesca’s grandma. I have the number. Should I call?”

“Would you?”

I nodded and dialed the number but nobody answered and there wasn’t an answering machine so I hung up.

“No answer,” I said, slipping my phone back into my pocket.

“I give up,” Jesse sighed. “If I talk to Francesca and her mom finds out, they’ll probably move to Tibet or something!”

“Is her mom really that dumb?”

“It sure seems like it. Even Heather’s mom finally calmed down and she’s allowed to hang out with us again.”

I laughed, “But Paul STILL isn’t going to get a blowjob from her!”

“He’s an idiot!” Jesse agreed.

“What are you going to do about Cynthia if you ask Kelly to be your girlfriend?”

“Tell her I can’t fool around anymore.”

“Why not have two girls? Dad has lots!”

“That’s Dad, not me. And Kelly would never agree.”

“But Kelly isn’t going to fuck your brains out! Why ask her?”

“Because I like her.”

“What about Larisa?”

“She’s twelve. And I don’t even want to THINK about what General Dmitry would say!”

I laughed, “But Tanya and Dad had an affair! They might have married if she hadn’t been a Communist!”

“She was never really a Communist,” Jesse said. “When Dad asked her which side she was on during all the troubles, she said she was on the side of Russia.”

There was a knock at the back door and Cynthia came in. She said “Hi!” and Jesse and I said “Hi!” back.

“I guess I should go back to my room,” I said.

I left the coach house and went back into the main house and up to my room. It was going to suck to be grounded for four days, but I’d earned it, so now I had to deal with it.

“Better,” I said to Liz after reading her proposed policy statement.

“This really is the limit to what I could do to soften the language.”

“Can I be sexually harassed, please?” Penny begged.

“Shut up, you!” I growled.

Penny just laughed and stuck out her tongue.

“I also wrote something for you,” Liz said. “I think it’s conveys the message in your style without causing Bob too much heartburn.”

She handed me a sheet of paper.

“Do you put your hand up his shirt,” Penny asked with a smirk, “or does his mouth move all by itself?”

“Penelope,” I warned sternly.

I read what Liz had written and it was something I could say, but only just. I was sure she and Bob had negotiated every single word, both between them and with the insurance carrier.

“Verbatim?” I asked.

“Preferably. Did I capture your style?”

“Yes. What are we doing about the training seminars?”

“I spoke with Jamie and he suggested I speak with Prem, the HR Consultant you used before you hired Bob. Their firm does this kind of training and Prem is fully aware of your views. He assured me they can put something together that will satisfy our liability insurance carrier, comply with the court rulings and the statutes, and not cause you to have a stroke.”

AIM beeped, letting me know I had a message, but I had to ignore it.

“OK. I’d like to have the session for the C-level folks first so we can get a feel for what’s going to be said and make any tweaks we feel are necessary.”

“That is what Bob had planned all along. He believes we have to work top down - C-level, managers, team leads, then line staff. That way the bosses know what’s going on.”

“Good plan. I’m going to memorize this and make a note card,” I said, holding up the sheet. “If I read it, people will flip.”

“Just be careful with the language.”

“Yes, Counselor.”

She left my office and while I wanted to check my AIM message, I didn’t want to get distracted. I took a note card from my desk drawer, and as I read through the prepared statement, I jotted some notes to ensure I used the correct words. It took about forty minutes before I was fully comfortable, and then I checked my messages.

Petra1983: Hi!
NIKASteve: Hi! Sorry for the delay.
Petra1983: You are at work! Talked to Val. She’s a bit off balance because nobody but me has ever sought her out as a friend. Or expressed any interest in her in any way. Give her a few days to process and she’ll call you.
NIKASteve: Will do.
Petra1983: What did you do about Birgit?
NIKASteve: Grounded for the long weekend, including from the Labor Day party.
Petra1983: Harsh. That coupon idea was perfect.
NIKASteve: All things being equal, I agree; but I had told her not to discuss that with anyone.
Petra1983: How many people did you tell?
NIKASteve: That’s different.
Petra1983: Is it? Seriously - how many?
NIKASteve: Three - Kara, Jessica, and Jennifer.
Petra1983: I can see Kara, and probably Jessica. But why Jennifer? Doesn’t that violate Birgit’s privacy?
NIKASteve: You talked to Jennifer so you know at least some of our history.
Petra1983: True. I also heard from Birgit you did something similar.
NIKASteve: Why do I feel like I’m being ganged up on?
Petra1983: You love all of us!
NIKASteve: I do. But you know I can’t lift the grounding because she did violate my trust.
Petra1983: I’m not lobbying, just trying to understand how you discipline for offenses.
NIKASteve: For you? Floggers!
Petra1983: Turn-about is fair play!
NIKASteve: It is! I hate to end this, but I have a Town Hall at 11:00am about sexual harassment training.
Petra1983: How to? Or prevention?
NIKASteve: PREVENTION!
Petra1983: LOL! Love you! L8r!
NIKASteve: Love you, too. L8r!

Just before 11:00am I went downstairs where the staff was gathering and where Noelle, our internal IT support engineer, had set up the videoconferencing gear. There were quite a few curious looks because we hadn’t announced the topic of the Town Hall in advance, and it was clear from where I was standing that I was going to lead it, not Stephanie, who was standing against the back wall. I checked my watch and promptly at 11:00am I nodded to Noelle who turned on the microphone and I began.

“Good afternoon or good morning,” I said. “This Town Hall is going to be brief, though I will take questions after I say my piece. Unless you’ve been living on a rock or just returned from traveling outside the galaxy, you’re aware of the trouble a certain leader of the free world got into due to his behavior with an underling, and how much more trouble he got into because he lied about it, which, I think, was a natural reaction.”

There was a lot of laughter, though Bob didn’t seem amused. The thing was, I’d said, verbatim, what Liz had written for me, which meant he’d approved it, though certainly grudgingly.

“It should also come as no surprise, that ‘stuff’ rolls downhill. Fourteen years ago the US Supreme Court ruled, 9-0, that sexual harassment is covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Two years ago, they ruled, once again 9-0, that same-sex harassment is covered as well, though that case also made it clear that a claim of harassment had to be based on behavior which made the workplace a ‘hostile work environment’.

“All of the chickens have come home to roost, and it’s not just in Arkansas or DC. Effective today, we’re implementing a sexual harassment policy which is an expansion of the NIKA Code of Behavior to which you all agreed when you accepted employment, or in the case of us old-timers, when it was first published ten years ago. In addition, our liability insurance carrier has asked us to conduct seminars to help avoid situations that might violate that code of conduct.

“I want to make one thing very clear - we are NOT doing this because of anything which has occurred at NIKA. To our knowledge, nobody has violated the policy, which is exactly the behavior I would expect from the professionals who are part of our team. In our fifteen-year history, the ONLY time I ever had to reprimand someone for inappropriate behavior, it was a business partner, NOT an employee. I expect all of you to continue your excellent conduct and I am positive I won’t be disappointed.

“I won’t go into details, but I will read to you what the court actually said in its ruling in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services. This is Mr. Justice Scalia writing for a unanimous court.”

I picked up the sheet on which Liz had printed the appropriate section of the ruling. She hadn’t run it by Bob, but if Bob wanted to take it up with Justice Scalia, he was more than welcome to do so.

We have emphasized, moreover, that the objective severity of harassment should be judged from the perspective of a reasonable person in the plaintiff’s position, considering “all the circumstances.” In same-sex (as in all) harassment cases, that inquiry requires careful consideration of the social context in which particular behavior occurs and is experienced by its target. A professional football player’s working environment is not severely or pervasively abusive, for example, if the coach smacks him on the buttocks as he heads onto the field — even if the same behavior would reasonably be experienced as abusive by the coach’s secretary (male or female) back at the office. The real social impact of workplace behavior often depends on a constellation of surrounding circumstances, expectations, and relationships which are not fully captured by a simple recitation of the words used or the physical acts performed. Common sense, and an appropriate sensitivity to social context, will enable courts and juries to distinguish between simple teasing or roughhousing among members of the same sex, and conduct which a reasonable person in the plaintiff’s position would find severely hostile or abusive.

“My point in reading that was that I do not wish to stifle expression or the free exchange of ideas, nor disrupt our collegial atmosphere. You do not need to walk on eggshells, you just need to be smart, and all of you are. I’ll take questions, if you have any, though I won’t be able to give you examples beyond what I just read - that will be for the trainers who will come in to conduct the seminars. And they will be aware of NIKA’s kami and take that into account. So, questions?”

Penny, the troublemaker, raised her hand and I reluctantly called on her, noticing a frown on Bob’s face as I did so.

“Are YOU going to take this training?”

“That is the definition of mandatory,” I replied. “So, yes, I am. The executives will all have this training first, then managers, then the rest of the staff. Nobody is exempted from this, including interns or work-study students. New staff will watch a video of a session.”

Sam raised her hand and I nodded to her.

“Is this an annual thing?”

“That is what we’ve been advised to do, yes.”

“If I may, what about our vendors, partners, and customers?”

“Our contracts all incorporate our Code of Conduct by reference. According to Liz, new contracts will specifically reference non-harassment and non-discrimination requirements with regard to NIKA employees.”

She sat down and Barbara asked a question over the videoconference.

“I’m not sure if this is for you, or for Liz, but will we spell out that those requirements cover ALL forms of harassment - sex, race, religion, and so on?”

“You can’t see it, but Stephanie is nodding from the back of the room, so the answer is ‘yes’.”

“Thanks.”

I looked around and waited, but there were no further questions.

“Remember,” I said, “NIKA does not tolerate ANY kind of discrimination and never has. I won’t tolerate it, and neither should you! If you feel that you, or another employee, are being discriminated against by anyone, whether they work for NIKA or a client or a vendor or a partner, Bob needs to hear about it immediately. And that means you drop what you’re doing and report it. Thank you all, and I now return you to your regularly scheduled Friday.”

I nodded to Noelle who shut down the videoconference, and then headed back to my office. I wasn’t surprised when Stephanie, Bob, Elyse, and Liz came into the office about two minutes later. Penny saw them, rolled her eyes, and turned around to make herself scarce.

“You went off-script,” Stephanie said.

“I did, but if you want to take it up with the Supreme Court, be my guest! That is the law I read, after all. And in case you noticed, nobody pushed back and the questions, even from my officemate, were exactly on target and weren’t resisting. Liz wrote an excellent script that caught my style. Yes, I ad-libbed the reading from what amounts to Holy Writ for Liz and her ilk, but that was my prerogative.”

“My ‘ilk’?” Liz asked, hands on her hips.

“You chose your profession, not me!” I grinned. “It could be worse, you could have an MBA!”

“Don’t take the bait, Bob,” Elyse said. “Three of us have MBAs and he’s just trying to get a response the way Jesse used to with Birgit.”

“You are just no fun, Ms. Clarke!” I responded with a grin. “So, why the posse?”

“Just to say you did exactly what you needed to do,” Stephanie said. “But no back-channel pushback, and no bitching about it.”

“Do I look stupid? Wait! Don’t answer that!”

“I claim little sister’s rights! So yes, you do look stupid, you «jävla idiot»!”

Elyse and Liz laughed but Bob looked confused.

“It means effing idiot, Bob,” I said. “A term used for me by a Swedish friend which my sister and several others adopted for their own use. When do the training sessions start?”

“October. I know you have a trip scheduled, so the one for executives will be the first week of the month.”

“OK. And thanks for letting Liz write a script I could read and support.”

“The pre-expansion staff would never have accepted this if you weren’t leading, and if they accept it, the others will accept it. I would have preferred something more traditional, but you have your own ways which seem to work, despite being unorthodox.”

“That’s about the nicest way you could say ‘subversive revolutionary’, Bob,” Stephanie said with a smirk. “Thanks, Steve.”

“You’re welcome.”

Bob, Elyse, and Stephanie left, but I asked Liz to stay for a moment.

“Thanks,” I said, once we were alone. “I couldn’t have done that without you, and it would never have happened if we weren’t as close as we are.”

She smiled, “I know you at least as well as anyone else in the world, and maybe better, and I know I’m in the right place. I’m here for as long as you need me.”

“I doubt the day I don’t need you will ever come,” I said. “I just can’t imagine it.”

We hugged and she left the office. I sat down to do some work, and when Penny came in a minute later, she sat down, kissed my cheek and we both got back to work.