Employee of the Year

Chapter 3 - Zero Sum Game

Wednesday, June 15. Second night after the murder

The golf club thing happened last summer. It was one of many rough times I'd faced at Passion. I took the job thinking it was an escape. The white collar world of cubicles and coffee machines would take me away from the violence of the streets. But soon enough I realized you find meanness everywhere you go it just takes a different face.

That night I continued to go over every last detail of the Employee of the Year contest while reports of the killing played out on the evening news. At first I was surprised it made TV two nights in a row, because guys get shot all the time in LA and nobody pays attention.

Of course this case was a little different. Roland was the employee of a big bank that issued millions of credit cards. He was shot in the company parking lot coming off his shift. This was a situation that respectable people can relate to, people who own homes with swimming pools and have money to take vacations and send their kids to college.

Hell, even rich people have to trudge through parking lots on their way back and forth to work. So if a guy can get shot through the heart doing the exact same thing that the rich and respectable do everyday, I guess that makes it news. I guess we should all pay attention.

I heard through the grapevine that Roland's family was having a quiet funeral for him up in Glendale. Only his parents and siblings. Roland had no wife, no children. No one from work would attend. The man they called The Voice for his charm and eloquence had a private life outside of work that no one seemed to understand. That shouldn't have been so surprising.     

We all spend so much time on the job. We all have to put on a certain face and talk in a certain voice. We have to tell our co-workers we're doing fine even if that's the farthest thing from the truth. That's because the job is just a means to an end. It's what we have to do so we can have a so-called life. Too often the work becomes our life. I've seen guys take a job for no other reason than to provide for the family and have a home. Within a couple years on the job, that work has wrecked their family and driven them out of their home. It's an easy trap to fall into. And that's why we try to keep work and home away from each other. We try to keep our worlds separate.

Part of my problem was that I could never keep things separate. The hopes and fears and responsibilities from two worlds kept colliding. That drove Suzy crazy. It drove me crazy. Roland must have had the same problem. I wondered if that was what got him killed.

Watching the news report, I knew that Detective Kowalski would call again with more questions. He'd want to know when and how I first met Roland.

If the detective asked when I first came in contact with Roland, I could answer in detail. I was going to clarify every memory of that time.

I first met Roland during the company ping-pong tournament last September.

The ping-pong challenge was announced with great fanfare at a company all-hands meeting in the ballroom of the Torrance Marriot. A crowd of over one thousand Passion employees cheered, with music blaring, pom-poms pumping, and flashy corporate videos playing on a giant screen.

Our CEO, Marcus Davis, strutted across the stage like a rock star. We all knew to give him a standing ovation. Lenny and the other managers took names of anyone who didn't get up and clap for the big boss. Marcus greeted the crowd and paced the stage until the forced applause finally died down. He made a few jokes. Then he wanted to talk some serious business. He wanted to talk about the economy.

"This company keeps growing through good times and bad times. Other banks are having hard times. They are handing out pink slips. But here at Passion we're still growing. We're actually adding more agents to our call center."