Kettle Violation

The CEO was petulant. Case in point: kettle refill. She poured boiled water and realised there was enough for approximately a third of her mug. Cue a tirade on whoever thought it was acceptable to not fill the kettle after using said item.

I was behind her, waiting for a brew, mug in hand.

She was loud, accusing her employees as they sat at their banks of desks in the open plan office, some on landline calls, others video. She did not care. She wanted a name. Needed to know the culprit.

There were puzzled expressions. A few were afraid and, when nobody owned up, she attributed the incident to not any old ghost, but the holy one.

I was gagging for a cup of coffee. As she shouted, blaming the entire company for a conspiracy of silence, I wondered if I could refill the kettle and flick the switch, or if I ought to wait for her tirade to end. I hesitated, debating protocol given the circumstance I now found myself in.

Disaster struck: she returned to the kitchenette the very moment I moved my hand toward the kettle.

The CEO was short and wiry with styled grey hair. She described herself as an entrepreneur and seemed to take pride in this title. A self-starter. Go getter. Back in the day, she was a working mum. Only she came from money and went to Oxford, working as an investment banker, if you catch my drift. And she wrote books on how to build a small business, playing down her time earning big bucks in financial services in the City. Her books delved into the practicalities of taxation, managing cash flow and the mindset of the owner-founder. Her first book sold over a million copies and others followed. These tomes of wisdom lined a shelf in her office and above that was a shelf of awards for being what was called a ‘Growth Business’ and one for ‘Small Business of the Year’ and another for ‘Entrepreneur of the Year – Regional Winner – South East’.

These awards were from over a decade ago.

For all of these achievements and boasts of acumen, the general opinion within the business from her employees, current and former, was that she was a bad tempered bully who was incapable of listening to anyone unless they agreed with her.

In the kitchenette, she fixed me with a stare.

I backed away and let her go ahead of me.

She tutted, believing I jumped the queue. In effect, she was bracketing me with the type of person who would not refill the kettle after using it.

The deeper problem was as follows: her tut and stare signalled that I would be among the employees singled out for redundancy in the imminent restructure.

I do not think this was entirely down to my lack of kettle etiquette. I had a sneaking suspicion my name was on the list due to repeated lateness and the time I sent out a mass email without Bcc’ing the recipients of the message, causing complaints and accusations of data privacy breaches.

The restructure was supposed to be hush-hush at this stage, but Christine in HR had the loudest mouth on her and could not keep a secret to save her life after a couple of post-work vodka and Reddies down the pub. Christine would gabble about whatever was going on in the company, spilling the beans on affairs, addictions, feuds between senior management, and the company’s increasingly desperate financial woes.

It was the age old story of losing a major client. We could not win new business and cash flow was dire. The Head of Sales was hardly recognisable these days as his confidence was shot to pieces. I almost felt sorry for him. Each week, he had a meeting in the CEO’s glass-walled office, and the blinds would be lowered but we would all hear her berating him for missed targets and a weak pipeline of business development opportunities.

She didn’t want excuses about the economy and the global political landscape.  

He still had his designer suits and was one of the few people around who wore ties. Except he didn’t carry off those suits with the same swagger. They now seemed like they belonged to someone else. He knew we were sneaking glances when he emerged from the CEO’s office, his arse well and truly handed to him again.

I stood behind the CEO. She poured out her previous mug in the sink. I guessed she was unhappy with the thought of the tea bag stewing in an insufficient amount of water. After dropping the tea bag in a tall pedal bin, she sluiced her mug under the tap and repoured the boiled water. She went to the fridge under the counter-top and opened the door, peering inside.

She slammed shut the door, looking at me.

Why, she yelled, is there no milk in here?

She pressed her foot on the pedal of the bin, flipping the lid and reaching into the rubbish, rummaging with her hands to remove an empty plastic two pint bottle of semi-skimmed milk.

Did you do this? she shouted, holding the bottle.

I felt myself swallow. Before I could answer she was off, striding across the office to HR where she would instruct Carol to send an extensive email outlining the rules for using the kitchen. An angled acrylic sign holder was placed by the kettle which ordered us to refill after use and a sign was stuck to the fridge in large font instructing us to replace the milk.

I made myself a black coffee. When I returned to my desk people whispered, What happened?, and there were messages on my phone, saying Wtf? and M8!! that was mental and she’s a fookin fruit loop. I had this sense of anxiety come over me, not because of the CEO’s ranting and raving. Well, partly, but it was more because I realised the redundancies were going to happen and that Christine was telling the truth. I felt a sharp shot of fear about losing my job. How was I going to pay the rent? How would I cope with the ordeal of applying for other jobs, going to interviews and saying the wrong things? Getting those phone calls from recruitment consultants and hearing their stock phrase: They really liked you but… I looked at one of our researchers, Damian, who had a pouch for his mobile phone which he wore on his hip like a holster, and he had these t-shirts of wolves and lions and eagles. If he was on the list, he didn’t stand a chance of finding a new job. I suppose he lived with his Mum, so he would have a roof over his head no matter what. I saw into the future. Knew what was coming and could feel the anger and hurt as colleagues left the meeting rooms after being told: Difficult decisions had to be made in these situations and unfortunately, regretfully, we have to let you go.

I’m not pretending I particularly liked the people I worked with, but still…

And I sat at my desk and I swear I was sweating. This sickness in my stomach rising up to my throat. A dryness in my mouth. Rapid beating of the heart and staccato breathing.

Are you alright? a colleague said. You’re very pale.  

In a nutshell: I did not know how I had allowed my life to go pear-shaped. Here I sat, panicking about losing the job I hate. I mean, what’s that about? I was a pear myself. Well overweight. I kept buying these overpriced feta pastries from M&S on the commute home each day. Couldn’t stop myself. I had a serious problem with packs of BBQ flavoured Hula Hoops. I would spend my evenings gaming deep into the night, stuffing my face, and I was putting on more weight, turning into a proper lump of lard. I got myself a gym membership in January but the last time I went was back in March. I buy these books and never read them. All I do is gaming and scrolling on my phone like a zombie.  

Where was my self-discipline?

Why was I still so rubbish at spreadsheets?

I made it to green belt in Judo as a kid. Didn’t have what it takes to reach black.

The CEO, though, the owner-founder, the award-winning entrepreneur, would be fine come what may.

She was skinny, Oxford educated and a multi-millionaire.

I once overheard her say she didn’t need to work.