Crash and Burn
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX from CAUGHT UP Truth and Metaphor | An Imaginary Tale
Crash and Burn
26
In danger of coming up short on the rent, yet again, Petra set about looking for an additional source of income.
“Hey Cindy, I heard you’re the front of the house manager at a new restaurant.”
“Yeah, it’s inside an up-and-coming boutique hotel a couple of miles east of town. Great people running it.”
“Do you think they might hire an old-lady waitress?”
“Old lady? You’re nowhere near old. Don’t be ridiculous. And, yeah, we need a couple more servers before season hits. Come by tomorrow at three.”
In her mid-fifties, and unconvinced she was up to the demands of a strenuous physical job, especially as a waitress in a fast-paced, chic restaurant, she applied anyway, and was hired.
During her interview, Gavin, the talented chef behind the brand, a towering giant of a man and as charismatic as they come, revealed his status as an opioid addict in recovery. Junkies, active or squeaky clean, instinctively recognize one another. They hit it off, two peas in a pod.
The last time she needed to supplement her income, she went back to college for a digital marketing degree. Her primary motivation was the financial aid money but, hey, why not learn a skill? In case the reader has not yet noticed, Petra is scrappy. She’s a survivalist and if the world ever goes to shit, you would do well to have her somewhere in your vicinity.
“I heard you have mad web design skills,” said Chef. “The owner’s about to pay three grand for a piece of shit website. Come with me to the office. I’ll show you.”
“Oh, yeah, that sucks.”
The design was so stagnant and old-fashioned; it creaked.
“Look, he already bought this one for the hotel.”
“That’s fucking embarrassing.”
Placing a sizzling rack of lamb in front of the owner, she said, “I just graduated from design school and I was wondering if I could show you what a website with all the bells and whistles looks like these days.”
He invited her to take a seat, and she borrowed Gavin’s laptop.
“Well, if you know how to do all that, why don’t we hire you instead?”
Not only were her mockups approved, the GM created a salaried position and gave her the title, Digital Marketing Manager. Along the way, her skill set exposed the incompetence of the Director of Sales. It was a new age in marketing that required at least a modicum of computer literacy. With no formal training, he could not keep up. When the General Manager discovered the lengths he had gone to keep his ineptitude secret, he demoted him to Front Desk Clerk. The collateral damage of her good fortune was heartbreaking. Petra felt more than a tinge of guilt, as she assumed his responsibilities on top of her own.
Both the Owner and the General Manager were born-again Southern Baptist Christians. Given Petra’s previous experience with the church, their intolerance of other people’s beliefs triggered some residual resentments but, in keeping with the hotel brand, she designed tame and wholesome ads that reflected family values.
In no time at all, the restaurant became a local hotspot with social media interaction exploding. The owner, thrilled, began referring to her as the “Wordsmith” and the “Golden Child.” The experience was magical and all the attention and accolades went straight to her head.
“I’m going to make this hotel a real hotspot, a destination in and of itself,” she told Chef.
“You go girl!” he said, showing off his new, “Once You Put My Meat in Your Mouth, You’re Going to Want to Swallow,” apron.
“Are you high? Don’t let the owner catch you wearing that.”
“What’s he going to do? Fire me? My concept and my recipes made this place.”
They were both flying high. Two full-blown addicts drunk on popularity and praise. If either of them understood the term “emotional sobriety,” they would have looked for an Egos Anonymous meeting, (no such program exists, but someone should start one), to pick up a twenty-four-hour chip.
A couple of weeks earlier, the GM pulled her aside.
“You know, I was standing here looking at you and Chef strategizing and I said to myself, ‘That’s my crack marketing team right there.’ You’re doing an amazing job. Keep up the good work.”
Emboldened by his admiration, and with a total disregard for the wholesome image the owner wanted to portray, she set about creating marketing campaigns that reflected a cool, avant-garde, bohemian vibe.
“Take a look at these new video ads, Gavin.”
“Holy shit! They’re fantastic,” he said.
All the likes and comments on social media became Petra’s new addiction. With every “ping,” she got tiny rushes of adrenaline and dopamine. On a mission to satisfy her ever-increasing habit, she created more and more outlandish ads, advertisements perfect for a hipster hotel in downtown New York City.
The GM, uncomfortable with the new look, turned one hundred and eighty degrees on his previous supportive stance and brought down a stern hammer that disintegrated on contact.
“Look at these numbers. It’s working! Isn’t this the outcome you’ve been looking for?”
The Owner, livid, demanded the GM to, “Rein her in before we’re inundated with undesirables.”
Translation: “This is going to attract a bunch of unruly, dope fiend musicians to trash my beautiful six million dollar renovation.”
Finding it impossible to argue with the increase in revenue, he set an intention to hire a new director of sales formidable enough to handle his out-of-control marketing manager.
—
Narcisa, the new Director of Sales, drove through an ice storm, arriving just in time to attend a swanky Business After Hours event they were holding to celebrate their success. She was the bridle charged with bringing the wild, untamed Petra into submission. The following morning, Narcisa barged into her office, gave her a haughty once-over, eerily reminiscent of the one Cookie gave her decades earlier, and said, “You know, it would be nice if this worked out, but your job is superfluous, isn’t it?”
The battle for survival was on.
“From now on, you report directly to me. You are not to approach the GM for any reason. All communication must go through proper corporate channels,” said Narcisa. “And let me make this perfectly clear: All your social media posts, in fact, anything you write or design, must be approved by me. Do not post anything without my prior approval.”
In no time, Petra’s responsibilities shifted into something that looked a lot like basic secretarial work. With her career threatened, she went behind Narcisa’s back and lodged a complaint with the GM. The company was too small to have a human resources department. Her corporate chain of command rule-breaking led to a spontaneous meeting where she was double-teamed by Narcisa and the GM while his secretary, blown away by the brutal spectacle, took notes.
Her world flipped upside down in a situation that mirrored the abusive dynamic she had suffered under her parents. Sitting in the GM’s office, she cascaded down the old familiar freight elevator, her raw nerve activating a full-blown PTSD episode. The secretary witnessed “the whole sorry event” and relayed afterward that, “Her neck broke out in bright red splotches, and she seemed disoriented.”
Petra attempted to stay present as a descending murky-yellow haze, coupled with throbbing carotid arteries and a buzzing brain, threatened to separate her from the conversation. Having lost her power and her privilege, the once lauded “Wordsmith” was being accused of “Not having a clue how to write,” by a woman who edited classified ads for most of her career.
Narcisa went through every social media post, close to entire years’ worth, and printed every grammatical error she could find. She circled, in red Sharpie, an extra space here and a misplaced comma there. Petra tried to explain that this is social media marketing, not newspaper print.
“It’s just not that serious. Besides, it is easy enough to go in and correct an error after the fact.”
Narcisa was livid and reinforced her power over Petra’s work.
“Let’s put an end to this embarrassing public display. Effective now!”
Petra looked pleadingly at the GM, once her greatest advocate, for help.
“Don’t you look at him. Look at me! I am your superior. You report to me. Don’t you know anything about the chain of command?”
Somehow, this beastly woman had gained control over everyone, including the General Manager.
Narcisa, obsessed with finding leverage to control or eliminate her underling, watched her and took notes. Here was a woman skilled in the art of corporate power struggle.
I know what you must be thinking. She was imagining it. Paranoia had set in. If only that were true.
Petra always parked in the same spot below the second-story office window of the Sales Department. When she heard, through the grapevine, that her comings and goings were being monitored and documented, she parked on the opposite side of the building.
Within an hour, “La Bruja”, as she now called her, yanked open Petra’s office door as if it had done something wrong.
“You’re late!”
“No, I was here on time.”
“Where’s your car? I don’t see your car.”
What was so ironic about this specific attempt to seize an upper hand was Narcisa’s tendency to call her while she was on the clock and brag about how she was out shopping for furniture to decorate her new apartment.
The insanity caught up to Petra. Her blood pressure sky-rocketed. She began having panic attacks, gastrointestinal issues and sleepless nights. Even though any sense of serenity eluded her, she did not pick up a drink or a drug and continued going to AA meetings.
Whenever she attempted to describe what was happening to her on the job, the garbled words sputtering out of her mouth were incoherent and sounded insane. Her sponsor and support group all agreed on a similar course of action.
“You need to quit that job.”
“But how will I survive without it? What about my bills? I can’t just up and quit. Not only that, Narcisa is ruining my reputation in the community. I won’t be able to find another marketing job.”
Her AA friends were insistent. From their non-attached perspective, she had spiraled so far down the rabbit hole of negative self-talk and destructive thought patterns that there was no other option, no hope that she would “cease fighting everyone and everything.”
Surrender and compliance with the “powers that be” were not a viable choice. One of her co-workers, in response to Narcisa’s tactics, started taking a regular dose of valium. Petra, unwilling to self-medicate, was stuck in survival mode. Her fight response had failed and the only option left was flight.
When the pain became too much to bear, she followed their unanimous suggestion and made her way into the GM’s office.
“I can’t do this anymore. It’s me or her.”
“Please pack up your belongings. I’ll send the head of maintenance to escort you out of the building. No need for two weeks’ notice.”
Why the head of maintenance? Was he responsible for taking out the trash?
Build me up and tear me down over and over…again. The same fucking hero to scapegoat pattern on a never-ending, ceaseless loop.
What’s it going to take to break this cycle?
Voicing her concerns to her AA group about how she was going to make it in the short-term with no savings, she asked for help. She knew she was capable of a pivot, but it would take at least a month. Having been an active member of the group for five years, she hoped that someone might reach out and assist her. In the past, she bought groceries for other members in a tough spot. She had witnessed the group bring food and supplies to anyone who fell ill.
No one offered to help.
Her depression escalated, and she stopped going to meetings. No one called to check up on her.
Throwing up her hands in frustration and disbelief, she retreated from life, choosing instead the safety of isolation. She walked away from Alcoholics Anonymous and extricated herself from all forms of social media. In search of an unthreatening occupation, she pursued another server job, (the perfect profession for an undesirable miscreant), worked hard, kept her head down; way down, and waited for the world to end…which, in obligatory fashion, it did less than a year later.
Two videos that played a large part in Petra’s demise:
First Video: “Way too provocative,” said the GM
Second Video: Petra imagined the GM had an anorexic daughter. In that case, she could understand his vehement reaction. In reality, his response was homophobic, which pissed her off.
“I hate this right-wing religious bullshit!”
Chef agreed wholeheartedly.
If you would like to support my work, I invite you to make a donation. “Buy Me a Coffee” is a friendly metaphor, not real coffee. Each “coffee” is $5 and you can buy as many as you like. It is a one time much appreciated gift. Thank you for caring!
A harrowing tale, shot through with unlikely humor and fantastical creatures.
This autofiction (autobiography meets fiction) novel revolves around a lifetime spent underwater struggling to find the surface. The narrative follows the journey of an unlikely heroine from the bondage of childhood trauma to self-awareness and freedom.
It is a roller coaster ride from the depths of hell to triumphant success that finishes with a big Hollywood ending.