Once upon a Time -- by Anne Shier

Once upon a time there was a pretty, young woman named Claudia Moore who had worked hard all her life in the business world. Though she had earned a bachelor of science degree early in her adult life, she had never gotten any  significant kind of recognition for her achievements, either at school or work. Her BSc degree had not gotten her anywhere at work so far, since it was largely unrelated to business.

        Due to wanting to excel in the business world, however, Claudia then decided to take some business courses at night: business administration, micro economics and fundamentals of accounting, to name a few. She did very well in these courses at Ryerson University, achieving either a grade A or B in each one, and then resolved to continue on to get her bachelor of commerce degree as well. She knew it would take her at least four or five years to complete a degree program at night, but she knew she could do it. All she needed was enough money to pay for each course, in turn, and the time to complete the required work. She was certain that someone somewhere would one day recognize her excellent work ethic and positive attitude and give her a chance to prove herself in a business leadership role.

 Three more years passed and she was finally able to earn a business management certificate, which is comprised of eight courses (a degree is comprised of 20 courses.) Even though she had earned good grades in all eight of her business courses and had demonstrated the excellent work ethic and attitude needed to get ahead, she still found that she was not getting the opportunities she craved in the business world, and the problem continued to perplex her. Why wasn’t she getting more opportunities to advance?

  One day, when she had accumulated at least five years’ full time business experience of various types (mostly in a computerized accounting capacity), Claudia finally decided that she needed to take the plunge and dive into a full time college program in business and finance for the next three years. She didn’t know where the money for it would come from, but she was determined to complete the program, come hell or high water. The curriculum would include courses in quantitative methods (statistics), computer technology, macroeconomics, intermediate and advanced accounting, English and psychology. It was a well-rounded program, and she relished the idea of developing her mind and skill set in this way.

   Claudia had access to optional courses that she could take as well, for example, business computers, which included word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and accounting software. Although she already had computerized accounting experience, she looked forward to taking business- and computer-related courses and felt that, if nothing else, she was going to be prepared for any job that came up after she graduated.

    On her graduation day at Ryerson University, she was delightfully surprised to discover that Ryerson had a student job placement service that helps new graduates find suitable work for themselves. Forthwith, she took her impressive, up-to-date resume with her to the Student Employment Centre and, in less than a week, was able to line up several interviews with several medium- and large-sized companies. It was amazing to her that she could achieve such a thing so easily at this point in her life. After all, getting an interview is tantamount to getting a job offer, depending on a person’s interviewing skills, and she was definitely experienced in this area. Upon being interviewed only three times, she was offered a lucrative position as a management trainee with one of the largest companies in Canada: Bank of Montreal Financial Group (BMO, for short). It was exciting to think that, at age 30, she was finally getting her chance to show what she could do in the world of work. She was told that she could advance as fast and as far as she wanted to; her rate of progress was up to her. The only stipulation by BMO was that her performance reviews, which would be done by her boss twice a year, had to be exemplary. That meant she had to achieve a performance level that was deemed either “good” or “excellent,” and that seemed wholly achievable. She now felt there was nothing she could not achieve.

  When she went to work for BMO two weeks later, she was pleasantly surprised to find that she would have a nice office on the 23rd floor of an office building in the heart of the financial district of Toronto. An office like this would be equivalent to one found on Wall Street in New York City. It was gratifying to know that she had a professional and pleasant working environment in which she could explore and fulfill her potential.

  Her boss, George Bolton, was a truly nice man. He was a professional through and through in his capacity as a seasoned business manager. He had been working for large companies, similar in size to BMO, for the last 20 years. Claudia could not have asked for a more experienced and capable person to be her boss. Fortunately, he was not the male chauvinistic type of boss she was used to working for whose agenda included constantly putting his female subordinates in their place. George respected Claudia’s abilities and used her many strengths as a vital member to get his team’s job done. His team had consistently excelled in their efforts since he’d joined BMO 10 years previously.

Claudia was very happy to be working for George. She resolved to give him everything she had to offer as a team member and show him the excellent work ethic and attitude that she’d always had in the past but had never been recognized for having.

 While working hard for George in order to prove herself, Claudia came up with a simple yet brilliant idea that actually saved the company a lot of money—more than $90,000 in one year! It consisted of paying all of the company’s vendors as early as possible to take advantage of the vendor discounts being offered. For a large company, $90,000 was considered just a drop in the bucket, but the fact that money could be saved using Claudia’s idea was the critical thing. Because of this, she got a big promotion to assistant business manager within only two years of being hired by BMO. Under normal circumstances, she would have thought that other people would become jealous of her success, but the fact was, she deserved her promotion. If they wanted to gripe and gossip about her, so be it.

 Two years later, she got her long-cherished promotion to business manager. It had been a long time coming to be sure, but Claudia was ready for it. She was now allowed to interview and hire her own team members and set her own goals for her team. It was exhilarating to be able to do this because she knew that if she did a good job of hiring the right people and using their strengths to her team’s advantage like George had done with his team, she would be very happy with the result. And thus, BMO would be very happy with her.

  Gradually, as her salary improved annually, she was able to buy new things for herself and her family. To wit, she was able to buy a beautiful 3,000 square foot house on a lovely lake that one would dream about owning and coming home to every day after work. Although she was very busy at work with her increased responsibilities, she tried hard to arrive home before her kids had to go to bed. Her husband, Richard, was supportive of her career (thank God!), and that made it much easier for her to fulfill her mandate at work. It had occurred to her along the way that her great success in the business world had as much to do with the quality of her marriage as it had to do with her own efforts. By showing her appreciation to Richard for his continuing support, she ensured that her marriage was going to be successful, as well as her career. Anything she did at home to show her husband how much she loved and needed him was worth every second of the time she spent with him. And since she truly did love him, it was a labour of love for her.

 Eventually, she was also able to buy two brand new vehicles: a navy blue Aston Martin for herself and a large camper/trailer for her family. Richard already had a car of his own, so it was not necessary to buy him one. Claudia’s family was definitely not hurting for the better things in life.

  All the while, she carefully and wisely invested consistently in stocks and bonds with growth potential, as well as RRSPs, CDs, GICs (and RESPs for their two kids). Claudia felt that if she did not do this, one day she might find herself short of funds for something really important. In her mind, vehicles were not considered good investments since they depreciated in value immediately after being purchased. Thus, she had to invest in things that would grow in value, not diminish. If, by any stretch of the imagination, she or Richard should lose their jobs, they would still be okay. They might have to scale down their standard of living somewhat, but they would survive.

  The following year, Claudia and Richard decided to build an addition onto their already large house. The new addition would include a well-stocked library and a modern office for Claudia. It might have seemed like a selfish thing to do, but she wanted to make sure she could work from home if need be. Modern-day office workers tended to want to work more from home while staying connected to their respective offices. There was nothing that could not be dealt with via telephone, video conferencing, e-mail, chat or the file transfer facilities on her computer. If anyone needed to get in touch with her, her phone numbers and e-mail address were readily available to each and every one of her team members if and when she needed to take a day off. In fact, every team member did the same if and when they needed to take a day off. Nobody in her team abused the privilege; conversely, they were all thankful for having a terrific boss like Claudia.        Everything she knew about being a good boss came from George; he had been an excellent role model and continued to be a good friend to her as well. She and George would have lunch together occasionally and talk about business as well as personal matters. Claudia could confide in George like no one else she knew; even Richard was not nearly as good a listener. George had a family too, but he always seemed to find time for her whenever she needed him.

  One day, while at lunch with George at the Pickle Barrel Restaurant on Yonge Street, Claudia was busy confiding her usual worries to George when he suddenly said to her, without any preamble, “Claudia, I just love listening to you talk. Your face becomes so animated and your eyes sparkle. There aren’t many women that I know who can make me feel so needed. It might surprise you to know this, but—I am in love with you—not the way you read about in novels. It’s the real thing. I didn’t want to tell you at first, but you’ve become very important to me over time.”

   “George! How could you? We’ve known each other for so long, and I had no idea you felt this way about me! Come on, you’re married and so am I!” Claudia replied in complete shock.

  “Yes we are, but I can’t help it. I need to be with you. Nancy and I haven’t been on the same page for a long, long time, but I was afraid to tell you about it because I didn’t want your pity. You seem to think I’m perfect, but I assure you I’m anything but.”

 Stunned, Claudia looked at George for a long moment and then said, “I have to leave now. This is too much for me to absorb right at this moment. I don’t think I can see you for a while.” And with that, she got up and walked out.

 Not sure of what to do, she walked downtown for at least an hour, thinking. What do I do now? He says he’s in love with me! And I love him too, but not in that way. I love Richard. I love our kids and our life together. I won’t desert my family for George. Perhaps if I stay away from George for a long time, without speaking to him, he’ll get over it. In fact, I’ll have to tell him that he has to get over me and the sooner the better. Otherwise, our friendship is in jeopardy. I guess I’ll have to find a new business mentor with whom I can discuss things at work. My God, what have I done to deserve this?

  Later that night, Claudia went home to Richard and their kids and decided to have a heart to heart with him. She wasn’t quite sure how she would say what she had to say though. She just knew that if she did not tell Richard about George’s heartfelt admission to her, she would not be able to face George again. She felt she needed to come clean with Richard and then close the book on George. It made her very sad to have to do this, but she had worked too hard for too long to obtain her position as business manager to put it at risk. It was a prize she had both earned and deserved, and she was not going to give it up for a fling with anyone, especially George. She had heard that things like that sometimes happened in the workplace, and when they did, someone usually had to leave. Thus, she resolved to start putting feelers out for similar positions with similar responsibilities and hoped like hell that she would not have to leave BMO or the city in order to achieve this possible job change.

When Claudia got home later that night after doing some serious soul searching, she asked Richard to sit down with her for a discussion. Although he had no idea what was coming, she knew that she had to tell him what had happened and be honest with him regarding her feelings about everyone involved.

“Richard,” she began hesitantly, “you know how hard I’ve worked to get where I am today. You know it’s taken me a long time to get here, and I am so grateful for your support and love along the way. Today I had lunch with George, as I often do, and he said something so disturbing to me that I really feel that I can no longer work with him. He told me … that he is in love with me! I only want to tell you this because we’ve always had such an honest relationship. I need to tell you the truth. I need you in my life. I need our family in my life. But I don’t need George in my daily life. He has been a good friend and mentor, to be sure, but since his heartfelt admission to me today, I now find that I have had to make an important decision, and that is to stay away from him. He may or may not change his mind about me, but I cannot take the risk that we might get involved with each other. That would jeopardize not only everything I’ve worked for but also our love for each other and our family life.”

  “Claudia,” he replied, taken aback, “you’re right, and I support you all the way. You do what you have to do to make it all work. I’m glad you told me the truth, and I too need you in my life. I need our family in my life. I don’t think George has thought this thing through, however. What does he expect you to do? Leave us to be with him? If so, I agree with you that it would jeopardize everything you’ve worked so hard for and justly deserve. However, it’s not about the money, the house, the vehicles or other material wealth that we have. It’s about the intangible things—those things you can’t see or touch—that are the most important to me. All that other stuff, I could live without if I had to. I’m sure we all could. But, I don’t want to live without you and our kids. Nor do I want you to lose the position you’ve achieved as a result of your hard work and dedication. What do you think?”

“I think it’s time to tell George that I don’t love him the way he loves me. If he wants to stay friends with me, I might be able to handle that. If he insists that he wants something more intimate, I will have to say good-bye to him and leave the company. Unless I can come up with another alternative, I don’t see what else I can do to preserve my job status and my home life with you and our kids.

“I agree with you that the accoutrements of wealth are not that important. We could definitely live in a smaller house, use only one vehicle and cash in some of the investments we’ve made. I’ve always been convinced that money, alone, cannot make a person happy. There are other things in life that are much more important to me, to us, and we have to evaluate what kinds of things we need most out of life. From what you’ve just said to me, it’s each other and our family that we need. Nothing and nobody else matters as far as I am concerned.”

          And, with that, Claudia and Richard warmly embraced and kissed, each knowing that the world would be an extremely lonely place without the other.

copyright - Anne Shier, 2013, all rights reserved, published by Authorhouse, Bloomington, Indiana, USA