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Beer Run

“Here,” he said, shoving a piece of rectangular plastic in my face. “Take my credit card and go get a case of tall boy Budweisers for the research department. I really want to thank those guys for doing a great job.”

Huh? ­

Automatic reflexes had me accepting the pale green AmEx Corporate Card before my brain could comprehend what was happening. He had never been a great boss. A nice boss. Or even a polite boss. But this takes the cake.

“And make sure they’re cold!” he hollered before the door to his office shut.

I had taken a step down in title to get this job because I’d be working in a more prestigious place, with more prestigious people in my field. On a handshake deal, I had been promised upon accepting the position that my title would be reconsidered and more than likely raised at the six-month mark. A year and a half later, I still had my lower title, was banging my head daily into the glass ceiling that seemed to exist right above my cubicle, and apparently, was now being demoted to a Budweiser beer girl. In disbelief, I slowly rose out of my cube.

I didn’t really know what to do or say, so I grabbed my purse and headed out into the hot city streets in search of beer on a Wednesday afternoon. Unfortunately, I had worn heels that day and there’s nothing more uncomfortable than pounding the pavement in two-inch foot crushers.

The first convenience store I came to had Budweiser, but no tall boys. The second and third places didn’t carry Budweiser at all. Just Bud Light. So I called him.

“Sir? Hi.” I said. “Do they have to be tall boys? I’m at the third place that doesn’t carry the large cans.”

“Yes. They have to be tall boys,” he said. “That’s part of the inside joke with the research department, see.”

“Ok.” Click. Asshole, I said under my breath. The guy passing me on the street stopped and looked at me incredulously. “Not you,” I said. “My boss.” Ahhhhh, I hear you. He seemed to say with a head nod and kept walking.

A man on the corner tells me there are two more places a few blocks up that sell beer. I keep walking. I open a swinging glass door and Eureka! There they sit—the lovely red, white and blue cylinders. Crap! They’re sitting in cardboard on the floor, warm as a Dutch oven from the summer heat. The boss’s words flash through my mind, “Make sure they’re cold!” I consider buying a Styrofoam cooler and ice. But when I realize I won’t be able to carry it back to the office by myself, I move on. By now my toes are starting to swell up. They are sweaty and sliding with every step into the hard, pointy front area of my shoes. I promise myself the next place will have cold Buds waiting for me. Only a few more blocks. Stay strong.

A talented nut job, with a penchant for slamming down phones and kicking things around his office, my boss was adored by the higher ups at work. I learned a lot by listening to him in meetings and he gave me a few important opportunities to prove myself at work. But for the most part I was afraid of his standoffish nature and bad temper. Most days I answered his phone, made his travel arrangements and did expense reports without much communication from him.

A couple of weeks before, I had asked him and my other boss to review my title again and see if it could be raised. After all, it had been a year since I was originally supposed to be promoted. A few days later the bosses asked me to come into an office and sit down.

In quiet words they gave me the bad news. They explained to me that I wasn’t getting a promotion and I wasn’t the first woman there to get this speech. I was working in a “man’s land.” I knew that coming in, right? They mentioned that I had looked miserable and unhappy for months now and there was something thrown in there about how I talked on the phone too much. The gist? There were going to be few women in the position I wanted and no room for them to promote me.

As they sat there telling me all the reasons why I had wasted a year and a half of my life, I began to cry. In all the Get-Ahead-at-Work-type manuals and books I have read, every single one says “DO NOT CRY AT WORK. EVER.” But I thought, a) They’re right. I am miserable. And b) Screw them! Men hate to see women cry. It’s the most uncomfortable thing you can put them through. So I sat there boo hooing. It was small payback. I looked up at both of them, searching their eyes for some feelings of remorse for the position they had put me in. I couldn’t find any. I still felt defeated. I stared at boss #2 who had two daughters below the age of four and said, “I hope when your daughters get to be my age and they’re working their butt off for some guy that won’t promote them, you have to explain to them why being born with the wrong anatomy held them back.” He looked stunned and didn’t respond. I turned to boss #1, “So what are my options?” He told me that was up to me. I wasn’t being fired or anything, in fact they were happy to have me stay in my position. But I wouldn’t be moving up anytime soon. I could take it or leave it.

Duped. Tricked. Hoodwinked into accepting a job that would take me nowhere.
And here I was weeks later, out in the streets on a booze hunt for my boss and his research cronies for over an hour with no luck when I stopped dead on the sidewalk. Why am I still trying to be the overachiever? I realized that I was just a glorified errand girl for this guy. I turned on my heels and walked back in the direction I started. I retrace my steps for about twenty minutes and finally swing in through the doors from seven stores back. I grab the lukewarm beer in the cardboard tray off the floor. I pay for it with his AmEx and hop in a cab back to the office. My feet can’t take another step in these shoes.

I drop the beer at his feet and throw the credit card and the receipt on his desk.

“Budweiser tall boys!” I say sarcastically and turn and walk out of his office.  I sit down just waiting for him to utter the words: “Wait! These aren’t cold.”

Say it. Say it. I will him to say the words just so I can go off on him and have an easy way out of this job. Say it. But I’ve been gone so long, and I’m red and sweaty and he must sense it’s not a smart thing to mention right now. I sit there quietly for about 15 minutes cooling off—literally and figuratively. After a while, he comes out with the beer in his arms and heads off to the research department for cheers and pats on the back.

***
Years later. I become a boss and end up having trouble with my own assistant. I can tell she hates her job and is not doing much to hide that fact. She’s short-fused and cranky when I ask her to do menial tasks. She wants to move up and there’s nowhere to promote her just yet. On a day that’s particularly trying, when she’s sassed back at me about something I’ve asked her to do, I think about my ex-boss and the beer. And I smile.

I decide to shoot him an email.

“Hi. I know we haven’t talked in a long time, but the strangest thing happened to me today. Hindsight is indeed 20/20. I myself have an assistant who is miserable in her job and is ready to be promoted, but there’s nowhere for me to move her up. After witnessing her frustration with her circumstances and feeling my frustration with not having someone who is doing a good job, the irony hit me square in the face. Perhaps I was not the cheeriest employee there towards the end. I was angry when I left, but no matter what happened between us, you did me a favor by giving me no option but to leave. If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t be where I am now. Thanks.”

He wrote me back in awe. He seemed happy and thankful that I’d sent the note and said that he always knew I’d go on to bigger and better things.  

I felt closure. When I got home from work that night, I cracked open a beer and sat on the couch. Kind of inside joke with myself, see. I didn’t ask my assistant to pick them up. I bought them myself. They were tall boys of course.

And they tasted great.

Stephanie Davis is the editor of skirt! Atlanta. You can email her at stephanie.davis@skirtatl.com.

~Stephanie Davis