Asher yelled, “No way, I’d die or kill myself before I’d do that to Jill over there.” He pointed at me.
I blurted out, “I would taser Jack in the balls.”
“You can’t say ‘balls,’” Red Shirt guy said.
Crossing my arms, I replied, “I’d taser him in the genitals then.”
Charles said, “I love the openness of this discussion, and the suggestions of alternative word choices from our training participants. Bravo! But remember, the original problem to solve was ‘How should Jill handle Jack’s massage proposition?’ Accept or decline?”
Asher and I yelled in unison, “DECLINE!”
Our poor instructor. He had no idea how much Jack and Jill mutually despised each other.
“Let’s move into scenario three, shall we?” He cleared his throat. “Jill and Jack are hanging out in the break room and overhear a couple of employees picking on a new male employee. They overhear one of the employees call the man a ‘homo.’ What should they do?”
Mariners guy asked, “But what if he actually is a homo?”
The dude next to him said, “You can’t call him ‘homo,’ you fucking idiot.”
Charles barked, “Hey! Let’s refrain from name-calling. That is one of the lessons from this exercise.” He wiped his forehead with a monogrammed handkerchief and dabbed it above his lip.
Asher asked, “Could they call him something else? Like, ‘homosexual’?”
Red Shirt guy said, “We can’t say ‘fairy’ here. Or ‘homo,’ I guess. They say ‘poof’ in London, right? So ‘homosexual’ is the PC thing to say, right?” He looked at Charles, awaiting an answer.
Charles slumped his shoulders and exhaled loudly. “The best answer was to not pick on the employee in the first place, and if they chose to address him, they would do so by name, without mentioning the new employee’s sexual orientation.”
Red Shirt guy wasn’t finished. “Before we move on, can we talk about joking around about illegal stuff at work? Let’s say, Rohypnol. Let’s say someone hadn’t actually roofied anyone or anything but said to a few people that it would be funny to spike the coffee machine with it. Is that sexual harassment?”
Charles shook his head. “No. That’s not sexual harassment unless this person planned to drug the coffee for the purpose of sexual advancement in the office. But spiking anything with an illegal substance would definitely be a severe criminal activity. You know that, right?”
“Of course.” But the shocked look on Red Shirt guy’s face made me think otherwise. He began shaking his right leg, seemingly antsy to get out of training. Perhaps to go pour out the coffee.
“Where were we? Oh, right, the final scenario.” Charles skimmed the worksheet and nodded. “Here we are. Jill is nice but has a habit of hugging people when she thinks they are feeling down. Jack appreciates her intentions, but it makes him extremely uncomfortable, because she hugs a little too long. What should Jack do?”
Red Shirt dude elbowed his neighbor. “It depends on whether Jill is hot.” They fist-bumped. One of those annoying ones accompanied by sound effects.
Asher looked right at me. “Jill is NOT hot.”
Nolan Fucking MacKenzie piped up for the first time. “Hey now, that’s not cool to say.”
I shot him a piercing look. I can fight my own battles, intern, thank you very much.
Mariners guy chimed in. “Well, from where I’m sitting, Jill looks pretty hot to me.”
“Some people here would definitely feel that way,” Asher growled, looking directly at Nolan.
Charles interjected, “Well, everyone, I hate to say it, but it looks like we are out of time!” He had already begun packing up his materials and closed his briefcase, ready to flee in mere seconds. He handed each of us a certificate and a course satisfaction survey.
Certificate of Sexual Harassment Training
Participant’s name: Melania Joo
I, Melania Joo, acknowledge the completion of Seventeen Studios’ sexual harassment training session.
By signing this statement, I acknowledge that I:
Understand the company’s policies regarding sexual harassment,
Understand my responsibility as an employee to not engage in behavior that could be perceived as sexual harassment,
If harassed, I understand my right to request the behavior be stopped, and
Understand it is my responsibility to bring sexually offensive behavior to my organization’s attention.
Signed,
______________
(Melania Joo)
The course certificate had been printed with my misspelled name on expensive, heavy stock with gold-and-black embossed lettering. I tossed it into the trash along with the survey.
“Hey, Melody, wait up.” Nolan huffed and puffed next to me.
Staring straight ahead, I continued marching to my office, pretending I didn’t see him in my peripheral view.
“Please? I just wanna talk.”
I sped up and he stayed in lockstep with me. By the time I got to my office, we were both panting.
“I just . . .” Breath. “Wanted to say . . .” Breath. “That those guys were so out of line,” he wheezed. “I thought. Training. Would be a good thing. For inclusivity.”
I slammed my MacBook on my desk. “You didn’t have to say anything in there, you know. I deal with this shit all the time, I can handle myself.” Opening my laptop, I checked for damage. I didn’t want the IT guy to yell at me.
His eyes widened. “Oh, I didn’t mean you couldn’t handle yourself. I just meant—” He took another breath. “It’s just that, those guys are idiots and I didn’t think what happened in there was appropriate.”
“Look, you don’t need to jump in to save me. I’m fine!” I hissed the last two words through gritted teeth and tapped my password so hard on my keyboard that the keys could have broken from the pressure. The intern’s like-to-hate ratio had nose-dived to negative since our conference room meeting. Wait, could ratios be negative?
“If you’re fine, then okay, I just felt bad is all, since it was one of my inclusivity initiatives and it bombed, at your expense.” His shoulders slumped and head hanging low, he shuffled out of the office, passing Asher as he entered. My gut twisted tight as Nolan disappeared from my view. My anger and pride had gotten the best of me. The last thing I wanted was to make enemies with one of the nicer guys here. Especially the CEO’s nephew.
“Another lovers’ quarrel?” Asher smirked as he sat in his chair.
“Can you do your job, please?” I muttered back.
On Messenger, I found Nolan MacKenzie and sent him a quick message. I’m sorry I snapped. No sleep and too much going on here, as you witnessed in that meeting. Can I make it up with dinner? My treat. Actually, Ian’s treat, cashing in my dining dollars for working late so many nights.
In case he got the wrong idea, I added, Nothing fancy.
His immediate reply. Cool. I’m game.
I smiled and closed the chat window.
THANKS TO MY unplanned computer outage and useless sexual misconduct training, I stayed at work later than planned. My Messenger app bleeped around 7:30 P.M.
Nolan: Ready for dinner yet?
Oh damn, dinnertime already. Maybe I could take my computer home, assign tasks to our overseas developers in China and Poland, and then a lot of work could get done overnight and I’d be on schedule in the morning. I threw my computer into my black leather satchel. My newly inherited work MacBook weighed more than my other laptop. Those MacBooks looked slender and light, but I swear those computers were made out of the same materials as fishing sinkers.
Nolan wasn’t at his desk but his computer screen was on, spreadsheets were up, and of course I had to sneak a look. Using fancy macros and pivot tables, he was in the middle of building a forecast for the entire company. My mouth gaped when I skimmed his financial models. I’d never seen anyone work numbers the way he did. He was right, I really should have asked for his help on those Ian projects.
“Uh, sorry, I had to run to the bathroom. I got so caught up in work I forgot to go all day.” Nolan scooted by me and bent over the desk to save what he was working on, then shut down his computer. His brown curls fell forward, covering his eyes like a sheepdog. I resisted the urge to brush them out of his eyes.
“I’m impressed” was all I could muster. I really was speechless, completely in awe of his expert Excel skills. People always came to me for spreadsheet help. Now I knew who to go to when I got stumped.
“Are you making fun of me?” He raised an eyebrow and cocked his head.
Feigning hurt, I clutched my upper chest. “I’m serious!”
He offered a sad smile. “Well, it’s pretty obvious that inclusivity consulting wasn’t my forte.” Putting his bag strap on his shoulder, he said, “I took on some strategic planning projects with the finance team, which I love, but I’ve been working late some nights. By the way, where are we headed?”
I held out the Ian-issued gift card options. Johnny Rockets, Red Robin, or P.F. Chang’s.
He studied them harder than a normal person would. “P.F. Chang’s is close, just over there on Pine, so let’s go there.”