#and so she rage quit the meeting for everyone and i think went to HR while telling my boss to handle his employees

[madswritingvoid]

Say You’re Sorry

Pairing: Max Phillips x f!reader

Words: 3k (oops haha)

Warnings: SMUT. 18+ only. Oral (f receiving), unprotected sex, p in v sex, fingering, swearing, slight choking, first time writing smut should probably be a warning itself, sexism, Max Phillips is a warning probably.

You knew it was a bad idea. Well, actually, no you didn’t. Not fully. The voice in your head was just screaming at you to stop - there were other ways to get his attention. Other ways to make Max feel bad for what he did during the Synersavers presentation that didn’t require you stooping this low. Fuck it, you figured, if he can go around and do whatever he wants to get his way then so can I.

Fixing your hair and outfit in the mirror one last time, you went back into the office looking for the desk you usually avoid like the plague. Max Phillips, fuck you.

Earlier That Day

“So you see, Mr. Jacobson, our third quarter projections have us coming in on top by two million dollars and the fourth quarter is looking even better. I mean really champ, if these numbers were anymore amazing they’d be as hot as your associate there in that fetching skirt,” Max winks at the woman taking meeting minutes for your potential new client, causing her skin to blotch, “fucking unreal. Pardon my French,” he finishes, earning a big laugh from the CEO of Synersavers, the new bullshit placebo pill that was supposed to alter the brain’s natural neural pathways to promote synergy. You weren’t sure what dreams synergy was helping pathetic humans to achieve, but it meant a bonus if they signed on so you made sure that PowerPoint presentation was the best slides of your career.

You scoff, worried that if you roll your eyes they’ll get stuck. You know Max Phillips was quite the charmer, you knew better than anyone in the office. This past year saw him go from being just your hot vampire boss you had a crush on, to your hot vampire boss that was now your boyfriend. 

While you never made an official statement to your coworkers, you quietly signed the papers Amanda in HR needed signed and let the sound of you screaming Max’s name in his office while he was balls deep inside you let the rest of your coworkers know of your relationship. Overall, Max was a great boyfriend. Better than expected even - attentive, caring, protective to a fault, all while still being that loveable (?) piece of shit frat boy extraordinaire he had been at the beginning. 

You knew he still had to lay on the charm to close sales from time to time, never actually violating your relationship in any way, but after the fight you had this morning you didn’t think flirting with the only person in the meeting who did not actually control whether or not this partnership was going to happen right in front of you was the best move.

“Mr. Phillips,” Jacobson says, once again only acknowledging Max and completely ignoring you as he had been for the entire presentation, “you got quite the silver tongue. But I like that about ya, I think you get what our product is all about and I wanna make this partnership work. I’m surprised your presentation is as good as it was, because if you’ll pardon my French, if my secretary looked as delicious as yours does I’d be too busy fucking her left, right, and centre to even think about the fourth quarter anything!” He laughs and claps Max on the shoulder and you tense up, sure that Max is going to say something. Not even because he’s your boyfriend, but because he landed the sale and doesn’t have to be as sleazy as this dickhead is. 

“See that’s where you’re wrong Jacobson, it’s almost like I’m working double to avoid her. Just doesn’t get the mojo flowing, y’know? Maybe we should switch, what do you think sweetheart?” He looks over at the still flustered secretary, “Come on and work for me and we’ll work on some new ways of making synergy happen,” he wags his eyebrows and you’re surprised this poor woman hasn’t slid right off her seat. You’re stunned. Even as Mr. Jacobson laughs and brings a laughing Max into some sort of capitalist bro hug, you can’t bring yourself to move. It isn’t until you hear the squeak of the wheels from the chair Mr. Jacobson’s secretary was sitting against the shitty meeting room carpet that you snap back to the present and shut everything down. By the time you finish everyone is long gone, leaving you to stew in your rage.

A hesitant knock on the meeting room door makes you jump as you’re met with a sheepish looking Evan in the doorway. You were never a big fan of Evan when you started, kind of thought he was a wimp but he was nice enough. After getting with Max and learning their shared history, you couldn’t stand Evan, but were able to be far more professional when needed until Max.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was still in here after Max and the Synersavers people left,” he shrugged. “What the fuck do you mean Max left with them?” You asked through clenched teeth. Scratching the back of his neck nervously, Evan took a deep breath before telling you, “yeah, um. They left for a late liquid lunch from what it sounded like, Max said you would be too busy learning how to make a paper clip bracelet to join them… Sorry, he’s such an asshole. You don’t deserve that, especially not from that bastard,” He couldn’t meet your eyes. Even though he still tried to tell you to leave Max every single day, you appreciate him being there this time.

There were many things you could be mean to Evan for, but deep down you knew he didn’t deserve the wrath of your anger this time. 

Later That Afternoon

After taking the elevator up to the office to mentally cleanse his mind from that mindless lunch with that absolute creep Jacobson, Max was trying to come up with the best apology for you. He knew he didn’t have to be so forward flirting with that secretary, what the fuck was her name anyways, in order to win the sexist CEO over. But he was feeling petty after your fight while you were getting ready for work he figured it wouldn’t hurt to remind you that many other women find him quite the catch.

“You’re lying! You have to be lying!! There’s no way that happened oh my god,” Max stops dead in his tracks as he hears your giggles from inside the office. “It is! I totally saw Tim practising the dance moves the day after that Kelly Clarkson concert in the men’s washroom. I didn’t even know she had dancers, but from what I saw it really must have been a hell of a show,” Evan says as you throw your head back and let out another over-the-top cackle. You’re sitting on top of Evan’s desk, resting your hand on his shoulder as he sits in between your open legs, clearly enjoying the attention. 

You’re hamming it up, he knows that, he knows that’s not what your real laugh sounds like - the laugh he gets to hear when he really does something that you like. He knows you don’t mean it but he’s immediately flooded with anger and guilt. He obviously didn’t realize how much the day had taken a toll on you and now you must be really mad if you’re going to Evan to get back at him.

“Oh my god Evan that’s too funny,” you giggle and place a hand on his shoulder, “you just made my day! I won’t tell Tim anything, it’ll be our little secret,” you wink. Evan’s blush deepens at the touch, maybe you weren’t so bad after all and if Max (and Amanda at this point) didn’t look out he would maybe ask you out for a drink sometime soon. Bring you back to the land of the living.

Deciding he’s absolutely had enough, Max quietly comes up behind Evan and slaps both hands on his shoulders after seeing you move yours back to your lap, causing him to freeze and let out a little squeak. “Slugger, I’m sure whatever’s going on here is just too funny, but didn’t I ask you to finish up that presentation for tomorrow’s meeting with NuevaWeight?” he pouts, “I really thought you were taking this job seriously buddy, but maybe I should just get Andrew to take over…”

“N-no Max, sorry. Yeah the presentation is almost done, it’ll be ready before the end of the day,” Evan stammers. Max finally meets your eyes and smirks, “and you can meet me in my office. Apparently you think you can stop doing your job and distracting my employees.”

You can’t even speak, your jaw set and eyes burning from the absolute rage you feel right now. Yeah you’ll meet him in his office, but it won’t be so he can lecture you about whatever bullshit he’s already thought of. “Of course Mr. Phillips, meet you there,” you manage to snap back, calmly making your way to his office. Anyone walking by you immediately gets out of your way, your anger coming off in waves making your undead coworkers shiver.

Clapping Evan on the shoulder one more time, Max saunters over to his office, ready to make you beg for his forgiveness after that little stunt. As soon as he opens his office door he realizes that won’t be happening.

You’re sitting in his chair, legs propped up on his desk in a way that makes your skirt ride up and expose more thigh than what HR might deem office appropriate. “Ah, Mr. Phillips, so nice of you to make it,” you smirk. “Sweets, I think there must be some sort of misunderstandi-'' you cut him off with a dark look and stand up. Walking up to him you close his office door and push him against it, “No champ,” you sneer, “I think you’re confused here. I’m not the one who decided to be a very, very bad boy by flirting with someone else and insulting me in front of new clients.” Chest to chest, your hand slithers up to grab Max’s throat. Even though he is a vampire who could toss you around like a ragdoll, you know he’s letting you be in control. He likes it.

“While you were out entertaining I’ve been thinking about what I could do to make you really sorry, baby. You were already on thin ice from this morning, but now you’re drowning,” you squeeze a little harder on his throat making his eyes roll back. “What are you gonna do? I’m so sorry,” he whispers. You take a moment, just looking into those eyes you love so much, before answering.

“Maybe I’ll sit on your cock. Let you fill my pussy up but not let you cum, because only good boys get to come, you know that Maxie. Maybe I’ll just use you like my own walking, talking dildo. If I’m so replaceable you won’t mind not getting to fill me up? Right?” You smirk again as he whines, his hands clenching because all he wants to do is make you feel good now. 

“You wanna run that mouth, Phillips? You wanna make everything think you’re so fucking special when I know you’re really just a scared little vamp, huh?” You say with a pout. Grabbing his hair, you force his head up so you can look right into his eyes that are now almost completely black from lust. “Come on big shot, if you wanna be a big boy then you gotta show me that mouth can do something other than just spew bullshit, slugger.” 

That’s all the permission he needs. He hoists you up in his arms and thanks to vampire speed you’re now sat on his leather couch, skirt up around your waist, underwear ripped clean off, fully exposed to his hungry eyes. “Baby, I’m so sorry,” he pouts, “let me make you feel good. I just want you-” You’ve heard enough, pushing him down so his mouth finally reaches your core. Moaning at finally tasting you, Max wastes no time taking your clit and sucking hard, already teasing your entrance with one of his long fingers. 

“Y-Yes Max, fuck! Be a good boy and make me cum just like this,” you moan and clench around the finger inside of you, knowing you’re absolutely dripping onto the couch underneath you. He adds a second, then a third, making you arch your back until you’re almost sitting up from how good he’s fucking you with his hands. His mouth doesn’t stop, sucking and licking, spelling out his apologies against your body. Knowing you’re close, he starts focusing on that spot inside of you that drives you wild. 

“Oh! Oh, Maxie yes. Such a g-good boy,” you pant, meeting his hand thrust for thrust trying to reach your high, “make me feel so good please please please baby I’m right there, I-” you can’t finish that sentence as your vision goes white and all you can do is let out a strangled moan that sounds like his name.

Once your legs start shaking you pull both of you up, undoing his belt and pushing him onto the couch so you can straddle his waist. You wrap a hand around his neck and start nipping at the area, rocking your soaked pussy along his aching cock that was now free from the confines of his dress pants a few times before sinking down on him. A wicked grin stretches across your face as his moans get louder. He chokes when he feels you gush around him, not expecting you to come again so soon but you were still sensitive from his mouth, the hair above his cock rubbing deliciously against your clit, but you wanted more still. 

Picking up the pace, you squeeze around his throat again and start taunting him, “You gonna replace me baby? Yeah? You gonna find a pussy that takes you this good? Be my guest. Go right now and find something better, or show me how goddamn sorry you are.”

Granting him permission to take over, Max flips you on your back, making sure your head is supported by one of the couch cushions. He immediately wraps your legs around his waist, angling one leg to let him sink even deep inside of you, your moans mixing together as you both revel in the feeling of him finally being inside of you. Wanting to prove himself he wastes no time pulling out just to start slamming back into you. 

You moan and clench around him, making him hiss and he doesn’t let up. Watching him disappear inside of you over and over again, he starts babbling his apologies. “N-Never baby. Could never replace you. Never gonna find a pu-pussy this fucking good. Look at you, so perfect, so so perfect taking my cock like that. I’m sorry. You’re so good. I don’t deserve it, it’s- fuck it’s so fucking good. Best pussy of all time,” he moans as you clamp down on him, your third orgasm ripping through you. 

“Yes - yes Max, that’s fucking r-right. I’m the best pussy you’ll ever have,” you moan again from being so full. You know he’s sorry so you decide to let him finish after all. Taking your hands off his shoulders, you start tangling your fingers in his hair and bring his face close to your so your lips are almost touching, “you did so good Maxie,” you coo, “you cock made me feel so fucking good I know you’re sorry now.” He shudders at your words but keeps his steady pace, trying to make you cum again, still holding back his own impending orgasm. “Thank you baby, ‘m so so sorry, I love you and I just wanna be good for you-” “shhh shhh Maxie, I know I know. You did good baby, now show me how good you are and cum inside of me.” 

That’s all he needs. 

Something between a groan and growl comes deep from within Max as he finally lets go, pushing himself as far as he can inside of you as he starts painting your walls. Coming down from his high, he nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck as you start peppering him with kisses wherever you can reach, carding your fingers through his hair.

“I’m really sorry baby,” you hear him mumble into your neck, “I love you.” He kisses along your throat and you hum, moving your head to give him more access. “I know Max, I love you too. I forgive you. But try that again and I’ll cut your dick off in front of the whole office,” you laugh.

He chuckles too, continuing to shower you with love. “As much as I want to stay right here forever baby, let’s go home and I can keep showing you how sorry I am,” he suggests, wiggling his eyebrows to earn a giggle from you, “sounds good Maxie, you’re lucky I’m just sooooo forgiving.”

Untangling from each other and making yourselves as presentable as you care to be, you leave the office hand-in-hand, ready to see what the rest of the night has in store.

[celtics534]

Unavoidable

@james7594 was awesome and suggest a prompt that had Lily be the reason Harry and Ginny met. I present Unavoidable! It’s a little different than my norm, but I think it’s rather good!

Also, read on FF.net or AO3

Ginny closed her eyes and tried to take calming breaths. One. Two. Three. Nope. She was still fucking pissed!

“Drink your tea, Ginny.” Liz pushed the now lukewarm drink towards her friend across the desk. “The woman I told you about will be here in a few minutes and you need to be able to explain what happened.”

“What’s her name again?” Ginny asked through clenched teeth. Liz was right about needing to explain, and if she let her temper control this meeting… Well, it wouldn’t be overly productive. She took a sip of the seemingly flavorless drink.

“Lily Potter.” Liz's shoulders sagged in relief. “She helped me when…” Her voice trailed off.

That broke through the remaining blind anger Ginny was fueled with. She reached across the table and squeezed her friend's hand. “Thank you for calling her, Liz.”

“I got your back.”

The door opened, letting in a tall redhead. She wore a perfectly creased skirt suit tailored to her slim form. Ginny met her sharp gaze and was greeted by the woman’s green eyes.

“Miss Weasley.” The woman walked over to the table and held out her hand. “I’m Lily Potter.”

Ginny stood and shook the outstretched hand. “Thank you for coming, Mrs. Potter.”

“Call me Lily.” The woman smiled at her. “We are going to get to know each other quite well, so first names seem appropriate.”

“Okay, Lily. Then make sure to call me Ginny.”

“I will, Ginny. Now.” She placed her briefcase on the table and took the empty chair beside Liz. “What happened? Don’t leave out a single detail.”

Ginny sighed. Telling this story wasn’t getting any easier over time. The cut over her left eyebrow seemed to throb as she thought over what to say.

“Well, I work in the HR department, so I deal with anything and everything that comes up with the players and coaches.”

“Only for the Tottenham Hotspurs, correct?” Lily asked, taking out her pen and notepad. Hair curtained around her face as she leaned forward. Ginny had always wanted her hair to be a darker shade of red, and Lily had the perfect color. Not only that, but Lily also seemed to have that perfect freckle ratio. Not completely covered in freckles, like Ginny, but a sputtering of them.

“Yes.” Ginny looked around her office, which was covered with memorabilia from numerous teams. “I’ve worked with them for the last three years or so.”

“Okay.” Lily scribbled quickly. “So you had to deal with an issue involving Kody Jackson, correct?”

Ginny couldn’t contain the little shiver at Jackson’s name. “Yes. He was getting into fights with the other players, and outside of the stadium he was a problem in multiple bars.”

“My son actually had to deal with him a few months back,” Lily told her. “He kept him locked up overnight but wasn’t able to keep him any longer than that. He just got promoted to detective, actually.”

“Your son is my hero then.” Ginny smiled for what felt like the first time that day. “Everyone else just let it slide because they recognized him.” She couldn’t suppress her anger; the police had a pitiful enforcement policy when it came to celebrities.

“That is a problem, now isn’t it?” Lily agreed. “I raised my son to know right from wrong, and Jackson is wrong on every instance I’ve come across. Let’s continue with this one, though.“

Ginny nodded and took a deep breath. “Right, so I called Kody into my office. I had multiple points to focus on. When he finally showed up, he was immediately disrespectful and rude. I started with the fighting with his teammates, then the fights within the bars and clubs throughout London. We wanted to improve his image, maybe do some charity functions.”

“That sounds like a good idea in theory,” Lily said, “but I’m assuming Jackson didn’t agree.”

“Not at all. He got angry when I told him it wasn’t a choice.” Ginny could still see his red face and cold stare as he rose from his chair -- the very chair Lily sat in now. “He came towards me, I think trying to threaten me with his size and glare, but I grew up with six brothers. I don’t scare easy. I stood my ground.”

Lily beamed at her. “Good for you!”

“Thank you.” Ginny grinned back but sobered as the next part of the story jumped into her mind. “He pushed me and I fell to the ground.” She pointed to the spot behind her chair. Gumption aside, he was at least a foot taller than her and twice as wide.  “He then…” A lump formed in her throat.

Lily put down her pen and grabbed her hand, giving it a sharp squeeze. “Take your time.”

Ginny took a deep breath and looked at Liz for strength; she responded with an encouraging nod. “He seemed to like having power like that. There was -- a gleam, I guess -- in his eyes. He moved so his body was pressed over mine and…” Ginny felt a cold sweat break down her spine. Lily squeezed her hand again.

“I felt his hands slide to my waist. I knew I needed to get the hell out of there. His legs were on the outside of mine, so I was able to bring my knee up into his balls.”

“I hope it hurt like a bitch.” Lily’s voice was calm, but Ginny could see the rage flaring behind her green eyes.

“It did, trust me, my brothers can confirm. Anyway, he rolled off me and I ran out of the room.”

“And you went and told your boss?” Lily confirmed. “Liz told me that on the phone.”

Ginny nodded. “Yeah, Zack Smith. He said not to worry, that he would take care of it.”

“Which meant brushing it under the rug,” Liz growled.

“As sad as it is to say, that common,” Lily said, she finally removed her hand from Ginny’s and wrote quickly. “This was three days ago?”

“Yes,” Ginny agreed. It had been three days of waiting for Kody to be removed from the premises or at least to be suspended. In her opinion, a good pair of scissors to his balls seemed like a fitting punishment to the crime.

“You were right to call me, Ginny.” Lily pulled out her phone and quickly typed out a message. “I doubt Smith has even filed a report. I do have one question, how did you get the cut on your head?”

Ginny gingerly touched the cut. “When I scrambled up from the floor, I hit my head on the leg of my wheely chair. At the time I couldn’t feel the pain, I just wanted out-- but those legs are sharp when you hit them at the right angle.”

Lily nodded. “Do you mind if I take a picture?”

“Of course, go ahead.”

Lily stood and twisted her body so she was out of the light before pausing to snap a quick photo.  Before she could place her phone back into her pocket, it began to vibrate.

“Hello, dear.” She listened, her eyes locked on Ginny. “That’s right. Good, I’ll see you then.” She ended the call. “My son is coming now to take your statement.”

“The detective?” Ginny was confused. “Doesn’t he have cases he’s working on?”

Lily smiled as her eyes took on a look of pride.. “Of course, but he doesn’t want to disappoint his mother.” She leaned in close and whispered conspiratorially, “He’s a bit of a Mummy’s boy, and I love it. From what I know about you, I think you and my Harry will get along swimmingly.”  

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry showed his badge to the receptionist. “Ginny Weasley’s office?”

“Third floor. The fifth door to the right,” Mary Ann, said shock clearly presented on her face. “What did she do?”

“Nothing at all, miss.” Harry sent her his most charming smile. Nosy ladies always fell into line for a smile.

And right on cue, Mary Ann blushed. “Oh, good!”

Harry gave her a cheery wave as he headed to the elevator. When his mother had texted him the situation, Harry had almost thrown his phone. Why do people like Jackson get away with shit like this? He was a bully and needed to be taught a lesson. Harry figured this attack on Miss Weasley wasn’t Jackson’s first. Fucking Jackson. That wanker had seemed like the type to get his jollies by attacking the smaller man when Harry had arrested him those couple of months back, but this…  

The elevator let out a pleasant ding and Harry headed towards the directed door. He knocked and heard a female voice allowing him entry. He opened the door and stopped dead in his tracks. His mother was turned to face him, as was another woman next to her...but it was the woman on the far side of the desk that made Harry’s heart fall into his stomach.

She was incredibly beautiful. Her dark brown eyes worked perfectly with the light color of her skin. And her skin. Fuck! He had always had a thing for freckles and the way they covered her face…

“Harry?” Lily broke through his thoughts. She was smirking at him with that know-it-all expression he hated. He shook himself. He was here for a job, not to ogle women… No matter how fucking attractive they were.

He strode to the desk. “Harry Potter.” He stuck out his hand.

The goddess (fuck he had it bad!) shook it. “Ginny Weasley.” Her voice was huskier than he was used to; Harry loved it more than he wanted to admit.   

He cleared his throat. Focus, Potter! “I know it’s hard, but I need to hear to the full story.”

Ginny just sighed-- a sound that made Harry want to wrap her in his arms. Goddamn it, Potter!

“I figured as much.” She rolled her shoulders. “Alright, so, I guess I should explain my job.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

By the time Ginny finished her tale for the second time that day, the window into her room was filled with moonlight. The two Potters were comparing notes, giving Ginny ample time to observe Harry Potter...because damn!

The way his hair went every which way and those eyes… She had admired them on Lily but on Harry. Fuck!

“So I’m going to bring my report in tonight.” Harry had now directed his attention back to her (not that she would ever complain about being stared at with those eyes.) “The sooner I get this processed, the sooner Smith and Jackson face disciplinary action.”

“Thank you.” Ginny met his gaze head-on. She could have sworn his focus sent her aflame.

“My pleasure.” Harry wouldn’t break eye contact.

Lily cleared her throat. “Well, I’m all set here too. Harry, do you think you could see Ginny home?”

That made Ginny finally break away from Harry’s stare. She looked at Lily and saw a glint of what could only be called amusement. This cheeky…

“It’s been a hard day for her, I’m sure,” Lily said, her eyes dancing, “and I would rather make sure she got home safe and sound.”

“That’s really not -”

“Of course.” Harry cut off Ginny’s pitiful denial. He was still looking at her, and Ginny could feel his eyes. She gave Liz a sideways look and saw her friend was holding back her laughter. She winked at Ginny.

That little shit.

Ginny told Liz everything-- and that included her lack of sex life. She could only assume her friend noticed the way she stared at Harry like he was a piece of meat. A piece of meat that apparently was a Mummy’s boy and had a thing for justice. Hopefully, he had a thing for redheads too.  

She turned her eyes back to Harry and was met with a crooked grin. Add another tally to the ‘way too attractive’ column for this man.

“If you’re ready, Ginny, we can leave whenever. How did you get here this morning?”

“Uh.” Why did his stare make her forget how to speak? “I took the bus from my flat in Watford.”

“Okay, we can take my car.” Harry turned towards his mother. “I’ll text you as soon as I’ve entered this information into the system.”

“That'd be great, dear.” Lily grinned at her son. “Actually, if Ginny’s up for it, you could bring this right to Moody. Having him talk to her could really fast track our claims. And this way you can find out more about everything.” Lily looked at her, a gleam in her eyes.

Ginny looked over to Harry. He was glaring at Lily as if she had shared one of his darkest secrets.

“If she’s up for it.” He turned away from his mother, his features softening. “It won’t take too long. Maybe twenty minutes. I already have all the information, my boss will just ask a few follow up questions.”

Really, she wanted to go home. She was drained and nothing sounded better than a hot bath at that moment. But… but she wanted to get this taken care of, and if speaking to this Moody could help...

She let out a deep breath. “Alright, lead the way, detective.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry had to force his eyes to stay on the road. They kept wandering over to Ginny in his passenger’s seat without permission. He squinted at the opposing car headlights.

When his mother had texted him the case details, Harry had figured this would be just like any other case. Well, at least he had thought that-- until his mother had sent a final text that had read:

Oh, and be nice. I think you’ll really like her.

The winking smiley face completing the message had made Harry roll his eyes. He was used to his mother suggesting a woman for him. Typically, nothing would come of it (though that was how he had become friends with Hermione). But this time… holy hell, had his mother been right!

In the time he had spent talking to Ginny, listening to her story, Harry had become entranced. She was fiery, stubborn, and not to mention drop-dead gorgeous.

His eyes started to drift again, this time taking in the numerous freckles she had on her arm as they passed by a street lamp. His mind couldn’t help but wonder if the rest of her body was covered in those pleasing - Eyes on the fucking road, Potter!

He braked and allowed a young couple to cross while he waited he tried to figure out what to say. They had driven to Scotland Yard in near-complete silence. He had never been so tongue-tied in his life! Now, having spoken with Moody and submitted his report, he was taking her home-- and Harry didn’t want to let this chance to talk with Ginny pass. First off, his mother would murder him for being a complete wanker, but also he wanted to talk to her for his own selfish reasons (other than wanting to live).

“So, you’re a big football fan?” If he wasn’t driving, Harry would have smacked himself in the forehead. Of course, she likes football, you dolt!

Ginny, however, didn’t seem to care that he sounded awkward. “Yeah, I actually played in uni. I even thought about trying to go pro for a bit.”

“Yeah? What position?”

“Striker.”

“You too?”

Harry could see Ginny turn to look at him out of the corner of his eye. “You played?”

“Yeah, but never considered going pro. Why didn’t you?”

Ginny let out a resigned sigh, and Harry was about to backtrack (it wasn’t any of his business). But then Ginny responded: “I got injured my final year. Torn ACL and meniscus. My knee’s never really recovered.”

She sounded so sad, even after all this time, and Harry wanted to pull her into his arms. He wanted to make her forget all the bad thoughts clouding her mind. Instead, he tightened his hands on the wheel.

“So, you found a way to still involve yourself in the world of football.”

Ginny let out a small huff out her nose. “Yeah, and now here I am.”

“Yeah, here you are standing up for what is right,” Harry said fiercely. He chanced a glance at her. Ginny’s mouth was slightly parted and in the dim light of the London streets, he could see her eyes. Harry could have sworn that look was setting his body on fire.

He turned away, unable to think when she looked at him like that. His hand moved to gear shift as he approached the road where Ginny had told him she lived. He found the number easily enough, and he parked in front of the building. It was a simple split duplex, a London standard. Harry could see a tabby cat lounging on the windowsill of the house to the left.

“Thank you, Harry.” Ginny’s voice was quiet, but Harry’s ears seemed to hone into her voice. He twisted in his seat to finally give her his full attention. Her eyes were still focused on him, only him. He didn’t know if she was saying thank you for the ride or what he had said, but that didn’t matter at that moment. No, the only thing that his brain cared about was how his car now smelled like flowers and the way the street light behind her illuminated her perfectly.

He had started to lean in without realizing it and probably wouldn't have stopped until he kissed her if a door nearby hadn’t slammed. The yelling that followed broke the spell and Harry blinked; Ginny had moved back. She, too, had been trying to get closer to him.

“Let me… uh… walk you to your door.” Harry cleared his throat. He opened his door and got out of the car quickly. Ginny met him on the pavement, hands in her pockets.

The moved in unison to her front door, her cat watching their every step with sharp eyes. Ginny pulled out her key and placed it into the lock. She unlocked the door but didn’t turn the knob. Instead, she twisted to face Harry.

Her eyes met his. “I’m not imagining this, am I?” Again, her voice took on the quiet quality, which didn’t match her larger than life personality.

She was nervous, Harry realized. And that realization made Harry’s body spring into life. He closed the small gap between them, gently taking her face into his hands, and pressed his mouth to hers. At first, she didn’t respond, too surprised-- and Harry thought his heart was going to leave his body. Then she responded, her hands threading through his perpetually messy locks.

Harry wanted to press close to her, the desire to feel his chest on hers was almost unbearable, but he held back. In the little part of his mind that was still functioning, he remembered she had just been the victim of an attack. But fuck…

However, Ginny didn't seem to have the same idea. Her hands moved down to his shoulders and she pulled him close. Her back pressed against the door as Harry followed her lead, letting his fingers curve down her body to linger at her hips.

Only when the need for oxygen became unavoidable did Harry pull away. He took a large gulp of the cool night air while Ginny did the same.

“I guess my imagination hasn’t run wild then, huh?” Ginny’s tone had somehow become even lower, and it took all of Harry’s resolve not to kiss her again.

“Not at all.” He ran his hands down from her jaw to her neck before removing himself from her personal bubble. “I should leave.”

The sigh Ginny released was way too tantalizing. “Yeah, you probably should before we do something we regret.”

I definitely wouldn’t regret it, Harry’s brain countered, but instead, he nodded. “Yeah.”

They stood there on her stoop, neither wanting to be the first to leave. Then, Ginny swore quietly under her breath. “Fuck it.” She pressed her lips to his. “Do you want to get dinner with me?”

Harry’s heart pounded so hard he thought it might break through his chest. “Tonight?”

Ginny smiled at his hopeful tone. “Yeah. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I’d hate for you to see me hangry.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“Ah, my darling boy.” Lily beamed at her son over her mug of tea. “Everything went well last night, I take it?”

Harry gave her his best-agitated look, but he couldn’t hold it for long. “Mum.”

She held up a hand in surrender. “Sue me for wanting the best for my son.”

“I can’t sue you, you're my solicitor.”

“Ah, another win for me then, huh?” Lily’s smirk was devilish. “So, now. Tell me all about her.”

Harry sighed dramatically as he fell into the empty kitchen chair. “You already know about her.”

Lily went over to the stove and put the kettle back on. “I know about her situation, but what did you learn about her last night.”

“You knew I would like her. Why do you need more details?”

“Yes, of course, I knew you would like her. Did you not understand the winky face emoji?” Lily snorted as Harry covered his face with his hands. “You may as well tell me now because I will find out.”

“It was…” Harry spoke through his hands, muffling his voice. “She’s... incredible.”

If Harry had raised his head, he would have seen his mother smiling fondly, brightness in her eyes. “And why is that?”

“She’s brilliant, full of wit. She’s just so…”

“Incredible?”

Harry sighed again, but this time sounding wistful. “Yeah.”

“Last time I heard that tone, James was pining after Lily!” A voice from the doorway made Harry finally look up. Sirius leaned on the jamb. “So, let me guess.  She’s a redhead?”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ginny tapped her desk to the tune of Stayin’ Alive. This day just seemed to be escalating quickly. Between Nicholas’ flirting with a married woman last night, and Parker’s obsession with trying to get a brand deal, Ginny hadn’t gotten a minute to breathe, let alone think.  

A small knock on her door took her attention from the computer screen. “Come in.”

Harry Potter walked in with a large bag that brought in a heavenly aroma.

“Hey.” He placed the package down on her desk.

“Hey.” Ginny had no idea what was happening. “What’s going on?” She and Harry had been texting back and forth for the past week, almost constantly. It turned out they shared a love for football and adult coloring books. However, she hadn't expected him to show up at her job. They had both been extremely busy, which meant they hadn’t actually seen each other since that first time. The memory of his fingers on her jaw still sent goose pimples across her body.

“I thought you might be getting hungry, and I wouldn’t want to risk you being hangry when I arrived.” Harry gave her a lopsided grin that drove Ginny’s stomach into doing cartwheels.

“That’s so nice, but you didn’t have to.”

“I know I didn’t have to, but I wanted to.” He started to spread out the contents of the takeaway. “You did mention that you liked dumplings, right?”

Ginny nodded, unable to speak. Holy shit, this man is good. He handed her the steaming container and settled in the empty chair opposite her.

“So, no issues with Smith or Jackson, right?” Harry asked, using a plastic fork to twirl some noodles into a bite-sized morsel of deliciousness.

She shook her head. “No, they haven’t bothered me at all.”

“Good. I may have included that in my little... speech when talking with them.”

“Harry, why are you here?” Ginny couldn’t have stopped her thoughtless question even if she wanted to.

Harry placed his container down and leaned forward. She was immediately overcome with the scent of his cologne... Oh, well, that scent hasn’t become any less attractive.

“I really wanted to see you.” His eyes glinted like an emerald in the sun. “I haven’t been able to get you out of my head.”

“Oh.” She let out on a shaky breath. Her mind went blank, just like when he had kissed her that night.

“I was hoping if you had lunch with me, you’d be willing to have dinner with me tonight.” Harry’s hand jumped to the back of his neck. For all his confidence, his body language spoke a different tune.

Ginny had to smile. It was endearing to have a grown man nervous around her (well, one that hadn’t experienced her accurate groin kicks). “What is on the menu?”

“Well, I figured tonight we could go to this nice Greek place I’ve found if you like Greek. Then, maybe next time, I can make you some of my London-famous fettuccine alfredo.”

“Famous, huh?” Ginny quirked a brow. “That’s some claim.”

Harry grinned. “A claim I’m more than happy to provide evidence for.”     

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry kissed Ginny’s cheek as he placed a plate in front of her. “As promised, my world famous fettuccine alfredo.”

“This does look amazing, but last time it was only London famous.” Ginny took another sip of the wine she had poured for them. It was odd that one of the worst things to happen to her had led to one of the best. Over the past month, she and Harry had grown rather fond of one another--at first just by texting, then meeting for meals, and now spending nights at alternating flats.

“Nothing by the best for you, my dear. I improved my technique.” Harry took a bow before he walked back over to the counter to grab his own plate.

“Did you hear anything about your new partner?” Ginny asked as Harry joined her at the table.

“Yeah, I actually met him. his name is Colin Creevey. He seems like a decent bloke. A little twitchy though.”

Ginny’s brow raised. “Twitchy?”

Harry spun noodles around his fork. “Yeah, he just… I swear he’s always bouncing his leg.”

“Ah, the signs of a horrible partner.”

“Okay, I know that was sarcastic, but it’s really annoying when sharing the same desk cubicle.  My pens rattle.”

Ginny laughed and let a comfortable silence fall between them as they ate. It was simple, Ginny thought; everything about them was simple. There was no need to force small talk. She was content just being in his presence.

“So.” Harry looked at her, his eyes serious. “I need to tell you. Jackson’s trial has been set. They will want you to testify. Mum will be calling you tomorrow to make it official, but I wanted to let you know beforehand.”

Ginny carefully set down her wine glass. “Okay.”

“Also, the charges you’ve pressed against Smith are being processed as we speak, so hopefully by next week he won’t be your boss.” His gaze dropped. “Sorry for ruining the mood.”

“Trust me.” Ginny rose from her seat and moved to sit in Harry’s lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck. “You haven’t ruined anything.”

Her knee gave a little twinge of pain making Ginny remove one arm from Harry’s shoulders to kneed her fingers into the old scar. The nerves had never completely recovered after her surgery, and every so often it would bother her.

Harry’s hand came to work the worn skin with her. “Does this hurt often?”

Ginny shook her head. “No, not really.”

“Do you ever go out and play anymore?”

She knew what he was referring to. “To be honest, not really. It’s… it’s hard to not get a little wistful, I guess is the right word.”

Harry kissed her forehead. “Well, maybe we can have a one-on-one match someday.”

Ginny couldn’t stop her from smiling cheekily at him. “We can have a one-on-one match whenever you want.”

Harry let out a throaty chuckle. She could see his Adam’s apple bob. “Trust me when I say I’ll be taking you up on that offer.” He pressed his lips lightly to hers. “Are you okay with everything, Gin?”

How does he do that? Ginny wondered. Harry had the uncanny ability to know just what was bothering her. And he always seemed to know the right response, just like now as he trailed his hands up her legs to caress her hips lightly. She took in a deep breath, happily inhaling his scent. “I will be.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry stood by the lifts on the third floor of the stadium, a football casually resting under his arm and a duffle slung over his shoulder. After his conversation with Ginny last night, Harry came to the conclusion that nothing would excite him more than playing a little passing game with her.

He had dug in his closet to find his old ball, a little beat up, but still full of air. As he waited, Ginny’s co-workers passed him with curious eyes. They should be used to men with footballs around here.

Harry recognized Zack Smith as he strode towards the lift. Smith avoided eye contact by bowing his head. There weren’t many people that Harry hated, but Zack Smith was one of them.

“Harry?”

He turned and smiled at a confused Ginny. She stood five meters away, so he walked over and kissed her cheek. “‘Ello.”

“What are you doing here with a football?” She was suspicious, rightly so in his opinion.

“I thought we could go kick a few.” He guided them towards the elevator, bustling in with curious co-workers.

“Why?” Ginny whispered as the doors shut. She ignored the pointed stares as the lift started descending.

He shrugged. “I figured it would be fun.”

Harry was able to get them to the field before Ginny spoke again. “Harry, I’m not dressed for this.” She was right, of course; her straight skirt wouldn’t allow much mobility, while his joggers were perfect for a light game.

Instead of telling her about the spare pair of clothes he had obtained from her place last night, he shrugged nonchalantly. “I mean if you’re offering to be skins…”

Ginny smacked his arm. Hard. “Don’t be a wanker.”

“Trust me, you’ve helped me kick that habit.”

She tried to look mad, he could tell-- but Ginny’s humor was something Harry truly appreciated about her. Her lips twitched.

Harry handed her the duffle bag. “Here, I got this from your place.”

Ginny’s brow rose. “You went through my drawers? I don’t know whether this is sweet or creepy.”

“I’ll place my vote to sweet. Endearing, even. Plus we’ve both been in each other’s... drawers often enough.”

This time she didn’t try to hide her amusement. She laughed and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him softly. “Alright, Potter. Just remember you’ve asked for this.”

“Trust me, Weasley, I’m ready for it.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“So?” Harry asked once he sat down across from Ginny. They had met at the little Italian place not too far from Ginny’s flat.

“Smith has been fired.”

Harry let out a small whoop. “Just what the git deserved!”

“I agree. And your mum called to tell me that Jackson has been charged with multiple accounts of assault.”

Harry reached across the table and pulled her hand to his lips. An exultant smile covered his face and his eyes… Ginny wanted him to look at her like that all the time. “I’m so proud of you for taking the stand. Mum said they tried to discredit you.”

Ginny shrugged. “Yeah, but they had nothing on me.”

“Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.”

She blinked owlishly at him before leaning across the table to kiss him. “You claim to be a stone-cold cop, but you’re such a softie.”

Harry tried to look angry, but the twitch of his lips gave him away. “Firstly, I am stone-cold when I need to be. Secondly, the last word to describe me last night was soft, if you remember correctly.”

“Oh trust me I remember.” She pressed another kiss to his lips. “But feel free to jog my memory tonight.” She leaned back and looked over the menu.

They sat in a comfortable silence, both debating their meal choices. Eventually, the waiter came over and took their orders.

Once the man had left, Harry turned his attention back to Ginny. With his bottom lip in between his teeth, he muttered, “Do you think some things are inevitable?”

Ginny frowned. “Uh, in what sense?”

Harry’s flush was hard to notice in their dark corner, but a keen observer could tell. And Ginny was an avid watcher of Harry. “Like some things in life have to happen?”

She thought about it. “You mean like fate?”

“Maybe… I don’t know. Nevermind.”

“Hey.” Ginny tugged his hand towards her mouth just like he had done. “Explain.”

He sighed, his eyes darting around the room before coming back to rest on hers. “I guess… This whole thing with Jackson… If he had never tried to hurt you, we never would have met.”

“And you’re wondering if we would have ever met otherwise?” Ginny had the same thought many times since that day Harry walked into her office.

He gave a quick jerk of the head, clearly embarrassed.

“I don’t believe in fate, but I like to think that maybe we would have met another way. Maybe you would have arrested my brother and then showed up at the same pub we were drinking in later on.”

Harry let out a small chuckle and smiled, which was exactly what Ginny wanted.

“Which brother?”

She tapped her finger against her chin. “Ron, because it would be for something dumb like public intoxication.”

Harry snorted. He had met Ron, and honestly, he could see the tall redhead getting picked up for something dumb like that.

Ginny connected their eyes before speaking. “Harry, I think you and I were unavoidable.”

His thumb found her wrist and started gently rubbing it. “I agree.”

[prorevenge]

You want to mess with my career and my freedom? Watch your entire life go down in flames!

TL;DR at the bottom. Sorry in advance for any formatting or grammatical errors. English is not my first language.

This is a pretty long one, so hope you're up for the challenge :)

This all happened five or so years ago while I was working for a proprietary trading firm. The company is a multinational and it had opened a new office in my city a couple of years before I joined them. For those who don't know, most prop shops (as I understood it) have a very high turnover rate. Just toss everyone in and keep those who stick. The company I worked for recruited every three months. It had space for about 120 traders but the office was never full. Out of the twenty or so who were hired every quarter, only about five managed to make it beyond the three month internship period, and of those, only one - or sometimes none at all - made it past the additional three months probation period. The company was operating in my city for two years before I joined and there were only about four people who I could have called permanent. Everyone else, about another ten, was either on their internship or on probation.

The Setup.

I and about twenty five others were recruited straight out of university. The internship period paid really well for a first job, about twice as much as any other entry level position in other financial institutions plus bonuses once we went live (regardless of whether one is on internship, probation or permanent), and I was really excited.

I first came across my boss, a really decent Indian guy, at a industry day held in our university. That was where they administered the IQ tests and I passed. The office, similar to other mid-sized operations, had a pretty flat management structure. Us traders were at the lowest level, the HR/Ops manager was above us, and the Office Manager was, well, the head of the branch. The boss gave time off pretty much whenever you asked for it as long as the day's objectives were fulfilled (that was his policy).

However, the HR/Ops manager was his opposite, and then some. This lady was a Grade-A bitch, and I mean that sincerely. Let's call her Gabby.

The Instigating Event

I first met Gabby when I went to their offices for my final interview. I was registering at the front desk when she marched from her office demanding some documents from the receptionist. The receptionist wanted to finish up with me first but she was ordered off to file storage. Our exchange went like so:

Gabby: You're one of the new ones?

Me: Yes. I'm really excited.

Gabby: Don't be. you don't look like you'll make it.

Me: Why?

Gabby: You're too soft.

A pause.

Gabby: Buut... I can put in a good word for you, if you give me a little something. ( a bribe).

Me: Haha. Very funny.

Gabby: I'm serious. Give something and I'll make it very easy for you. Otherwise I'll make sure you don't even get into the interview.

Me: No.

Gabby: Stupid idiot.

Right to my face. And she kept her word. She made me sit in a hidden corner of the waiting room where no one would see me easily, but I could hear the conversations at the desk. The only reason why I got an interview is because apparently I had impressed the boss at our previous meeting that he came to see why my CV wasn't there. Gabby said that I hadn't sent it in. The receptionist stated that she had seen it somewhere. Then I walked up to the desk at the same time the receptionist said, "Here it is. It was in the trash..." and everyone stared at Gabby.

From that moment of humiliation onwards, Gabby had a raging hate boner for me. You see, Gabby was a micromanager, more of a nanomanager really. She made us have to request access if we wanted to access sites other than those on her approved list, and for traders who gain info from wherever we could find it, her list was woefully inadequate. She would call meetings at the most inopportune times - but only when the branch manager was not around - and in her lengthy meetings, you could never leave to check on your positions. She had this annoying habit of taking my lunch and when I confronted her about it, she essentially told me to go fuck myself. That I could live with. I just started bringing in two sets of lunch and kept on doing the job that I loved.

Gabby was married with two kids, and she was pretty. I guess she liked the attention because she would have a stream of guys picking her up at the office for two hour 'lunches' and when she left for home some evening. But not on Thursday. Thursdays were the days when her husband would come pick her up towing their kids along. I think they went to have a family dinner or something.

The Mistakes Gabby Made: Round One

Our manager left about two months after I joined. I think he returned to India to get married or something but still stayed with the company. Wished him all the best. None of the other permanent traders had the experience corporate required to take on a management role (5 years at least) so they had to shop around. In the meantime, Gabby became the de-facto head of the branch despite the fact that her knowledge of futures markets was rudimentary at best.

Her first mistake was when she delayed my promotion from internship to probation. I am an excellent trader, and was easily top five in my group. Of the 26, she promoted the twenty she liked, kept me and another guy in internship, and fired four.At around the same time, another recruitment drive happened and another twentyish interns were hired. I knew this was our beef rekindled and remixed, and I was actually surprised she held onto it for so long. It was also pretty unusual since the last thing my former boss did before he left was to promote me from the simulator to a live trading account. But I kept my head down and continued learning, often going back to my former boss and the permanent employees to get advice.

Another three months go by, and in the next evaluation I was shocked that I was still not brought up to probation, despite the fact that all of the new recruits of the second group had been promoted and I was easily the best and the only one trading live. I knew I was good at the job. The permanent guys all said so. The group I initially joined with was frequently asking me for advice. To their credit, a few of them were good, but most of them were still on sim, and as a rule, no one advanced to probation while still on sim. However, you could go live while on internship if you were good which is what had happened to me. So I was a live trader and making good money but I was still on internship and passed over twice. I couldn't let go of that.

I decided to talk to Gabby directly. I approached the senior guys and made my case, though I was careful not to put her in bad light. They agreed to help me and so they did. about a month after the she passed me over the second time, she gave me my promotion and I was now on probation. At this time, she was still unsure of her power and was still afraid of the permanent traders. Those guys were like gods.

Two months after my promotion, another evaluation and recruitment drive. I was not promoted. The group I started out with was now permanent, despite having only two of them trading live. The group I was currently with on probation were all promoted to permanent status. The group behind me on internship was all promoted to probation, and another group was hired. I let it go hoping she had got it out of her system. Sadly, she had not.

Round Two

Three months go by. I'm trading live and loving it, though still on probation. An evaluation comes up again and I'm not promoted, despite the fact that, contract to contract, I was almost on a level with the permanent employees. The group that found me on probation was advanced to permanent status to a man, and none of them were live. the group behind me caught up to me and a new batch of newbies were hired as interns. I couldn't let this one go either. I approached the original four permanent employees who were now my very good buddies and planned to do the same thing as last time. Only this time, it didn't work. Gabby had grown into her sadistic power and flatly refused to even consider my promotion even after she was presented with evidence that I was worth it. Her argument was along the lines of, "I'm the boss so I can do whatever the hell I want."

But I wasn't having that, so I contacted my former boss for help. At the time he had been promoted to head of operations, Africa. He was actually quite surprised, given my performance, that I was still on probation. Needless to say, the order came down from on high and Gabby looked like she was shitting six pineapples simultaneously as she handed my letter. And I thought that was the end of it. How wrong I was.

On the next recruitment she hired this girl, let's call her Sue. Sue was an intelligent person all round, but she didn't have the emotional quotient to handle the market (trading, as I was taught, requires two mental aspects: IQ and EQ. You can't improve IQ, but you can boost your EQ to deal with the numerous stresses that accompany the career). Sue had more than enough of the IQ part, but EQ, not so much. No worries, you can work on that.

Just to recap: The office now had about seventy employees. Of these, over thirty were permanent staff (me included) but only eleven were trading live. Another twenty or so were on probation, but only three were trading live. None of the interns were live. The office needed to stay profitable if it was to stay open which means that the money the fourteen live traders were paying the salaries of everyone in the office, rent, supplies, health insurance, pensions etc etc. Needless to say, corporate was not seeing a lot of returns from our branch, and as I came to learn later from my former boss, were considering shutting down the branch and costing us our jobs. But I digress.

The Last Straw

The Grade-A Bitch Gabby took advantage of an inconsolable and desperate Sue to try and get me for sexual harassment. This is how it went down. Remember all those people still on sim? Well, they all came to the eleven of us for trading advice and we did what we could to help them. We divided up the sim traders into groups and I was mentoring about four people. Sue was one of them. As any trader will tell you, the period before profitability is usually one of losses (unless you're really good) and is filled with stress and fear (hence the need for high EQ). It's normal, and you get through it.

Sue was going through such a rough patch one evening. We were going over her trades (bad trading day all around), when she just burst out crying. I know how it feels. I had shed my own tears as well. So comforted her the best I could. I held her hand and patted her on the back awkwardly (to this day I still don't know how to comfort someone) until she quieted down. What I didnt know was that Gabby had seen us.

As I came to learn later, she approached Sue the following day and made her an offer. Gabby would make sure Sue kept her job and would get her a lot of money if she stated that I had sexually harassed her. Sue took Gabby up on the offer and what followed was a nightmare.It started with a formal reprimand from corporate, a hearing in which I wasn't present to defend myself (because Gabby 'forgot' to send me the summons).

Apparently she lobbied quite viciously to get me fired. The only reason I was able to keep my job was that my former boss came to my defence. Despite his help, I lost my quarterly bonus (about US$100,000) and half of my holdback (about US$400,000). I also had to attend seminars which essentially involved watching the same film on sexual assault in the workplace (three hours long) until I stated, in writing, that I was an abuser and it would go on my record. I knew that if that happened, Gabby would have the ammunition she needed to ruin my life forever. So every day, I got into the office at seven in the morning, watched the three hour film until ten. Refuse to acknowledge it, then get to work, leave the office at 11:20 in the evening, rinse and repeat. For almost seven months. It was tiring, and torture, and Gabby never let me live it down.

All of the people I had been mentoring were transferred the day after my reprimand. A day after that, Gabby informed me via letter that my clip size had been cut from 1000 to 20 contracts. Yeah, I had to admit, I was bloodied. I was down, but the bitch didn't know that she should have ended me.

The Revenge

Step 1: Ruin Gabby's Career.

I started compiling all the shit that was happening to me in the office. It started when I realized that when I went out to lunch, someone would open my desk drawer and mess around with my notebook, where I jotted down my trading ideas for the day. The only person who had a key apart from me was Gabby. Apparently she had mastered my lunchtime routine for the entire 45 minute break and would open my locker when I was out smoking. She would then copy down my trading plans for the day and give them to Sue. I even saw them at it once, but they didn't see me. I documented it. I let it go on for a while so that I could establish a pattern via Sue's trades. I then approached two of the permanent traders who were closest to me and told them my plan.

Remember when I said almost no money was reaching corporate? and that there were only eleven live traders? The situation had only gotten worse. The office was now full but we had less that fifteen live traders. Live trading could only be approved by Head of Operations (my former boss) and he was a strict one. Now imagine that my earning capacity had been cut by over 90%. My two friends agreed to my plan and they slowed down their trading by around 50%. This essentially put the branch in the red and three weeks later, we were told that Head of Ops and other head honchos were coming down. The next phase involved getting Sue into a corner. Pleas, a tear or two, and revealing that I could prove she had been stealing my work were enough to get a written statement from her that Gabby had orchestrated my whole sexual harassment thing.

Step 2: Ruin Gabby's Marriage

It took only a little investigation on my part to realize than all those men who visited the office were actually Gabby's lovers. She would leave for two-hour 'lunches' with her phone turned off. I took advantage of one such period. Gabby left and I snuck into her office to find her Facebook profile open. Everyone knew she was always on there and it was a sore point because she had banned it for the rest of us minions. I got into her Messenger, and voila! Explicit texts, nudes, rants about her husband and his inadequacies, the six guys or so she had cheated with, all of it. I copy pasted the data into her private email which she was logged into as well (always clear cache, you guys) and sent it to my private email, then deleted it from her sent folder. Now I had the ammo on my phone ready to send.

Step 3: Ruin Gabby's Relationship with her Kids.

Now, I'll say right off the bat I'm not proud of this step. but to bust my justice nut, it wasn't enough to just send the info to her husband. So I waited for Thursday when I knew he would be passing by the office with the kids. The Pro Revenge gods saw fit to bless me that day, because it was the same day that Corporate Head Honchos were ridin' into town.

Thursday.

I was at the office at seven as usual with all my documentation from my appointment letter to the numerous rejected requests for promotion, sat through the three hour sexual harassment video (yes, I was still doing that), and waited for the Moment. The guys from corporate, my former boss included, arrived and went straight into a meeting with Gabby. I was quite certain that they would call me in to know why I had been attending a sexual harassment awareness class for almost a year, and I was ready for them.

I was called in after lunch, at about two. The question was asked and before I could answer, Gabby jumped on the bit like I knew she would. She went on a long rant about how I had been insubordinate, and how I liked to touch the female employees. I could tell from her grin that she thought she was winning.

And then I pulled out Sue's letter, and the grin curdled on her face. Sue was hurriedly called in and she backed my story. She said she was sorry. She was fired on the spot and told to go wait at the receptionist for her final check. I felt no sympathy. I was on a roll.

Next I pulled out my analysis of my trades and told them how Gabby had been breaking into my locker and stealing my notes for sue. Gabby denied it. Sue was called back in. She denied it. My former boss logged into the company network, pulled Sue's and my trading data. He compared the positions taken by both of us with my notes. He said it was true. Sue was fired again. They told me they would refund my confiscated bonus and holdback, with an extra 50 grand. That was fine by me. The justice was enough.

And then I spotted Gabby's husband heading into her office as usual, their two kids in tow. I pulled out my phone, grinned at her and said,

"You're husband is here."

She turned around and saw him. She excused herself for a minute to tell him to wait.

My former boss said, "Sure."

I pressed send.

TL;DR. Grade-A Bitch tries to ruin my career because I humiliated her, I burn her life to the fucking ground.

As for the aftermath, Gabby's husband absolutely lost his shit. Her office was glass-walled and the rest was open-plan so we could all hear what they were shouting about. He finally left with their kids in tow (sorry little ones) Gabby followed him still shouting at him. Then she saw us all standing around and the look on her face was priceless as she was wondering which aspect of her life to try and salvage. She let her husband go, but about an hour later she had been fired.

My favorite boss stayed behind since there was no one left. He stayed for a month training the lady who had been with the company the longest to take over as manager. She is easily the most brilliant mind I had ever met. Unfortunately the branch was still struggling with so many employees who were not generating income and they had to shut it down. But they transferred all the performing employees to their other various branches in London (2 branches) and India (9 branches). So I guess no one undeservedly lost their jobs.

I still stalk Gabby on Facebook. There have been a lot of "I'm single because I'm too awesome" posts of late. I almost feel sorry for her, but I remember the three-hour video and I stop being foolish. From what I could see on LinkedIn, Sue bounced around from firm to firm until she found a position as a research analyst. My favorite boss is still at the firm. We talk from time to time.

I took a break from trading for a while. After all the shit that went down, I needed a break so I didn't take them up on their offer to relocate to India. Went to work with a buddy of mine who has a consultancy. When I feel ready I'll go back to the market. For me at least, there is no other job as challenging and satisfying.

Wow. That was long. I think though that's the end of my ProRevenge :)

(source) (story by AbbasKubaba)

[allmymisters]

Frenemies of the State

You and I didn’t initially start out in the same circle of friends. I was listening to NIN and Skinny Puppy and you were immersed in Jazz and Triphop with a sprinkle of Pavement and Jawbox. So our friend circle was not exactly “friendly”. You were also a little younger than me, but that became a regular demographic in my life during that time. I had all but abandoned the few high school friends I had growing up due to different interests, scene changes, and my abrupt and epic failures at attempting a college career. When you and I met, I was in transition. I was meeting a whole new generation of VCU kids who were mostly from Northern Virginia and the Virginia Beach area, younger and quite frankly mostly artistically pretentious. My mommy and daddy didn’t pay for college and surely would never pay my rent, so I was, to say the least, a black sheep amongst albino pigs. How refreshing it was to meet someone who grew up in Richmond, who went to a rival high school and who understood residing in the West End part of town.

Although you were younger, we had a few mutual friends in common and it was a nice familiarity, something I didn’t get from the others. There’s something about being in your 20s that makes you think that the bonds of friendship could never be broken because of heroic deeds like standing watch while you peed in an alley or getting in someone’s face at the bar because you were rudely pushed. At one time I had an idealistic notion that my friends were my family and everyone was a nice and good person, but in my heart, I knew this not to be a real thing. You didn’t like conflict and always saw the good in others, where I was less optimistic and had no expectations about turbulence in my life. I didn’t take shit from people. Sure I was a ball of emotion and sensitivity, but I was also extremely protective over what was my realm. I was Allison to your Andrew (Sheedy/Estevez).

The thing about Richmond is that it’s a never ending cycle of people you know. No matter where you go, if you grew up here and were involved, you’ll know someone. Someone I may not have seen for a year will show up to see a band and we will reconnect or you’ll be at a bar and Johnny who left for college is back for the holidays and the next thing you know your talking about 11th grade English class. It’s a very small and tight knit world, our RVA. As our friendship started to develop so did our combined friendbase. Alas, friends come and go.

You came home. It was my birthday 30th birthday. You were all happy to see me and I was annoyed. It wasn’t you, it was the opened card I had received in the mail that afternoon. She had timed it perfectly so that it would arrive on my birthday. A nice birthday card stating a dissolving of friendship. No reason was given, just that she no longer wanted anything to do with me. Hurt and angry, I handed you the card. Your face was red with rage.

You remember that day, don’t you? J had been friends with us for so very long. She came to all your shows. I took trips with her, we hung out constantly. I didn’t understand it, but I looked at you and said, “One bridesmaid out, seven more to go!” We laughed. You were angrier than I was that day. So much so, you began a mental shitlist. I loved that about you. You had finally started defending me and I knew I made the right choice. Apparently, when I get broken up, I get broken up with. I often wonder what I did that was so wrong. What story does everyone have in their head about what happened to you, to us, to me. It’s all a sham, marriage. People come for the party and the free drinks, while they wager in their heads how long you will last. Some genuinely think it will last forever and some damn you for taking that potential slice of pie away from them. Wife. Husband. It means nothing. It’s just another label. I realized that after the accident.. I was only seen as a possible adulterer, someone who couldn’t take care of you, someone who left you, someone who apparently a lot of people didn’t like. It had appeared that I literally put a spell on you so you would marry me and I could control you. I mean it was a long con with you, almost seven years before you proposed. Here’s a bit of advice to you readers, if for one instant you don’t think that person would choose you when they are passing out life jackets while the ship is going down, walk away, it will hurt a whole lot less.

Making friends in New York was easy and those we connected with were solid friendships. You made new friends after I left. A lot of them. It was as though you created a whole world without me after I left NY. When I sat in the waiting room meeting people for the first time and them looking me with eyes of confusion. I guess they knew something I didn’t. I did find it incredibly strange that certain individuals were bringing by people you didn’t even know. You were lying there with tubes and shit coming out of your body and it was like, “Hi, this is Steve, I brought him to meet you.” Who the fuck is Steve and why is he in my husband’s ICU room? Alas, that’s beside the point right? I was crazy of course to doubt such behaviors. Anyway…

We were the couple who brought people together. I built relationships and used ours to do so in a very social way. Whether it was a party or a dinner soiree or gathering people for a weekend trip, we made it happen. Even in New York, I did my best to bring people to our home in Ridgewood and strangely enough, those Manhattanites came. We loved our friends, they were our extended family and we didn’t hide how we felt about them. You cultivated solid relationships with your musician friends and I brought in new friends from my jobs, intermingling other friends from other lifetimes. It was always easy for me, for us. I think it enhanced our coupledom, we were stronger in the company we kept and friends were always noticing the way we looked at each other, with utter envy. I did a very dumb thing in my life and that was to be too trusting of others. I was lead to believe that these people claiming to be my friend cared about us, liked us for that matter. I was wrong. It takes one tragedy and one divorce to make them scatter like roaches with the lights turned on.

“Oh my God, I can’t imagine…how you must feel. I’m sorry to ask but what happened? I don’t know what I would do if that happened to me! Where is he now? Is she with him?”

The huge embraces I would get. People i hadn’t seen in ages hugging me and looking at me as though they were the ones who suffered through it all. Once stories are told and information is gathered, the flock flee quickly.

After two weeks in the hospital, it was clear that I needed to leave, I felt like your parents didn’t want me there anymore since the dramatic exit of your lovely red headed angel in waiting, it was time for me to get back to work. We had bills to pay and rent was due and I couldn’t lose my job now . It’s what I do. I take the mess and I gather it all and start to organize it. There was no shame in that, I wasn’t leaving you, I was just waiting for you.

Coming back to Richmond was harder. My job was weird. I handled things with an aloofness I didn’t know I had in me. Nobody really cared what was going on in my head. I would sit at my desk and stare at the screen, recounting over and over again what happened and still trying to figure out the mystery which surrounded the incident. People would come by, and I don’t think they knew what to say or how to be around me, they just looked at me with these sympathetic eyes. I would secretly go to the bathroom and cry, wipe my tears, and pretend to be busy. The other admins would ask me dumb questions about you and I gave automated responses, it was just easier. It’s hard to be sad, confused and mad all at the same time. It gave me a slight distraction though and things were changing there with new people to work with. I answered the phone one day and someone from the local paper wanted my recount of the events. (And you said nobody knew who you were. ha!) I was shocked that someone actually wanted to ask the person you were married to about us. My god, the logic of some people. It was the last time anyone referenced me as your wife.

The phone rang. My co-worker was adamantly, I’m talking like in the movies, trying to distract me from leaving my desk. After the second set of rings, I had to answer. It was HR. I knew what was coming. I could almost see the smirk on her face. She resembled the ever classic mean girl stance, like she had done the world a favor, saving her beloved workplace from the unappreciative, emotionally aloof admin. I thought working in advertising would teach me something. It did. It taught me how to become one with my phone and ignore my husband. It gave me expertise in how to fetch my boss’ coffee, her purse, and her lunch and anything else she decided to forget, I’m surprised she remembered to come to work. How anyone could be seen as a marketing genius when she can’t remember to wipe her ass is beyond me. I had to actually lead her from meeting to meeting, it was humiliating. It taught me how much condescension I could take, but if I had just worked a little harder I could step up in the world. I could have just slept with the right exec and found myself in a more suitable position. This prestigious place that so many of my Richmond friends wanted to work at, that I was fortunate to be an assistant in. The place where affairs were born on conference tables and while others sat in awe of themselves at just how darn creative they were. If you weren’t at the cool kids table, you could almost hear the whispers of unapproval as you passed them in the hallway. I often felt like I was that kid in 8th grade again, with the thick glasses and the Wrangler jeans, and my only friends there came from what I knew…soccer and computers. I recalled thinking, I wait to work there. “You can’t pass up the opportunity,” you said when I got news that I scored an interview. I mean everyone wanted to work there!

“We want you to take this time to pursue what you could be really good at. We just don’t think you are ready to come back to work. It’s good for you to take this time to be with your husband.”

I sat there and cried. When I left you, your medical bill was well into the thousands and I couldn’t even fathom how that could be a real thing. “I’ll just get put on your insurance when I come home.,” you said. Of course, you never got there. I needed this job. I think I tried to bargain with HR lady, but she looked at me with the saddest eyes and said, “Don’t worry, you’re talented, you’ll get something else.” Oh, I thought this was the place you went to if you were talented? Apparently, it’s where you go to have your soul crushed and be banished from the golden gates of coolness.

Drinking had become sport and of course after such gently put news, I did what I did, I called one of our friends which didn’t have time for me and then I went to the bar and proceeded to angrily shoot Jameson, a lot of Jameson, luckily, ha luckily, the owner of the pub asked me if I wanted to work there. From the pearly gates of advertising to the familiar cage of waitressing, but at least I could be myself and have access to the liquid novocaine that helped me forget my life. I mean, I left New York, that was the highest of all achievements, to come back here because I wanted a wrought iron fence and wrap around balcony.

When people split up, so do the friends. There are always sides. My side was always with you. No matter what was going on with us or what could have been, I always chose you. People told me I was nuts and “how big of me” to continue to visit you, I thought that was a strange response. Why would I not visit the man who was a part of my whole life for 14 years. How could I not, no matter the circumstance. Those people don’t mean much to me any longer. It’s weird deleting that history, but it truly is a test of friendship. The ones who stand by your side when shit gets real, those are the people I want to let in. The hardest part is losing you. It’s not being able to talk about my day, or how some bitch cut me off on the way home, or laughing about some funny meme I saw today. The hell of it all is not losing those friendships we had, they had no problems forgetting us, but it’s knowing I have to walk past you in the crowd. It’s coming to terms with the end of the beginning of the end.

I decided this year I would stop trying to “herd” and finally become my truest self, the one who deserves to be asked to the dance. It took everything i had on Christmas day not to text. I received three messages that day. Yours was not one of them. It will be six months since my two unanswered texts to your family. The song is soon to be over, and as a million reasons float through my head, still, I stand unchosen and unfought for. Still it is you I cheer on, it’s you I want to have a conversation with, and it’s you who still understands me better than most. Through the years I’ve been replaced, forgotten, told I was never liked when we were together, and ignored, but I also gained some really amazing people in my life. Even my mom is my friend now! So, while the whispers subsided and life has gone on, and I muse at the fake friendships and the aloof nods of recognition, just know, I stand here, still fighting for you even though the fight for me ended a long time ago.

[cryptobully-blog]

Danny Meyer Union Square Hospitality Group mishandled misconduct

http://cryptobully.com/danny-meyer-union-square-hospitality-group-mishandled-misconduct/

Danny Meyer Union Square Hospitality Group mishandled misconduct

Eric Korsh became a problem shortly after he became the executive chef of North End Grill in the spring of 2014: He gave unwelcome massages to female staffers, made inappropriate comments about female customers that he found attractive, and regularly lost his temper at both kitchen and front-of-house staff, according to eight former staffers.

Korsh’s alleged behavior may be all too common in the restaurant industry, which is known for hot-tempered chefs and rampant sexual misconduct, but multiple former and current staffers at North End Grill say that they were particularly disturbed by it because of who owned the restaurant: Union Square Hospitality Group. Founder and CEO Danny Meyer has built his reputation, and two multimillion-dollar restaurant empires — USHG’s 15 restaurants, plus the fast-food phenomenon Shake Shack — on a foundation of “enlightened hospitality” and a motto of “employees first.” Through relentless proselytization of his ethos — in books, talks, articles, and even workplace awards — Meyer has become the rare restaurateur who is more famous than any of the chefs he employs. His management philosophies are so well regarded that they’re even taught outside of the hospitality industry, including at a nearly $5,000-per-person “leadership development workshop” run by USHG.

But former staffers at North End Grill, as well as current and former staffers at Gramercy Tavern, said that their work experience did not always line up with Meyer’s slogans. Multiple staffers at North End Grill reported Korsh to USHG’s human resources department throughout 2014, 2015, and 2016; following the reports, the department required Korsh to check in regularly, but his behavior did not materially change until as recently as summer 2017, multiple staffers say, leading several of them to quit the restaurant. Korsh left North End Grill and USHG altogether at the end of 2017; both the company and the chef tell Eater that it was a mutual decision. Korsh is now the executive chef at Racines in Tribeca.

Read more from Eater: The 38 essential restaurants in New York City, winter 2018 The hottest restaurants in Manhattan right now, March 2018 Are New York restaurants becoming boring?

At Gramercy Tavern, multiple current staffers told Eater that they complained about aggressive behavior from sous chef Junsoo Bae who, in one January 2016 incident, allegedly groped a server and placed his hand on her neck at a company party; he remained at the restaurant until fall 2017, when management announced that he had been fired — on the same day that he was supposed to leave for a job at another restaurant anyway, the staffers said.

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, as the restaurant industry reckons with endemic harassment issues, staffers who still work at the company or recently left said that USHG has been quietly clearing house of employees with known problems. Korsh and Bae are two of at least seven male employees who have left USHG since November, most of them fired, according to the sources.

In an Eater investigation, multiple current and former employees said that USHG, despite its reputation for being a safe haven in the hospitality industry, has previously tolerated and protected people who have behaved inappropriately toward their colleagues. The staffers particularly pointed to perceived failures in the human resources department, which for the last 13 years has been led by company veteran Angie Buonpane. Several current and former employees said that they left meetings with Buonpane, as well as another member of her staff, feeling like the company was not taking complaints about inappropriate behavior from people like Korsh seriously, or doing enough to address problems, even when such complaints were made repeatedly against the same people.

Buonpane has on occasion questioned complainants about what they experienced and witnessed in a way that upset them — in one case, the inquiry led a longtime North End Grill staffer to feel that Buonpane didn’t fully believe her account of repeatedly witnessing Korsh’s bad temper and unwelcome touching, the staffer said. Other employees described Buonpane as well-liked, “friendly,”and “sympathetic,” but they maintained that, ultimately, the department she ran seemed to protect certain people or the company over victims of misconduct. “It was our perception that was wrong, not his behavior,” the veteran North End Grill employee said of Buonpane’s attitude toward her complaint about Korsh.

Several current and former staffers said that they enjoyed parts of their experience of working at the company, and noted that tolerance for bad behavior varied from restaurant to restaurant. Most of the former and current staffers whom Eater spoke with were attracted to working at USHG precisely because of Meyer’s principles; some of them called landing a job at the company a dream after reading Meyer’s seminal 2008 book, Setting the Table, in which he lays out his seemingly winning ideology of 51 percenters, or hiring people based 51 percent on emotional intelligence and 49 percent on technical ability.

But longstanding respect for, and loyalty to, Meyer’s company is precisely what made their negative experiences with HR so surprising, disturbing, or even hurtful, former and current employees said. The “employees first” mantra is “misleading,” said the North End Grill employee, who worked at the restaurant for close to five years, and who, like most others in this piece, requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation in the hospitality industry. “It’s kind of an outrage,” she said. “Here he is being the face of this company, going on speaking tours, making these promises. It’s a false trap. Because they’re not acting that way.”

Meyer declined to answer questions for this story or respond to specific allegations. In a statement from a spokeswoman, he said that the company works “to hold ourselves to the highest standard” and said it investigates all claims of inappropriate workplace behavior, including harassment. When contacted for comment, Korsh denied that he ever behaved inappropriately, saying that he “always strived to maintain the highest professional standards in running a kitchen.”

In an interview with Eater, though Bae contested allegations that he created a toxic work environment, he confirmed the nature of the holiday party incident and another incident where he yelled at a server, saying he took full responsibility and that he felt he was “fully punished.” “I sincerely apologize for everything that happened,” he said. “It was all my fault. I feel guilty about it, and I [went] through all this punishment. …I hope that makes everyone who felt uncomfortable feel better.”

“We strive to pursue a thoughtful and balanced process, but unfortunately not all investigations end conclusively,” Meyer’s statement said. “The last several months have been an invaluable learning opportunity for us. We understand that sexual harassment is a symptom of broader systemic inequality in our industry, and going forward we are resolved to eradicate the deep-seated problem of gender-based discrimination at its source. Real societal transformation takes time. For now, we are focused internally on improving gender parity in leadership roles; further diversifying our recruiting sources; and taking a harder than ever look at who we hire, reward, and empower.”

In a separate, emailed statement, Buonpane said she has spent her career “advocating on behalf of employees, giving my entire self to their care and well-being.” She continued, “I joined USHG over 13 years ago specifically because of the Company’s devotion to the philosophy of Enlightened Hospitality and putting employees first. I can proudly say that I have upheld those values throughout my career. It is USHG’s policy to never comment on any employee matters. Beyond that, I would never violate the trust of the employees that I support.”

Former staffers said that HR’s handling of continued complaints about Korsh demonstrates how the company has failed to fulfill its promises of “enlightened hospitality.” Catherine Woodard, a former back waiter who worked at North End Grill when Korsh started in 2014, said that the chef texted her incessantly, tried to feed her food, gave her unrequested shoulder massages, asked her to come to his apartment, and at one point, took a picture of her from behind while she wasn’t looking and sent it to her. (The move, she said, felt like a way to exert his dominance as her boss. “It was just sort of like, I’m in charge, you’re working for me,” she said.) His treatment was so blatant that colleagues teased her about the attention he showered on her, she said; another former staffer, without prompting, named Woodard to Eater as someone targeted by Korsh.

Woodard did not report Korsh to HR immediately — she had confronted him and felt embarrassed after he told her she had no evidence of wrongdoing — but several others told Eater that they made complaints against him. A former kitchen employee complained to HR twice within Korsh’s first year, following months of unwanted touching, his fits of rage, and more than one meeting with a manager to discuss the problem. Another staffer went to HR about Korsh several months after he started, in 2014, and then again in 2015, after months of witnessing him inappropriately touch staff and erupt in abusive shouting that was sometimes directed at her. A former server reported his behavior to HR when she left in July 2016, in part because of an incident where he lost his temper and in part because she didn’t think HR was properly handling complaints against him. The woman who worked at North End Grill for five years says that she reported him in August 2016; she left a month later, when he screamed at her in the restaurant, thinking that USHG didn’t plan to do more about Korsh’s behavior. Though Woodard left North End Grill after receiving a theater apprenticeship, the other women all said that they quit because they felt that Korsh’s behavior wasn’t improving, and that complaining to HR didn’t help.

Woodard ended up talking to HR in January 2015, when she worked at Union Square Cafe after her apprenticeship and a manager propositioned her during a holiday party. When she spoke to HR about it, she also mentioned Korsh’s behavior at North End Grill. Initially, Woodard was satisfied with how the company handled the misconduct: Buonpane said that she’d already heard about Korsh’s bad behavior, and that he was receiving biweekly sensitivity training; Buonpane also assured her that Korsh would not contact her again, Woodard said. A month later, when she reported that Korsh had contacted her again, she felt that Buonpane’s tone changed. Buonpane asked her a lot of questions — ones that Woodard felt sounded “leading” and “calculating,” as if Buonpane was trying to convince her that Korsh’s behavior “wasn’t what I thought it was,” she said.

Woodard was deeply disappointed by the reaction; a former Union Square Cafe coworker confirmed that shortly after the meeting, Woodard said that she had “felt pretty dismissed.” “I remember leaving feeling really frustrated,” Woodard told Eater recently. “It was like I realized, ‘Oh, they’re not looking out for me. They’re looking out for the company and making sure that I’m saying the right things.’ Like the liability of it is not on them.”

Both the five-year North End Grill veteran and the former server who left in 2016 said that women under their report recounted uncomfortable flirtations or unrequested massages from Korsh on several occasions. They were both aware that others had previously reported the chef to HR and had witnessed Korsh’s angry outbursts; the five-year veteran also received multiple comments from guests about his aggressive behavior, which could be seen and heard from the restaurant’s open kitchen, which is lined with seats for diners.

Both also independently pointed to a specific incident that compelled them to make a complaint to HR. A female back server had reported Korsh to management for his behavior in 2016, specifically noting unwelcome flirtations while the two were alone, the two staffers allege. Shortly after, Korsh was asked to apologize to the employee privately, with only another male manager present; this reaction troubled both staffers, they said. The former server said she didn’t think it was sufficient, considering past complaints against Korsh, while the veteran staffer felt that the employee’s confidentiality had been violated, she said. The former server quit after the incident and transferred to Union Square Cafe, reporting Korsh’s behavior to HR as she left in the hopes that a paper trail would help her colleagues who remained.

The veteran staffer decided to report Korsh in August 2016, thinking that her seniority and congenial relationship with Buonpane would mean she would “be heard”; it had become too “emotionally draining” to witness Korsh’s behavior without trying to change things, she said. But she was unprepared for the response from USHG: At the meeting, Buonpane not only told her that Korsh met with HR frequently to improve his behavior, as Buonpane had told several others, but that he had told her that his inappropriate behavior had actually stopped. Buonpane also asked the staffer for additional evidence, as if she wanted “me to have stacks of folders and rolls of films, and without that, I wasn’t credible,” the staffer said. Right after the meeting, she called her mom “sobbing” — “hurt” and disappointed that she felt like she hadn’t been taken seriously, she said. “It was aggressive, it was volatile,” the former staffer tells Eater now of Buonpane’s reaction. “It was a cross-examination, that is how it felt. I was getting torn to shreds.” (Her mother, as well as a screenshot of a text message from the staffer to a friend at the time, corroborated her account to Eater.)

“There was a lack of belief, which was quite jarring when I had worked for the company for four and a half years at that point and had a clear record,” she said. “I was a faithful, loyal, go-above-and-beyond employee, coming forward on my own without being asked. I saw something egregiously wrong, and wanted to address it. For that to have no weight against a man who had HR complaints… that was the issue.” About a month after speaking to Buonpane, she found herself under fire from Korsh, when he yelled at her about an issue that she felt she had no control over, she said. She quit that day.

Another one of the former staffers, who worked with Korsh early on at North End Grill, witnessing and bearing the brunt of his explosive temper, said her decision to leave was largely influenced by how HR handled her claims against Korsh in 2014 and 2015. Buonpane told her that she was very sorry about how she felt, but as in conversations with other staffers, she explained that Korsh was regularly meeting with HR to help recalibrate his behavior, the staffer said. Over the year and a half that she worked with Korsh, the staffer said she saw no change. “I think like a lot of women who work in kitchens, I don’t get offended easily, but this was just too much,” she said. She decided to quit. Then, despite what she considered an inadequate HR intervention for Korsh, she said she felt that the company seemed very concerned about what she would say on social media about her departure. “After everything, they were just trying to protect themselves. I still couldn’t believe it — his behavior was not normal and I was the one made to feel awful,” she said.

The former kitchen employee, who experienced Korsh’s uninvited flirtations, massages, and frequent temper blow-ups, said she was nervous to go to HR, but felt that, especially at a Meyer restaurant, Korsh’s behavior wouldn’t be tolerated. The chance to work at North End Grill was a big deal for her when she started in 2014; she initially she saw Korsh as a mentor and admired Meyer’s philosophies, she said. But from the very beginning, she said, Korsh’s aggressive behavior was on display, exhibiting “that cliche, ego-driven, abusive chef” with “brazen” screaming in the open kitchen. She started trying to avoid him, but his behavior began to wear on her, she said. She had a 2014 meeting with an HR employee to talk about Korsh’s behavior, but she felt that little happened to change the situation, she said.

Beyond that, she felt that Korsh became more aggressive with her after she went to HR, she said. With things getting worse, she decided to go back to HR a couple months later, this time asking for a transfer to another USHG restaurant, saying that dealing with Korsh had become untenable. In response, Buonpane said that the staffer would need a reference from Korsh. At that moment she felt “helpless,” she said: “For a lot of reasons, USHG is a great company to work for in the restaurant world — I didn’t want to leave — so it was just this strange moment where I really realized that even here, no one’s going to call him out, no one’s going to protect me or other women.”

Three current employees, and one former employee, of Gramercy Tavern told Eater they were similarly upset that despite multiple complaints, the company kept Bae employed at the restaurant for years. Allegedly, he was not only a bully in the kitchen, but, in at least one instance, in January 2016, he drunkenly put his hand around a female employee’s neck at a company event. HR was made aware of the incident; in the summer of 2017, he was reported again, for berating a server in front of customers. The sous chef, who’d been at the restaurant since 2012 — starting as a line cook, then promoted to sous — was not fired until the fall of last year.

According to a source with direct knowledge of the incident, Bae became intoxicated at a holiday party in January 2016 and began grabbing a server’s behind while she repeatedly told him to stop. When she turned around to confront him, he placed his hand around her neck, “in what seemed almost like a bizarre, totally misread attempt at flirting,” a staffer said. Other employees quickly put their bodies between Bae and the woman to try to stop the situation, one source with direct knowledge said. When HR found out about the incident, which happened in front of numerous people, it began to question employees. Staffers said they were told that he had a work visa that was attached to his employment at the restaurant and punishment like getting fired could mean he had to leave the country. “There was definitely the sense that because getting fired would mean he had to leave behind his career in America, that ultimately that would be too harsh a punishment,” a staffer said. “But then, it’s like, if he were from Boston, would he have been fired?”

Bae said that following the incident, he was suspended briefly and required to take “Danny Meyer classes that reiterate his philosophy” on what he can and cannot do. But several employees said that since he already had a reputation for behavior such as losing his temper in the kitchen, they were surprised when the company didn’t take stronger action. “I think for most employees who saw or knew of the incident, it just felt like that should have been immediate grounds for firing of a manager, but nothing happened and it left a very bad feeling among the staff,” another current employee said.

According to employees, Bae’s bullying did not stop after the incident, or even after further complaints were made about his behavior. When one staffer reported him to superiors, she was told that the company was working with the sous chef on his issues, the staffer said. In summer 2017, his temper flared in the view of customers in the more casual dining section, where there’s an open kitchen, according to multiple current staffers. He began to berate a female server over a seemingly innocuous issue. The server complained to HR, and Bae said he was suspended for more than two weeks, but the incident was never addressed with the staff. (Bae confirmed the incident but added that he did not think his behavior created a bad work environment. “I truly apologize to anyone who ever felt that way,” he said.) “Kitchen culture is crazy, but at Danny Meyer restaurants, they really talk a big game about how they are different,” a female employee said. “They thought he was an excellent cook, but he was not a respected leader.”

In early fall, Bae announced he’d be leaving for his current position at a three-Michelin-starred restaurant. But on what was supposed to be his last day, managers announced he had been fired without providing any further explanation.

In January, according to three current employees, and one former staffer, five other Gramercy Tavern kitchen employees were fired for harassment or bullying. It followed an October email from chief culture officer Erin Moran to the entire staff, specifically mentioning the #MeToo movement and reminding employees that the company has a “zero tolerance policy of sexual harassment abuse in the workplace,” and a December email to staff from Meyer that had the subject line “Sexual harassment in the workplace.” In it, he reiterated his 51 percent philosophy and announced that Moran would be doing a “listening tour” at all the restaurants regarding harassment, adding a link for people to report misconduct. “Perhaps too idealistically, I have always believed that if you and I set a standard for acceptable behavior in our organization, all others would follow,” Meyer wrote in the email.

True to their promise to promote women, USHG promoted chef Emily Brekke to the executive chef position after Korsh left. Meyer also announced this week that veteran USHG staffer Lena Ciardullo has been named the new executive chef at Marta, Vini e Fritti, and Caffe Marchio. She is now the third female executive chef at USHG’s nine full-service restaurants; the first, Suzanne Cupps at Untitled, started in her role in April of 2017.

“It feels like now they are really trying to clear house and truly have a zero tolerance policy,” said one employee who still works at Gramercy Tavern. “I think there’s a sense that people are happy they are finally taking things seriously — but I guess we’ll have to see how this all continues to play out.”

In a way, the company’s widely touted philosophy about being a family could have hindered how they dealt with bad actors too, two Gramercy Tavern employees said. “It’s like, in a family, you don’t really want to let anyone go, you want to try to help, or protect, in a way — but they were protecting the wrong people,” an employee said. “They should have been protecting us.”

Still, the same employee said that he truly felt heartened by their restaurant’s recent conversations with management and HR. “I think it seems like they are trying to not just enforce a zero tolerance policy when it comes to harassment, but that they are thinking about the deeper imbalance of power between men and women in our restaurants and are looking to change,” he said. Another Gramercy Tavern employee said she is also hoping the changes will be for the better at the restaurant. She decided to go into the industry because of Meyer’s philosophies as outlined in his book, she said. “It really changed the way I look at the restaurant industry, and made me want to be a part of his company,” she said. “I think if you make millions of dollars selling some pretty defining principles, you should make sure those are still a part of your restaurants.”

Business

[lookingformyron]

little restaurant in town

he was just 10 yo when life handed him a little more than any 10yo could handle. loved and cherished by his parents, he was the treasure in their eyes. being the only child, ron was a quiet and timid boy. He was okay with being alone, but he also get along with the other kids. although he’s only 10, he’s got more kindness and genorisity than any human could possiply posses their whole life. 

His parents owns a successful noodle restaurant, they live a pretty comfortable life. Thanks to his mom’s recipe the restaurant picked up the moment it started after his birth. Ron was always around his mom in the kitchen, helping her mixing the the flour for their noodles. Or at least to him, he was helping out. But to his mom, he was a hazard waiting to happen. She love his company regardless. His father takes care of the business aspect of the restaurant and deals with customers. Ron was more like his mom, preferred to be alone most times. 

His happiness didn’t last too long, after his 10th birthday, was the last that he was able to celebrate with his parents. One busy lunch time at the restaurant a customer was complaining about his food and services. Ron remember hearing arguments and screaming in the back, he was scared so he stayed pretty close to his mom. the fight lasted for about 20mins and then the whole restaurant fell into a complete silence. Next thing he remembered was the cops coming and took his father away. His father has hurt a man out of rage. He was at fault b/c he was the first one to struck the man. The judge ruled in the man’s favor. Ron was told he could no longer see his dad until he turns 18. He knew then, his dad must have really hurt that man. he was mad at his dad. why couldn’t his dad just control himself, then non of this would have happened. it was all his father’s fault that his mom grew frail by the days. They sold the restaurant to help with his father’s legal fees. His mom has to run north and south to take care of everything. His mom would have given up her life to help his dad. Regardless of what happened, one thing that will never change is their love for ea. other. Even at just 10yo, ron could see that every clearly. he was once jealous that his parents might love ea. other more than they love him, but his mom assure him that was not the case. It doesn’t matter anymore, his mom can’t see his dad anymore. and she was sad. 

a year or so after his father was taken away, his mom was re-hired by their restaurant to be their cook. W/o his mom’s recipe the business was not doing well, ppl were their for his mom’s bowl of noodles. It was something she would never sale, she wanted to give it to her future daughter in law. However the new owner was ruthless business ppl that treated their employees more like slaves then anything else. his mom was working 12+ hrs a day, with barely enough pay to keep the rent. She grew weaker and weaker day after day. There wasnt much laughter in the house anymore. just two ppl trying their best to survive. a few days before ron’s 11th birthday, his mom sat him down to have the hardest talk of their life. 

She can see that he’s was on the verge of being malnourish. Her son was not like other healthy kids. Ron was always tired and sleepy w/little to no energy to do anything. And she could not afford to send him to school anymore.... She got on her knees and started crying in front of him. She had to give him up so that he could have a better life. she was not capable of taking care of him anymore. She said once he get to the orphanage, there might be better suited parents that might want to adopt him. And he should go with them for a better life. Ron didn’t say anything. He didn’t cry. He did what he was told. he felt like he was a uneccessary baggage that his mom has to carry. it would be easier for her if he wasn’t around. And so he quietly started his new life at the orphanage. 

he celebrated his 11th birthday with a bunch of kids he didnt know. Ron isolated himself now more than ever. Ron was a small orphanage on the outskirt of town. The place was run by sister Kesson, she was a kind nun but with a stern personality. rules are rules and are not ment to be broken. That didn’t bother Ron all that much, he doesn’t do much anyways. He just did as he was told. 

2 years later, Ron is now the oldest kid at the orphanage. Kids comes and goes through the orphanage, but he stayed. There were a few nice couples that wanted to adopt him, but he didn’t wanna go with them. He wasn’t really waiting for his mom to come back either, he didn’t want to be a baggage to her or anyone else. He thought his parents would just toss him away once things gets hard, b/c he was disposable. Plus the orphanage needed him. Sister Kesson was already in her late 60s and she was running the place by herself. She didn’t complain much, or ask for anyone’s help. In a way, they were pretty similar. He liked that he feels peaceful around her but most importantly he felt needed. Ron helps take care of the younger ones, he became way too mature for his age, and he was okay with that. Ron was the older brother to everyone at the orphanage, he was the handy man when things goes broken, and he was the a shoulder everyone could lean on. 

After ron turned 16 he is now old enough to get a part time job. He wanted to go into town, he wanted to see how his mom is doing. But only from afar. What if she doesn’t want to see him, but would she recognize him? maybe he can just be in the background watching her. That would be enough for him. But he also need money to help sister Kesson, the orphanage relies heavily on donation but for the past couple of years it wasn’t sustainable. More ppl are donating to the bigger orphanage so that they could be reconized by the media as humanitarium. The media doens’t really go into the outskirt of town to cover any stories. Sister Kesson agrees to let him get a part time job, as long as his grades doesn’t suffer. 

Ron took the bus and went straight to his parents restaurant. He sat down for a bowl of noodles. His mom still works here... holding back his tears, Ron finished his bowl of noodles, he wanted so badly to see her. But what justification does he have to visit her? Ron doesn’t want to make his mom cry like she did years ago. he decided to start his job hunting... As he was walking out the doors, a flyer caught his eyes. they’re hiring. he applied. 

Ron started working the next day. The pay is minimum wage, there’s regulation now, the owner can’t risk being looked into by the IRS. It only took but 5mins at his new job, to see his mom again. She’s aged, but still as beautiful as ever. he debated if he should walk up to her or not. NO. he already decided to keep his distance. She was focus on her task, not once did she took her eyes off what she was doing. That works out. 

Its been two months, and she didn’t hasn’t notice her son, who comes in and out of the kitchen to bring food out.. It was around 10pm one night, and she was on her way out heading home when the owner asked if she can take the trash out with her before she leaves and lock up. Ron was in the restroom, when he headed out the whole place was dark. They must have thought everyone was gone. He headed to the back door to leave, and saw that his mom as struggling to pull the big bag of trash that was almost her size. Without hesitation, ron reached for the bag to help her. their eyes meet. Instantly her eyes were filled with tears. Hot burning tears. 

He’s failed. Once again, he mad his mom cry. 

‘im sorry’ -he said. 

His mom was confused. What does he have to be sorry for? she was the one abandoning him! 

‘im not here to be a burden. Its just a part time job. But if you dont want to see me, i can quit’ 

A burden?! has he been thinking this all these years? thats whys he left him at the orphanage? more tears roll down her cheeks. and she fell to the ground. her body numbed. her poor son. her ron. all these years he quietly stayed at the orphanage b/c he didn’t want to be her burden. 

‘my son, you are not a burden to him. you never were. i dont think i could have go on w/o knowing that one day we will be reunited. I wasn’t financially capable of taking care of you. And rather than having the states take you away from me, i wanted to put you with Sister Kesson, at least then when i come back for you, even if you are adopted she could tell me which nice couple became your parents. At least then i could find you. you are NOT my burden. you’re the best thing that happened to me and your father.’ 

Hot tears starts to roll down his cheeks now. 

‘then why didn’t you ask me to wait for you to come back. you wanted me to go with other ppl and be their kids. you didn’t want to be my mother anymore. and didn’t want anything to do with me!’ 

as those words come out his mouth, all the years of resentment and sadness could be heard behind those words. no mater now mature and understanding ron is. He was scarred, and its going to take a long time for him forgive his mom. he was mad. and he needed someone to take the anger out on. His mom could see that. she nodded. 

‘yes, be mad at me. as long as you’re healthy. Im okay with it. will you catch me up with your life? we haven’t seen each other for six years.’ 

‘no. do you still want me to quit? if i make you uncomforable 

-work with mom. she’ll get sick. and dies. 

-becomes sucessful, fund the orphanage, buy the resturant, run both places. 

-real interests in writing, and it looks like to can leave the business to his friend (childhood friend at the orphange) to travel and write

-reunite with father. who comes by the resturant to see how its doing. did some reaseach on his son. and understand the story

-business and everything was looking good. but the orphanage was being threaten to be demolish. sister kessson is stressing out and dont know what to do. turns out the land belongs to the gov. which  was sold under the table for some politician personal gain. 

-to save the orphanage ron has to give up his parents restaurant. and join corporate

[planner4therevolution-blog]

INTERVIEW WITH TRE TEMPERILLI

A couple of weeks ago I went to a party for a friend, by myself (gasp). As I stood at the bar courageously not looking at my phone, I was lucky enough to strike up a conversation with Tre Temperilli – Activist, Writer, and Organizer for the Hillary for America Campaign. It was a truly engaging chat that continued as we closed down Ye Rustic talking politics, musicals and how to get home in the fucking rain in LA. I asked Tre if he’d sit down with me for an interview and thankfully he obliged. Here is that conversation.

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P4R: Before we get rolling, cheers! (We clink our bottles of beer)

TT: Cheers! To the revolution… fuck it. Kind of.

Haha! Well I guess on the flipside of that, what is giving you hope right now?

Oh shit, that’s a big one! What gives me hope is actually, knowing that the challenge in this, is finding hope. I think back on what Michelle Obama said when she said what we’re experiencing, what we’re feeling now is hopelessness a hopelessness that many people throughout the world wake up to that perhaps many of us were immune to such as the depths of poverty or any kind of social construct that oppresses any marginalized community. So that’s been something that I’ve been thinking a lot about in my own personal story, because I’ve always been a hopeful person. So what it is to not have that hope? And I can honestly say, it’s not that I wake up with a sense of hopelessness, it’s kinda that sense of not knowing what to do, of how to participate always being clear, that inspires hope. Does that make sense? The picture is never so bleak that we can’t find the light. But finding that light, honestly is a pinhole right now and I understand that, I’m hearing this from so many friends. I know that you can’t give in to despair. I mean personally speaking I can’t give in to despair. I’ve given in totally to my anger and rage. Which has been sustaining me. But I also know I cannot survive off of that. It takes a toll; so then how do I turn that into something.  And this whole entire process gives me hope because it tells me that I’m a conscious being, I’m thinking, and I can see that pinhole of light, now how do we get to it and open it up?

I joined the campaign, Hillary for America and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. I went into with that sense of urgency, that sense of hope and knowing that this darkness was coming. We knew and felt the threat on the horizon and we pleaded, begged, bargained for votes. So after that happening and the cataclysmic events on November 8th, 10:38pm CST that was the beginning, to me, of the end of a certain dream I had of our country, of America. And that hope that Obama spoke about about that leaders prior to Obama have spoken about and that I grew up with. Like the voices of Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy all these voices that instilled in me the spirit of what this fucking country could be. And I do believe Hillary Clinton had those values and again that’s why I picked up my life and went to Madison, WI for 3 months. Because I needed to see that through, I needed to see the promise of a fucking America. We were right there!

How would you describe your work with Hillary?

I was hired as a field organizer. I believe it was in August, yes. And basically what that entails is going in and working on the ground. Recruiting volunteers, getting out the vote, making LOTS of phone calls to recruit and also to remind people to early vote or to build events. It was non-stop 15 hr days 7 days a week and no time for a personal life. Like, nothing was ever not about the campaign. Except for the time I gave myself after work or early in the morning.

Had you been a campaign organizer before?

No. This was my first endeavor into the actual political landscape. I had been an activist prior to this, so I’ve done that type of activity and work.

Oh yeah, I should ask… what do you do? Like, besides organize and be a general badass?

What I do in life is I write. I track trends and I research and notate popular culture and what’s moving. Basically, I work in advertising. Hahaha! I was trying to make it sound better! Basically, it’s my job to make sure I sell the idea and do the pitch. And this obviously was the biggest pitch of my life. With the biggest deadline and that was to get Hillary Clinton elected. I went because, for me, there was no other alternative or choice. I knew I had to go.

What did a regular day of work look like? Were you set up like teams? How much anonymity, not anonymity…what word am I looking for…

Autonomy.

There you go. How much of that did you have?

First of all I could not have asked for a better place to go than Madison, WI because there are no civilians on the ground, EVERYbody is in tune with politics, EVERYbody has an opinion. Good, bad, indifferent it’s there. We had guidelines, teams, strict structure and a schedule. I had to create a structure for me because I was trying to, on top of my field organizing responsibilities, I was trying to create events that might appeal to the national campaign. So I would be up at 6:30 calling contacts in New York to say, here’s an idea, why don’t we do a huge Mother Daughter get out the vote event, trying to get that pushed up the ladder, writing proposals, I tried to get Moby to come to WI through contacts here, but I was there for 3 months and the time literally, it took me a month just to catch up with the campaign and with Madison politics. So there were teams on the ground already in place from Obama for America. So HFA and OFA came together. I refuse to fail so, I was recruiting people everywhere I would go. I would go out to dinner? I would recruit someone to volunteer.

I worked with someone within Russ Feingold’s campaign who was a Sanders supporter, he knew that I was able to discuss that platform in a reasonable manner. Not always reasonable because well my frustrations with the Sanders campaign are well documented and I don’t want to get too far of track. A lot of Sanders supporters would come into the office and we would have a one on one, that’s what we called them, and it was an honor truly to work with these people. They were some of the most dedicated volunteers that worked similar hours to our hours and never gave up, never quit and saw the responsibility in the vote. And that’s the message that I feel, that if we made a mistake, it was that we didn’t convey that message earnestly enough. But I’m pretty sure we did!

Well, 3 million more people than voted for the current president would agree. What do you say to people who blame Hillary herself (which I think is insane) or the Democratic Party for the loss? That is probably two very different things but let’s start there.

I say, fuck you. Quite honestly. I’m tired of hearing it. You missed the bigger picture we tried to tell you that this was the historical moment in which the democratic party was about to secure a third successive term. We have not experienced that in our lifetime. FDR, but I don’t think many of us were around for that. I was truly excited and inspired to see what that was going to look like. I think that a lot of people who only knew Barack Obama as their president were expecting the “hope and change” to happen instantaneously, even though he said consistently and constantly, it is a process and it takes all of us. So I’m very frustrated that people are just now coming to the table and suddenly feel that they know everything about policy and how it transpires and works. And that they’ve proceeded to buy into this ludicrous, ridiculous, supercilious message, of anti-establishment and status quo and fucking “revolution”. I have lost the taste for that word. It’s just like, I now call it #ourbrandrevolution because that’s exactly what it’s become. And it’s a danger. And it’s going to create problems in the midterms. If people are so immovable that they can’t understand that it takes consensus to move forward we are going to be fucked. Period.

To blame the loss on Hillary is to remove any responsibility one had in playing a part in getting Donald Trump elected. It’s as simple as that. People know in their fucking heart and soul that if they voted 3rd party or if they didn’t vote, that they’re complicit. Also mainstream media. Chuck Todd just went after Robby Mook today about this same thing and he’s like, dude you took down Hillary Clinton every fucking moment you were on air. Andrea Mitchell same thing. Each and everyone of one of you brought us here. Own it.  Yeah that’s what makes me pop a vein. This is making my side hurt!

Did you meet with resistance when talking with people? How did you combat rejection or resistance?

Oh well first of all, I love rejection. It’s this weird thing in me. I came out here on the actor’s track so it fed right into that, “oh reject me!” I find it humorous, like ok, the rejection, for like the smallest of details. So I learned rejection really fast. And I think also being a trans queer person you just come kind of built knowing that your life is not going to accept you. Y’know, you’re automatically rejected! So you kind of create this perseverance and a humor about it because, seriously, I don’t really fucking care who accepts me or who doesn’t. I’m here, I exist, I’m proof because I’m standing before you. And that’s basically what I would say on the doors. And when I would find rejection to mainly the message and Hillary Clinton, I would ask people to reconsider either not voting and voting.

And then there were the Bernie or Busters. That rejection, I would ask them to reconsider, they allowed me to speak, some didn’t. It was the only time I was threatened on the doors, like, “don’t come back here and if you do” and had things said to me, some male posturing.

And this was opposed to the GOP or Republican voters who you met?

Our doors were targeted towards democrats. Occasionally though we’d land on a GOP or republican door and I was met with thank you but I’m voting republican. And I was like, anything I can say to change your mind? And they were like, nope. I was like, that’s cool thank you for being polite. That wasn’t always the case for my co-workers. I mean there was psychological warfare out there. But, invigorating.

How far do you think we should go in asking our politicians to say no to Trump’s appointments, and particularly the Supreme Court nomination? How much should they say, no?

I think we demand a filibuster. I need to reread what Harry Reid said about the filibuster, I have to understand a little bit more about how that would take place. But what I’m hearing is that Donald Trump is already saying… I even hate saying his name… that he has instructed Mitch McConnell to go nuclear. Which is basically, to usurp the power from the confirmation hearings and declare that 51 votes is enough. I fully expect the Democrats to filibuster this choice. I do believe that they will go in that direction. I think we had 3 or 4 democrats that voted for a cabinet nomination…

Tillerson

The oil guy, yeah Tillerson.

The fact that we have trouble keeping them straight, that we are like “which awful person” is telling.

I imagine we’ll have playing cards with their pictures on them. Remember when those were popular in the build up to the Iraq war?

Oh riiiiiight! Yeah those would be really helpful right now.

We’re past the point of like, I think it’s Rob Reiner who said that it’s so ludicrous that it’s impossible to make parody or jokes about this because, it’s happening. And, as I mentioned earlier when you came in, speaking to my neighbor who’s from Tel Aviv, whose mom is from Iraq who has genuine concern and who has experienced tumultuous times within her own country and her own life. I think the danger here is not recognizing that this is in fact, a hostile take-over.

I went back last night because I’m a masochist or a sadist… maybe a little bit of both. And watched debate number 3.

OOOOHHHHH!

Because I knew there would be so much content there. Basically, everything Trump said he would do is right there and Hillary called it all out, right there.

She did. If you had to pick one or 3 things, what is making you pop a vein right now?

Well dude, I literally popped a gut. It wasn’t a gut but it was a muscle under my rib. And that’s what this feels like! Ok, to put this in context I have a rib contusion and a fracture on my left side, which I’ve had since October. That I used to lovingly call my “Bernie-Stein Hernia” because we (HFA) were doing all the heavy lifting. But I found humor in it and I just kept going along. So what pops a vein now? Sigh. So many things it’s hard to single out just one. But again, I’ll go back to this idea that we can’t form a consensus unless everything is perfect. This demand for purity and the irresponsible message that says to young people like, “Hey we’ll get there quicker by hastening the revolution with Trump”. And as a queer person that felt like a direct threat to my life and well being.  And it turns out that I’m right. And not just me I think women and people of color and immigrants are first on the list. This is a war. I mean the motherfucker has a picture of Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office. So every time he swears somebody in or they like do a signing. There’s Andrew Jackson, which is hardly the image of democracy that we want to see. Again, we saw this storm coming and we tried to stave it off and we were terrified that the worst possibility would happen. But even with those ideas of the “worst possibility” these are even worse. So purity fucking pisses me off. And that there are still people out there who are insisting on it and being immovable is going to cut us off at the knees and it will kill the movement.

Can you explain Andrew Jackson to me in a sentence? Or I suppose I could Google it!

What I think is so offensive that at the launch of Black History Month Trump comes out and here’s this picture of Andrew Jackson always prominent. Jackson owned hundreds of slaves, he was a plantation owner. I think he falls in line with Trumps romanticized idea of a military leader. Again, if you go back to debate 3, he talks about Patton, as well as despots and fucking lunatics and tyrants. His strategy is very much a war strategy. And with Bannon, Bannon is the same way. And they’re not hiding it. That’s my whole point with the Andrew Jackson picture, it’s like, they’re not hiding any of this. Rudy Giuliani got up and said this is definitely a Muslim ban. They are rubbing it in our face.

How do we combat that?!

Slowly, I think. We have to remember that we are a nation of laws. I do believe our Constitution is strong. And I think that if they push too far we will push harder.

What does that look like to you on the ground as someone who has worked on a campaign, as somebody who is an activist?

I think it’s a culmination of acts large and small. If all you can do is take 10 minutes everyday to call your representatives, that’s what you do and that’s what your action is. The mantra I had, when I came off the campaign, I kept saying to people just by intuition and gut was that we’re all going to be called into action. You may not know how, but it will come to you and you will respond. That’s going to happen. For all of us. We will all be called into action in some way or other. And again, no action is too small and certainly we’ll take the big actions too. I do believe it lies within this movement. “This movement” being what happened around the women’s march and that organizational structure as long as they don’t self-combust.  I think there is really good leadership there and I think there is going to be really strong leadership from the Democratic Party. There already are.

Any specific names you’d like to shout out?

Oh yeah I mean, it’s the usual suspects Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee, Barbara Lee, in the congress. You have Cory Booker, who I know Big Pharma, but this is where the purity argument comes into, without understanding the true nature of the bill that he passed on. You have John Lewis of course, Elijah Cummings. Katherine Clark. Klobuchar, Franken. There are so many. Tim Kaine. And I love seeing them get active on Twitter. I mean, I know it sounds like a small thing but they are getting used to using the tool.

Now unfortunately, what we’re getting from what I call the regressive progressives is a backlash of people stalking these democrats coming forward and still going with the “elitist status quo” argument. I don’t believe they’re (regressive progressives) actually democrats, I believe they are more libertarian. They, along with Bannon, have no respect or regard for the structures for the corridors of power and our governmental system. Those are the same people who were rioting in Berkeley last night, well they were anarchists. So.

Did you get to meet Hillary?

I did not get to meet Hillary. Because when I did an event her in Los Angeles, I was the one running interference between agitators and her. So, that was fun! I got close, but I wasn’t in a hurry either. I had a job to do so that’s what I was focused on. And I figured the time will come. If it’s going to happen. And she’s not done. I don’t believe by any stretch of the imagination that she’s finished. What it looks like only Hillary can say, she’s a strategist and she damn well can take her fucking time. She was the tip of the spear that brought us here. And the fact that people aren’t willing to acknowledge that, that’s another thing that pops a vein. Then we’re going to have to start talking about misogyny and how that played an infective part of this catastrophic loss. It was definitely there. You can’t support the guy yelling “paid speeches” and not see the double standard in him yelling “paid speeches, show us those speeches!” without revealing his tax returns, rider 2014, or filing an FEC report. I mean, if I were a Sanders supporter that would concern me! Why the double standard? I would go and look at myself in the mirror saying, why can’t I look at the faults of my candidate, while I can easily cite the faults of the opposing candidate, that’s a double standard. And by all terms, its misogyny. So, deal with it.

DEAL WITH IT! And with the 52% of the white women who voted, voting for him, the call is coming from the inside!

First of all, we don’t really know what the actual data was because we don’t know the extent of the hacking. And hacking that all was happening, that’s not some sort of fairytale story, that was happening. But again, if we pitched this election as a movie idea? We would be laughed out of the room. Because it’s got every possible character imaginable. It’s every dystopian novel ever written and we’re living in it. How do you find your way out of that? I mean, I heard helicopters tonight prior to your coming and I took a deep breath and got ready. That it wasn’t just a usual police incident but that we were arriving at the moment of the purge. Which is what a lot of these people who are on the extremes of both sides, I believe, wanted to see happen. I personally, feel like I’m ready. I was born for this fight.

What is something that you’ve done since the election that makes you proud?

I took out my garbage and did my laundry. No but seriously, I updated my cover letter and resumé and have been applying within the party to say I’m here I’m a valuable commodity, you can’t afford to have me on the sidelines. Which is basically what I did when I applied for HFA. I go to that line of thinking it and pushing that and then I think I just want to go live my Jack Kerouac life in Mexico City and find William S Burroughs. I think Mexico City is going to be a sanctuary. I think Mexico’s going to be a go-to. And I hope they get the fucking Alamo back!

This is a national nightmare. We are in a Constitutional crisis.

What would happen if we impeach Trump? Do you have an opinion about that?

Impeachment is too slow for this National crisis. But if it were impeachment and we go to Pence. We’re still looking at really destructive policies. Horrible, hateful policies. I believe, I would hope what this would lead to, is the destruction of the GOP. But we were making that calculation regarding a Hillary victory. I mean that’s what I would say to volunteers, this is our opportunity to deliver a final blow, with a crushing victory. Let’s give it to our vote, this is it, we’re here. When that didn’t happen I think we had to do a lot of readjusting and I think we thought a Donald Trump defeat would be the end of the GOP but actually it may in fact be his victory that finally destroys this goddamned motherfucking antiquated dinosaur. Again, I think I was born for this battle! I’m ready to go in.

And just to be clear the dinosaur is the GOP?

The dinosaur is, I hate speaking in such like Jungian… it’s the archetype, the white male patriarch. I mean, it’s showing itself for all that it is. And they’re rubbing it in our face. There’s not even any shame about it. And you can’t even really say White Male, because of the Orange One.

He’s the devil.

I hate insulting the devil like that.

What is one thing that you’ve learned that you’ve learned and what is something you want to learn more about?

I’ve learned more about my limitations. Which was kind of stunning. That I am vulnerable to feeling a sense of, not hopelessness, but of losing sight of my optimism. That is staggering for an optimist, and a pragmatic optimist. I’m a problem solver. So not having an immediate answer to this, that’s been revealing. So how do I find my way out to that and speak about a message that is positive and one that resonates a hopeful sense. How do we revive that? So what I want to do is learn how to do that. I said immediately after the campaign I said it is going to be time for us to dig deep, deeper than we’ve ever known. And yet, a few weeks after I was really strong like right after because, again, I was fueled by anger and adrenaline still. And when that gave out, I kind of hit bottom and didn’t quite know how to do the heavy lifting and deep digging. I mean I do know how to do this, I know it intuitively, but in this climate when there’s a constant barrage of bad things happening how do you persevere? My steps are self-care. Which I’m failing at miserably!

I keep hearing that from people. What works for you when you can do it?

Beers and tacos.

But seriously, exercising is usually a key thing for me. But I haven’t been able to do that because of this Bernie-Stein hernia. So how do I recover from that? How do I get my physical self back? In that challenge, I find hope because I know it exists within me. It’s my will. It’s my purpose. This is a calling and I think many of us have been called. And it’s whether or not you follow through on the call. When the call comes you pick up. Hopefully you’re ready. So that’s sort of what I’m doing right now, that slow preparation of whatever that next call is. That I can answer it. Fuck. Shit. Once you say it out loud! Wheee!

In another self-care question, are there any artists or any art that helping you get through this? Or even your own art and how you practice it?

Yeah, it’s trying to find the best method in which to use my words and my point of view. That is my challenge. So yeah, me. But also television is like the aloe vera to put on wounds. It always has been, since I was a kid, it would be my go to. “The Get Down” the Baz Lurhman, I love that show. I love musicals. It’s so fucking typical of a queer but, yes. What was concerning, all of my go-to’s that I would find comfort in, nothing was working and it was alarming. I couldn’t find any sense of joy, not joy but even reprieve from the barrage. And then I started watching horror movies and that helped.

Oh yeah, I did that with American Horror Story because it was the only thing that was high stress enough, that when I finished it felt like a relief.  

Exactly. It’s like trying to out terrify yourself from the reality of what’s happening. How do I make this worse? Plus I think when you’re terrified it creates adrenaline and I think many of us have become adrenaline junkies through this experience. Because many of us are driven by the belief that we are a fucking strong nation, we are a good people. I come from that optimism.

As much as I hated the message of hope and change because I knew it was exactly that, it was advertising at its best. And I knew that people were globbing onto it because they were expecting it to be instantaneous, so in that respect it was a failed message. And yet Obama kept saying this is a long-term process they weren’t hearing that. And when I say they, I mean consumers, because that’s what we all are. We’re all consumers. And it’s the same short sightedness that I find fault with the Sanders campaign, with “the revolution”. I’m sure we’re going to see commercials and runway shows that are going to be inspired by like protests and activism and that’s when you know that we’re kinda fucked. No I’m just kidding. On this subject, we’re about to experience the biggest advertising event in America, the Super Bowl. And of course I have thoughts on that because, I do love my sports. I’m a NY Giants fan and sports fucking saved my life on the campaign. Sports is a go-to that I use a lot. It’ll be interesting to see what trends during the super bowl and fucking Lady Gaga is performing and I can’t tell you how damned excited I am because I have to believe that she’s going to deliver a message. Unapologetically, I hope. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high because like a committee has to approve it all but it’s Gaga. So I’m hoping like a brigade of pantsuits just like comes out. Because she was a big Hillary supporter and still is. We’ll see what she has going.

And then you have the Patriots who are all Trump supporters from the quarterback to the KRAFT family and you’ve got the Atlanta Falcons where Jimmy Carter goes and watches the games.

I did not know that.

This is the battle of gladiators. So it’s cheap entertainment for one second without taking our eyes off the prize. It’s ok to allow yourself these distractions. I am genuinely concerned about safety more so than any other Super Bowl. I think this man has made us a target in just what is it 12 days? Yeah.

What is your preferred form of activism?

I like coalition building and outreach and I think for me, ideally where I want to go is into the lower socioeconomic neighborhoods that Trump said we were taking for granted. I don’t think we took anyone for granted. I can speak personally and say there was not one voter we took for granted. But I do feel that there is a wealth of potential in these areas that have been ignored and not cultivated. It’s frustrating because when you’re poor and nothing has changed for you, why would you be inspired to vote? And that’s what I heard a lot. But they did still vote. And when I say they, I’m including myself in this demographic of marginalized people. Of those who might be disillusioned or “what has the government done for me lately”? I have 101 complaints about the government. But I also know that, as a queer person, I mean the barrier was broke for gay people because of Obama.

Because of specific laws that he passed?

Yeah. Yeah. And the recognition. I mean we heard Trans People be referred to in the State of the Union. I honestly never thought I’d hear that in my lifetime. Never. I always use the analogy that he was setting the ball up on the tee and that Hillary … That Hillary and Obama were a team since 2008. Do I know that for a fact? No. But it seemed to be playing out that way. I’ll get this first 8 yrs. and then it was going to be a fucking home run. We kinda blew it. Big. Obviously.

What do you think happened?

I always say, I felt like George Clooney and that big wave was coming. It was the perfect storm of many things. We were fighting from the left, we were fighting from the right, we were fighting from the daily messages from the media about Hillary, Hillary, Hillary, and never holding Trump accountable. In fact, giving him free 40-minute airtime! It was astonishing. We will go back and look at this and we will study this and everyone will be held accountable. That happened and then I have to say the Comey announcement was devastating. But even before the Comey announcement was the Hollywood Access story where we, I never thought that was the damaging blow that would ruin his campaign because he’d already proven himself to be Teflon. But I got calls from volunteers saying, “Oh we’ve got this, we don’t need to get out the vote, do we really, do you still need me?” I swear I have more grey hairs from those calls than the Comey effect. But the Comey effect was significant.

What do you think Hillary Clinton is doing at this moment, right now?

Ok. I’ll tell you. In my mind what I’m hoping she’s doing is drinking wine and hanging out with Meryl Streep while the two of them talk about the patriarch and laugh and throw the glasses into a fireplace. 

Whatever she is going to do she’ll do it with dignity, grace and responsibility. That’s who she is. People miss that point about her. I remain humbled, honored and proud to have served on Hillary's campaign. I will forever be her Brienne of Tarth.

On the flip side of that, what do you think Donald Trump is doing at this moment right now?

Having his diaper changed. I’m sorry I said that. We were programmed not to say anything negative. Haha! Gloves are off.

We all have to do this in the middle of our lives.

In the middle of a war. It feels crazy to say this but I say hostile takeover, but I do believe it’s a coup. And I don’t throw that around lightly. I think there is trouble on the horizon.

Do you think there will be internal violence in the US?

I think it will be set up that way. I think we’re going back to COINTELPRO I’ll go back to USC Berkeley. I know that these protestors who are anarchists think they’re doing good by a cause their whole theory and premise, if you create disruption, you create exposure. So again being in advertising, it’s like no that message is kinda flawed. Because The Women’s March just proved that there are ways to get exposure through peaceful means, same with the airport demonstrations. So you’re coming in (the anarchists) and doing this is highly suspect and that is around the speaker Milo, who’s a Breitbart operative. To me, it echoes of CoIntelPro and the Black Panther party. How the government made the Black Panther Party seem so terrifying to a White America and a threat. When in fact, they were doing really good social justice and activism work. And the only reason I know this history, is because my last year in high school, I came out to my best friend who proceeded to shun me. I kind of then had a whole year of being shunned my last year. So I found refuge and sanctuary in the library and I found the Civil Rights Movement, and I found all these leaders and these voices and writers. That’s what instilled in me a sense of fairness justice and equality and why we fight for it. Because that’s the foundation in which we built this fucking nation. I’m not about to give up on it.

In saying all that I just said, it’s quite possible that I’m Travis Bickle that I’m totally, that I’ve gone totally over or that I’m Colonel Kurtz, I could be that character and this is Apocalypse Now. I have no fucking clue. I’m kidding America! Don’t lose your sense of humor. Whatever you do. And my other advice would be, fall in love. Because there’s no better time to fall in love then in the midst of a revolution. Go for it. Live epic, cinematic, passionate fucking lives. But do it kindly and responsibly. And don’t fucking throw Molotov Cocktails. It’s really simple.

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Thanks so much, Tre! You can follow Tre on Twitter at treshaus

[prorevenge]

You want to mess with my career and my freedom? Watch your entire life go down in flames!

TL;DR at the bottom. Sorry in advance for any formatting or grammatical errors. English is not my first language.

This is a pretty long one, so hope you're up for the challenge :)

This all happened five or so years ago while I was working for a proprietary trading firm. The company is a multinational and it had opened a new office in my city a couple of years before I joined them. For those who don't know, most prop shops (as I understood it) have a very high turnover rate. Just toss everyone in and keep those who stick. The company I worked for recruited every three months. It had space for about 120 traders but the office was never full. Out of the twenty or so who were hired every quarter, only about five managed to make it beyond the three month internship period, and of those, only one - or sometimes none at all - made it past the additional three months probation period. The company was operating in my city for two years before I joined and there were only about four people who I could have called permanent. Everyone else, about another ten, was either on their internship or on probation.

The Setup.

I and about twenty five others were recruited straight out of university. The internship period paid really well for a first job, about twice as much as any other entry level position in other financial institutions plus bonuses once we went live (regardless of whether one is on internship, probation or permanent), and I was really excited.

I first came across my boss, a really decent Indian guy, at a industry day held in our university. That was where they administered the IQ tests and I passed. The office, similar to other mid-sized operations, had a pretty flat management structure. Us traders were at the lowest level, the HR/Ops manager was above us, and the Office Manager was, well, the head of the branch. The boss gave time off pretty much whenever you asked for it as long as the day's objectives were fulfilled (that was his policy).

However, the HR/Ops manager was his opposite, and then some. This lady was a Grade-A bitch, and I mean that sincerely. Let's call her Gabby.

The Instigating Event

I first met Gabby when I went to their offices for my final interview. I was registering at the front desk when she marched from her office demanding some documents from the receptionist. The receptionist wanted to finish up with me first but she was ordered off to file storage. Our exchange went like so:

Gabby: You're one of the new ones?

Me: Yes. I'm really excited.

Gabby: Don't be. you don't look like you'll make it.

Me: Why?

Gabby: You're too soft.

A pause.

Gabby: Buut... I can put in a good word for you, if you give me a little something. ( a bribe).

Me: Haha. Very funny.

Gabby: I'm serious. Give something and I'll make it very easy for you. Otherwise I'll make sure you don't even get into the interview.

Me: No.

Gabby: Stupid idiot.

Right to my face. And she kept her word. She made me sit in a hidden corner of the waiting room where no one would see me easily, but I could hear the conversations at the desk. The only reason why I got an interview is because apparently I had impressed the boss at our previous meeting that he came to see why my CV wasn't there. Gabby said that I hadn't sent it in. The receptionist stated that she had seen it somewhere. Then I walked up to the desk at the same time the receptionist said, "Here it is. It was in the trash..." and everyone stared at Gabby.

From that moment of humiliation onwards, Gabby had a raging hate boner for me. You see, Gabby was a micromanager, more of a nanomanager really. She made us have to request access if we wanted to access sites other than those on her approved list, and for traders who gain info from wherever we could find it, her list was woefully inadequate. She would call meetings at the most inopportune times - but only when the branch manager was not around - and in her lengthy meetings, you could never leave to check on your positions. She had this annoying habit of taking my lunch and when I confronted her about it, she essentially told me to go fuck myself. That I could live with. I just started bringing in two sets of lunch and kept on doing the job that I loved.

Gabby was married with two kids, and she was pretty. I guess she liked the attention because she would have a stream of guys picking her up at the office for two hour 'lunches' and when she left for home some evening. But not on Thursday. Thursdays were the days when her husband would come pick her up towing their kids along. I think they went to have a family dinner or something.

The Mistakes Gabby Made: Round One

Our manager left about two months after I joined. I think he returned to India to get married or something but still stayed with the company. Wished him all the best. None of the other permanent traders had the experience corporate required to take on a management role (5 years at least) so they had to shop around. In the meantime, Gabby became the de-facto head of the branch despite the fact that her knowledge of futures markets was rudimentary at best.

Her first mistake was when she delayed my promotion from internship to probation. I am an excellent trader, and was easily top five in my group. Of the 26, she promoted the twenty she liked, kept me and another guy in internship, and fired four.At around the same time, another recruitment drive happened and another twentyish interns were hired. I knew this was our beef rekindled and remixed, and I was actually surprised she held onto it for so long. It was also pretty unusual since the last thing my former boss did before he left was to promote me from the simulator to a live trading account. But I kept my head down and continued learning, often going back to my former boss and the permanent employees to get advice.

Another three months go by, and in the next evaluation I was shocked that I was still not brought up to probation, despite the fact that all of the new recruits of the second group had been promoted and I was easily the best and the only one trading live. I knew I was good at the job. The permanent guys all said so. The group I initially joined with was frequently asking me for advice. To their credit, a few of them were good, but most of them were still on sim, and as a rule, no one advanced to probation while still on sim. However, you could go live while on internship if you were good which is what had happened to me. So I was a live trader and making good money but I was still on internship and passed over twice. I couldn't let go of that.

I decided to talk to Gabby directly. I approached the senior guys and made my case, though I was careful not to put her in bad light. They agreed to help me and so they did. about a month after the she passed me over the second time, she gave me my promotion and I was now on probation. At this time, she was still unsure of her power and was still afraid of the permanent traders. Those guys were like gods.

Two months after my promotion, another evaluation and recruitment drive. I was not promoted. The group I started out with was now permanent, despite having only two of them trading live. The group I was currently with on probation were all promoted to permanent status. The group behind me on internship was all promoted to probation, and another group was hired. I let it go hoping she had got it out of her system. Sadly, she had not.

Round Two

Three months go by. I'm trading live and loving it, though still on probation. An evaluation comes up again and I'm not promoted, despite the fact that, contract to contract, I was almost on a level with the permanent employees. The group that found me on probation was advanced to permanent status to a man, and none of them were live. the group behind me caught up to me and a new batch of newbies were hired as interns. I couldn't let this one go either. I approached the original four permanent employees who were now my very good buddies and planned to do the same thing as last time. Only this time, it didn't work. Gabby had grown into her sadistic power and flatly refused to even consider my promotion even after she was presented with evidence that I was worth it. Her argument was along the lines of, "I'm the boss so I can do whatever the hell I want."

But I wasn't having that, so I contacted my former boss for help. At the time he had been promoted to head of operations, Africa. He was actually quite surprised, given my performance, that I was still on probation. Needless to say, the order came down from on high and Gabby looked like she was shitting six pineapples simultaneously as she handed my letter. And I thought that was the end of it. How wrong I was.

On the next recruitment she hired this girl, let's call her Sue. Sue was an intelligent person all round, but she didn't have the emotional quotient to handle the market (trading, as I was taught, requires two mental aspects: IQ and EQ. You can't improve IQ, but you can boost your EQ to deal with the numerous stresses that accompany the career). Sue had more than enough of the IQ part, but EQ, not so much. No worries, you can work on that.

Just to recap: The office now had about seventy employees. Of these, over thirty were permanent staff (me included) but only eleven were trading live. Another twenty or so were on probation, but only three were trading live. None of the interns were live. The office needed to stay profitable if it was to stay open which means that the money the fourteen live traders were paying the salaries of everyone in the office, rent, supplies, health insurance, pensions etc etc. Needless to say, corporate was not seeing a lot of returns from our branch, and as I came to learn later from my former boss, were considering shutting down the branch and costing us our jobs. But I digress.

The Last Straw

The Grade-A Bitch Gabby took advantage of an inconsolable and desperate Sue to try and get me for sexual harassment. This is how it went down. Remember all those people still on sim? Well, they all came to the eleven of us for trading advice and we did what we could to help them. We divided up the sim traders into groups and I was mentoring about four people. Sue was one of them. As any trader will tell you, the period before profitability is usually one of losses (unless you're really good) and is filled with stress and fear (hence the need for high EQ). It's normal, and you get through it.

Sue was going through such a rough patch one evening. We were going over her trades (bad trading day all around), when she just burst out crying. I know how it feels. I had shed my own tears as well. So comforted her the best I could. I held her hand and patted her on the back awkwardly (to this day I still don't know how to comfort someone) until she quieted down. What I didnt know was that Gabby had seen us.

As I came to learn later, she approached Sue the following day and made her an offer. Gabby would make sure Sue kept her job and would get her a lot of money if she stated that I had sexually harassed her. Sue took Gabby up on the offer and what followed was a nightmare.It started with a formal reprimand from corporate, a hearing in which I wasn't present to defend myself (because Gabby 'forgot' to send me the summons).

Apparently she lobbied quite viciously to get me fired. The only reason I was able to keep my job was that my former boss came to my defence. Despite his help, I lost my quarterly bonus (about US$100,000) and half of my holdback (about US$400,000). I also had to attend seminars which essentially involved watching the same film on sexual assault in the workplace (three hours long) until I stated, in writing, that I was an abuser and it would go on my record. I knew that if that happened, Gabby would have the ammunition she needed to ruin my life forever. So every day, I got into the office at seven in the morning, watched the three hour film until ten. Refuse to acknowledge it, then get to work, leave the office at 11:20 in the evening, rinse and repeat. For almost seven months. It was tiring, and torture, and Gabby never let me live it down.

All of the people I had been mentoring were transferred the day after my reprimand. A day after that, Gabby informed me via letter that my clip size had been cut from 1000 to 20 contracts. Yeah, I had to admit, I was bloodied. I was down, but the bitch didn't know that she should have ended me.

The Revenge

Step 1: Ruin Gabby's Career.

I started compiling all the shit that was happening to me in the office. It started when I realized that when I went out to lunch, someone would open my desk drawer and mess around with my notebook, where I jotted down my trading ideas for the day. The only person who had a key apart from me was Gabby. Apparently she had mastered my lunchtime routine for the entire 45 minute break and would open my locker when I was out smoking. She would then copy down my trading plans for the day and give them to Sue. I even saw them at it once, but they didn't see me. I documented it. I let it go on for a while so that I could establish a pattern via Sue's trades. I then approached two of the permanent traders who were closest to me and told them my plan.

Remember when I said almost no money was reaching corporate? and that there were only eleven live traders? The situation had only gotten worse. The office was now full but we had less that fifteen live traders. Live trading could only be approved by Head of Operations (my former boss) and he was a strict one. Now imagine that my earning capacity had been cut by over 90%. My two friends agreed to my plan and they slowed down their trading by around 50%. This essentially put the branch in the red and three weeks later, we were told that Head of Ops and other head honchos were coming down. The next phase involved getting Sue into a corner. Pleas, a tear or two, and revealing that I could prove she had been stealing my work were enough to get a written statement from her that Gabby had orchestrated my whole sexual harassment thing.

Step 2: Ruin Gabby's Marriage

It took only a little investigation on my part to realize than all those men who visited the office were actually Gabby's lovers. She would leave for two-hour 'lunches' with her phone turned off. I took advantage of one such period. Gabby left and I snuck into her office to find her Facebook profile open. Everyone knew she was always on there and it was a sore point because she had banned it for the rest of us minions. I got into her Messenger, and voila! Explicit texts, nudes, rants about her husband and his inadequacies, the six guys or so she had cheated with, all of it. I copy pasted the data into her private email which she was logged into as well (always clear cache, you guys) and sent it to my private email, then deleted it from her sent folder. Now I had the ammo on my phone ready to send.

Step 3: Ruin Gabby's Relationship with her Kids.

Now, I'll say right off the bat I'm not proud of this step. but to bust my justice nut, it wasn't enough to just send the info to her husband. So I waited for Thursday when I knew he would be passing by the office with the kids. The Pro Revenge gods saw fit to bless me that day, because it was the same day that Corporate Head Honchos were ridin' into town.

Thursday.

I was at the office at seven as usual with all my documentation from my appointment letter to the numerous rejected requests for promotion, sat through the three hour sexual harassment video (yes, I was still doing that), and waited for the Moment. The guys from corporate, my former boss included, arrived and went straight into a meeting with Gabby. I was quite certain that they would call me in to know why I had been attending a sexual harassment awareness class for almost a year, and I was ready for them.

I was called in after lunch, at about two. The question was asked and before I could answer, Gabby jumped on the bit like I knew she would. She went on a long rant about how I had been insubordinate, and how I liked to touch the female employees. I could tell from her grin that she thought she was winning.

And then I pulled out Sue's letter, and the grin curdled on her face. Sue was hurriedly called in and she backed my story. She said she was sorry. She was fired on the spot and told to go wait at the receptionist for her final check. I felt no sympathy. I was on a roll.

Next I pulled out my analysis of my trades and told them how Gabby had been breaking into my locker and stealing my notes for sue. Gabby denied it. Sue was called back in. She denied it. My former boss logged into the company network, pulled Sue's and my trading data. He compared the positions taken by both of us with my notes. He said it was true. Sue was fired again. They told me they would refund my confiscated bonus and holdback, with an extra 50 grand. That was fine by me. The justice was enough.

And then I spotted Gabby's husband heading into her office as usual, their two kids in tow. I pulled out my phone, grinned at her and said,

"You're husband is here."

She turned around and saw him. She excused herself for a minute to tell him to wait.

My former boss said, "Sure."

I pressed send.

TL;DR. Grade-A Bitch tries to ruin my career because I humiliated her, I burn her life to the fucking ground.

update: As for the aftermath, Gabby's husband absolutely lost his shit. Her office was glass-walled and the rest was open-plan so we could all hear what they were shouting about. He finally left with their kids in tow (sorry little ones) Gabby followed him still shouting at him. Then she saw us all standing around and the look on her face was priceless as she was wondering which aspect of her life to try and salvage. She let her husband go, but about an hour later she had been fired.

My favorite boss stayed behind since there was no one left. He stayed for a month training the lady who had been with the company the longest to take over as manager. She is easily the most brilliant mind I had ever met. Unfortunately the branch was still struggling with so many employees who were not generating income and they had to shut it down. But they transferred all the performing employees to their other various branches in London (2 branches) and India (9 branches). So I guess no one undeservedly lost their jobs.

I still stalk Gabby on Facebook. There have been a lot of "I'm single because I'm too awesome" posts of late. I almost feel sorry for her, but I remember the three-hour video and I stop being foolish. From what I could see on LinkedIn, Sue bounced around from firm to firm until she found a position as a research analyst. My favorite boss is still at the firm. We talk from time to time.

I took a break from trading for a while. After all the shit that went down, I needed a break so I didn't take them up on their offer to relocate to India. Went to work with a buddy of mine who has a consultancy. When I feel ready I'll go back to the market. For me at least, there is no other job as challenging and satisfying.

Wow. That was long. I think though that's the end of my @prorevenge :)

(source)