PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

internal observation, product classification

May Season Studio Archives

by Gintare O.

Monika picked the Starbucks inside HQ, the one tucked into the corner of the lobby with the comfortable chairs and the long counter for laptops and the big screen on the wall playing MSS promo videos on a loop with the sound off. It was where people went to grab coffee or a quick snack, or to have a conversation they wanted to look casual.

She was already there when Genny arrived. She had a table near the window and had taken the seat facing the room, which meant she could see everyone who walked past, which Genny did not think about until later.

“Genny.” Monika stood and hugged her before Genny had fully set her bag down. The hug was warm. It lasted the correct amount of time. “It’s so good to see you. It’s been what, two years?”

“Something like that.”

“You look great. You really do.”

Genny sat. Monika already had a drink in front of her. She had not gotten Genny anything, which was fine, that was not how this worked, but Genny noticed it the way you notice things you do not say out loud.

They had worked in the same group once. Before Genny moved to Karen’s team and before Monika got the promotion and then the assignment overseas, the pilot office, the one that got written up in the internal newsletter with a photo of Monika cutting a ribbon. They used to get lunch. They used to text. At one point Genny would have called her a friend, or close to it, the way you are close to someone when you sit forty feet apart for three years.

“So how is it over there,” Genny asked. “How’s the assignment.”

“Good. Really good. I mean it’s a lot. It’s a small office so you wear every hat, which sounds exhausting and it is, but you learn so much.” Monika said this smoothly, the way you say a thing you have said many times. “I’m ready to come back, though. Nine months and I’m back.”

“That’s exciting.”

“It is. It is.” Monika took a sip of her drink. “So tell me about you. You’re still in Product Catalog?”

“Product Classification. Under Karen.”

“Karen.” Monika said the name like she was placing it. “Right. How is that.”

“It’s fine. It’s the job.”

“And the org over here, what’s it look like now? I’ve been gone, I’m so out of the loop. Who’s running the floor these days. Is Dennis still around?”

“Dennis retired.”

“Did he. Wow.” Monika nodded slowly, but her eyes had moved, just slightly, to the door. Someone had walked in. Monika watched them long enough to confirm she did not know them, then came back. “And the reorg, the one in the spring. How did that shake out. Who picked up the old products group.”

Genny told her. She knew the answer because everyone knew the answer, it had been in three all-hands meetings, but she told her like it was useful, because the way Monika was leaning forward made it clear that being useful was the point.

That was when Genny understood what the coffee was.

It was not unkind. Monika was not pretending. She did want to know how Genny was, in the way you want to know how a coworker is, which is to say briefly and on the way to something else. The something else was the org chart. Monika’s old role had been eliminated in the spring reorg. She had a job for nine more months and then she had nothing, and she was at headquarters for the week, and the week was for figuring out where she landed when she came back.

Genny was the first stop. Genny knew the floor, knew who reported to who, knew which groups were growing and which ones were quietly being absorbed. Genny was, for the purposes of this coffee, a map.

“It’s funny,” Monika said. “You always knew everything. You always had the lay of the land.”

“I sit in a lot of meetings.”

“No, it’s a skill.” Monika smiled. “It really is.”

They talked for forty minutes. It was a good forty minutes. Monika was easy to talk to, she always had been, that was the thing about her. She laughed at the right parts and remembered the name of Genny’s old manager and asked a follow-up question about Genny’s commute that was specific enough to seem genuine. She mentioned, in passing, that her apartment overseas had a leak the whole first winter, and that her husband had finally learned the language better than she had, and that she missed Mexican food more than she expected to. She offered these the way you offer small things, just enough to make the conversation feel personal, just enough that it did not feel like an interview. By the end Genny had told her everything she knew about the current shape of the organization and Monika had told her almost nothing about herself that was not also a question about someone else.

“We should do this again before I fly back,” Monika said, standing, gathering her phone and her badge. “Really. Let’s not let it be another two years.”

“For sure.”

Another hug. Correct length. Warm.

Monika walked toward the elevators and stopped twice on the way, once for a man in a quarter-zip who lit up when he saw her, once for a woman who hugged her the way Monika had hugged Genny. Genny watched from the table while she finished her coffee. On the screen above them, a promo video showed a sunlit warehouse and a slogan about keeping the world in order.

She saw Monika again on Tuesday, by the printers on three, deep in conversation with someone from Finance. She saw her Wednesday in the main lobby, hugging two people at once, one arm each, laughing at something. She saw her Thursday outside the executive suite, walking with a director Genny only recognized from the wall of photos, the two of them talking with their heads tilted toward each other like they were sharing a secret.

Different departments. Different levels. Monika moved through all of them the same way, warm and easy and fully present for exactly as long as it took.

It was a skill. Genny had said so herself.

Genny did not feel used. She had thought she might, walking back to her desk on Friday after spotting Monika one last time near the cafeteria, and she checked for the feeling the way you check a tooth with your tongue. It was not there. What had happened was simple and she could name it. Monika needed something, and Genny had it, and Monika had asked for it the nicest way there was to ask, which was over coffee, with a hug, calling it a catch-up.

That was the game. Monika was good at it. She was a level up and climbing and this was how you climbed, you made every conversation feel like the only one that mattered while you were in it, and then you went to the next one.

Genny played it too, just not like that. She played it enough. Enough to be useful when being useful was cheap, enough to keep a good name on the floor, enough that when she finally wanted a different job someone would remember her as the one who knew everything and was easy to work with. She had been useful to Monika today on purpose. There was a version of this where it came back around. Monika would be two levels up in a year, and Genny would not have wasted the coffee.

The difference was that Genny knew when she was doing it. Monika did it all the time, to everyone, which meant she was probably better at her job, and probably more tired than she let on.

Genny sat back down at her desk. Karen was at the far end of the floor correcting someone. The fluorescent lights hummed. Genny moved her coffee to the left side, away from the docking station, and opened the catalog.

It had been good to see Monika. That part was true. Both things were true at once, which was most things, in Genny’s experience.

She put her headphones on.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

at may season studio, networking is considered a load-bearing activity. employees who provide accurate directions to other employees are thanked in accordance with policy.

written and designed by gintare okrzesik, creator of may season studio. a fictional corporation exploring beauty, bureaucracy, and quiet corruption through narrative design.

Filed Under: product classification / from the may season studio employee files

Some catch-ups are catch-ups.

Some are something else.

Begin with:

The Annual Review

The Lunch Hour

The Retirement of Dennis Call