StrugglingWriter
Well-Known Member
~BBW, ~XWG, a soft-bodied housewife entering the rat race for the first time faces up to the challenge of fitting into the world of big business
“So, Ms.Carrol. If I’m reading this right, you spent seven years in college?”
Karen was immediately puzzled. Her face must have shown it.
“You put your college graduation date here.” The thin, angular woman looked up over her fashion rim glasses. “Just a tip: you really shouldn’t do that.”
“I’m still not sure how—“
“Your facebook page, Ms. Carrol—may I call you Karen?” She didn’t wait for a response. “We’re not all that formal here despite the size of Maximize, and I’m not in the habit of calling anyone by her last name who’s not my superior. No offense,” she added brusquely.
“None taken.” Yet.
“You should be more careful about what you put on facebook, Karen. 27 is a great age to be, but not everyone will always think so in every situation.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. Thanks for the information.” This is not going well.
“Not everyone would be supportive of your having a young child either, Karen.” It didn’t take a genius to realize she’d taken a look at her facebook family photos as well. “We find that parents with young children, especially women, can be pretty unreliable. No fault of her own, of course—and not that it would ever make a difference in our hiring decision,” she hastened to add. “I mean, I wouldn’t dream of having a child given all my responsibilities here—and all the opportunities we have for a woman of talent. But despite the inconvenience, our mission is to serve all kinds of women, all shapes and size“--she nodded Karen’s direction--"colors, family situations, origins, all walks of life. We find diversity to be a crucial part of our brand and our corporate culture.
“You never answered my question about seven years in college.”
“Yes, I graduated after seven years.”
“I know that. But why?”
Diversion failed. “Ohhh, I took some time to look around, figure out what I wanted to do. You know, enjoy being young and not tied down. There’s a lot more to college than sitting in a classroom. Along the way I met the right guy at the right moment, got married, started a family. With all that, it never really occurred to me that there was some kind of race on to finish my degree.” What else was she gonna say? Actually admit she went to college for her MRS? Could any of this really be all that pertinent for a secretary’s position?
“You know, a lot of people feel that way,” Ms. Sylvia Witherspoon answered. “Probably, I would guess, the vast majority of women, in fact. That certainly explains the middling grades on your transcript. Business Administration. Well, I see how that degree’s appropriate here, in an ironic sort of way.”
Karen supposed that for this severe a woman, this is what passed for a gracious gesture.
“OK,” Ms. Sylvia Witherspoon said with finality, flopping both bony hands on the table and standing up. The chair behind her barely moved back as she did. She slipped around the edge of the cherry insert desk and sat on the corner, one foot on the floor, her dark blue pencil skirt clinging without wrinkle to thighs without a hint of bulge. Her long skinny arm was crooked with her hand on her waist, defining the pipe cleaner waist beneath the drape of her expensive silk blouse. “I have a lot less say in my own assistants than you might think. If you haven’t received a call by the end of next week, call down to HR and they can give you the final word on the position.”
Ms. Sylvia Witherspoon extended the crooked arm down to where Karen was wedged into one of the short, high-armed leather chairs designed to emphasize the difference in authority of the persons behind and in front of the desk. “Nice to have met you,” she intoned, a mere formality. “Enjoy the snarled traffic on the way home. As for me, my day practically doesn’t even start until 5:00.”
With that, Ms. Witherspoon slipped lightly to her feet and whispered her way back around the desk and behind her laptop, where she failed to give Karen another glance.
With considerably less grace, but not ungraceful by any stretch, Karen extricated herself from her chair, more self-conscious about herself than before she’d walked in. “Thank you,” she murmured, a mere formality, before straightening her own skirt, collecting her purse and portfolio (with only a pen and notepad inside, barely touched during what she guessed she had to call an interview), and exiting out the glass door between the two glass panels that served as the front wall of the office.
Karen had spent most of her life thin, but never as waifishly thin as her wannabe boss. More like her notwannabe boss, at this point. 120 pounds—up a few here, down a few there—had always been her norm. She’d made it down to 114 for her bridal shoot—some three-and-a-half years ago now, she realized. Since then, a happy marriage, a happy pregnancy followed by a happy child, and those extra six pounds had found 40 more. It was a reality she had acknowledged but generally accepted as a condition of domestic bliss. For a time. Perhaps when Morgan was a little older, or after that future wannahave child number two was into preschool, then she would engage in the full-out effort she figured turning the clock back to her college years would take. But there were bigger priorities.
It had shot up the list this past weekend when she hit the department stores for the off-the-rack suit she’d worn for the interview today. Karen had found occasion to wear a business suit a few times before and found that at size 4 or 6 it was always a smart look. Now at her size 10—and for some cuts, even a size 12—she had discovered how it didn’t take much hips and thighs to change that smart look to a frumpy one, transforming an otherwise modest thickening at the waist to look like a beach ball und a blanket, flaring jacket panels heightening the effect, or the other alternative: an oversized jacket that hid it all, including the curve at her waistline and her middling but admittedly becoming bust. Between the bulk of her hips and thighs transversing the admittedly narrow confines of the leather chair, the striking figure of her rail-thin interviewer, or the thinly-veiled barbs from the withering Ms. Witherspoon, there would have been precious little else she could have thought about.
Except it was clear she wasn’t getting the job, which meant all of it could be chalked up to a bad memory and the knowledge that where working for money was concerned, she and her body weren’t quite ready for primetime. After two hours of L.A. traffic from downtown to her little home in Venice Beach, she was hardly thinking about it at all when she stepped across her threshold to be greeted by the enthusiastic, full-speed, grimy-pawed hug of two-year-old Morgan.
A quickchange to her more comfortable evening house duds (not quite a pair of pajamas) and a quick meal later and Karen was comfortably in the mindset that she was where she belonged. That was only confirmed deeper later that evening as a sleepy Morgan snuggled beside her for their nightly bedtime story, and when just a few moments later she was welcomed into the greedy arms of a husband who had never uttered one breath about the fuller figure Karen, nor ever showed an ounce of concern about it.
Tonight was no different, Brent’s hands wandering everywhere as usual, lingering across those selfsame fulsome hips, kneading her fleshy thighs and doughy backside in preparation for a quick and efficient climax.
After all, it had been a full day, and Morgan would be up with the sun in the morning.
It was 10:32 that night when Karen was awakened by her cell phone buzzing on the nightstand. Her groggy mind was instantly comforted by the unfamiliar number, which always told her that this particular late night phone call wasn’t the bad news about her parents or her sister that she knew one day would have to arrive. She let the call go to voice mail and rolled back over for sleep.
Except that it rang again. Again Karen let it go to voice mail, thinking whoever had the wrong number would figure it out after hearing her mailbox message again.
And then it rang a third time. Fully awake now, Karen could see the buzzing starting to stir her husband, who by all accounts might as well have been a rock when he was sleeping. She picked up the phone fully expecting to inform someone he had a wrong number.
“Just so you know, in the future I expect you to answer my calls promptly. I don’t do voice mail.”
It was, of course, Ms. Sylvia Witherspoon, as charming as ever.
“Look,” she said. “I don’t need to wait to interview anyone else. I’ve decided: you’ll be just fine for the job. HR will fill you in on your salary and benefits in the morning. Make sure you show up early to finish all the paperwork. We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.
Welcome to Maximize Magazine.”
Maximize
“So, Ms.Carrol. If I’m reading this right, you spent seven years in college?”
Karen was immediately puzzled. Her face must have shown it.
“You put your college graduation date here.” The thin, angular woman looked up over her fashion rim glasses. “Just a tip: you really shouldn’t do that.”
“I’m still not sure how—“
“Your facebook page, Ms. Carrol—may I call you Karen?” She didn’t wait for a response. “We’re not all that formal here despite the size of Maximize, and I’m not in the habit of calling anyone by her last name who’s not my superior. No offense,” she added brusquely.
“None taken.” Yet.
“You should be more careful about what you put on facebook, Karen. 27 is a great age to be, but not everyone will always think so in every situation.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. Thanks for the information.” This is not going well.
“Not everyone would be supportive of your having a young child either, Karen.” It didn’t take a genius to realize she’d taken a look at her facebook family photos as well. “We find that parents with young children, especially women, can be pretty unreliable. No fault of her own, of course—and not that it would ever make a difference in our hiring decision,” she hastened to add. “I mean, I wouldn’t dream of having a child given all my responsibilities here—and all the opportunities we have for a woman of talent. But despite the inconvenience, our mission is to serve all kinds of women, all shapes and size“--she nodded Karen’s direction--"colors, family situations, origins, all walks of life. We find diversity to be a crucial part of our brand and our corporate culture.
“You never answered my question about seven years in college.”
“Yes, I graduated after seven years.”
“I know that. But why?”
Diversion failed. “Ohhh, I took some time to look around, figure out what I wanted to do. You know, enjoy being young and not tied down. There’s a lot more to college than sitting in a classroom. Along the way I met the right guy at the right moment, got married, started a family. With all that, it never really occurred to me that there was some kind of race on to finish my degree.” What else was she gonna say? Actually admit she went to college for her MRS? Could any of this really be all that pertinent for a secretary’s position?
“You know, a lot of people feel that way,” Ms. Sylvia Witherspoon answered. “Probably, I would guess, the vast majority of women, in fact. That certainly explains the middling grades on your transcript. Business Administration. Well, I see how that degree’s appropriate here, in an ironic sort of way.”
Karen supposed that for this severe a woman, this is what passed for a gracious gesture.
“OK,” Ms. Sylvia Witherspoon said with finality, flopping both bony hands on the table and standing up. The chair behind her barely moved back as she did. She slipped around the edge of the cherry insert desk and sat on the corner, one foot on the floor, her dark blue pencil skirt clinging without wrinkle to thighs without a hint of bulge. Her long skinny arm was crooked with her hand on her waist, defining the pipe cleaner waist beneath the drape of her expensive silk blouse. “I have a lot less say in my own assistants than you might think. If you haven’t received a call by the end of next week, call down to HR and they can give you the final word on the position.”
Ms. Sylvia Witherspoon extended the crooked arm down to where Karen was wedged into one of the short, high-armed leather chairs designed to emphasize the difference in authority of the persons behind and in front of the desk. “Nice to have met you,” she intoned, a mere formality. “Enjoy the snarled traffic on the way home. As for me, my day practically doesn’t even start until 5:00.”
With that, Ms. Witherspoon slipped lightly to her feet and whispered her way back around the desk and behind her laptop, where she failed to give Karen another glance.
With considerably less grace, but not ungraceful by any stretch, Karen extricated herself from her chair, more self-conscious about herself than before she’d walked in. “Thank you,” she murmured, a mere formality, before straightening her own skirt, collecting her purse and portfolio (with only a pen and notepad inside, barely touched during what she guessed she had to call an interview), and exiting out the glass door between the two glass panels that served as the front wall of the office.
Karen had spent most of her life thin, but never as waifishly thin as her wannabe boss. More like her notwannabe boss, at this point. 120 pounds—up a few here, down a few there—had always been her norm. She’d made it down to 114 for her bridal shoot—some three-and-a-half years ago now, she realized. Since then, a happy marriage, a happy pregnancy followed by a happy child, and those extra six pounds had found 40 more. It was a reality she had acknowledged but generally accepted as a condition of domestic bliss. For a time. Perhaps when Morgan was a little older, or after that future wannahave child number two was into preschool, then she would engage in the full-out effort she figured turning the clock back to her college years would take. But there were bigger priorities.
It had shot up the list this past weekend when she hit the department stores for the off-the-rack suit she’d worn for the interview today. Karen had found occasion to wear a business suit a few times before and found that at size 4 or 6 it was always a smart look. Now at her size 10—and for some cuts, even a size 12—she had discovered how it didn’t take much hips and thighs to change that smart look to a frumpy one, transforming an otherwise modest thickening at the waist to look like a beach ball und a blanket, flaring jacket panels heightening the effect, or the other alternative: an oversized jacket that hid it all, including the curve at her waistline and her middling but admittedly becoming bust. Between the bulk of her hips and thighs transversing the admittedly narrow confines of the leather chair, the striking figure of her rail-thin interviewer, or the thinly-veiled barbs from the withering Ms. Witherspoon, there would have been precious little else she could have thought about.
Except it was clear she wasn’t getting the job, which meant all of it could be chalked up to a bad memory and the knowledge that where working for money was concerned, she and her body weren’t quite ready for primetime. After two hours of L.A. traffic from downtown to her little home in Venice Beach, she was hardly thinking about it at all when she stepped across her threshold to be greeted by the enthusiastic, full-speed, grimy-pawed hug of two-year-old Morgan.
A quickchange to her more comfortable evening house duds (not quite a pair of pajamas) and a quick meal later and Karen was comfortably in the mindset that she was where she belonged. That was only confirmed deeper later that evening as a sleepy Morgan snuggled beside her for their nightly bedtime story, and when just a few moments later she was welcomed into the greedy arms of a husband who had never uttered one breath about the fuller figure Karen, nor ever showed an ounce of concern about it.
Tonight was no different, Brent’s hands wandering everywhere as usual, lingering across those selfsame fulsome hips, kneading her fleshy thighs and doughy backside in preparation for a quick and efficient climax.
After all, it had been a full day, and Morgan would be up with the sun in the morning.
It was 10:32 that night when Karen was awakened by her cell phone buzzing on the nightstand. Her groggy mind was instantly comforted by the unfamiliar number, which always told her that this particular late night phone call wasn’t the bad news about her parents or her sister that she knew one day would have to arrive. She let the call go to voice mail and rolled back over for sleep.
Except that it rang again. Again Karen let it go to voice mail, thinking whoever had the wrong number would figure it out after hearing her mailbox message again.
And then it rang a third time. Fully awake now, Karen could see the buzzing starting to stir her husband, who by all accounts might as well have been a rock when he was sleeping. She picked up the phone fully expecting to inform someone he had a wrong number.
“Just so you know, in the future I expect you to answer my calls promptly. I don’t do voice mail.”
It was, of course, Ms. Sylvia Witherspoon, as charming as ever.
“Look,” she said. “I don’t need to wait to interview anyone else. I’ve decided: you’ll be just fine for the job. HR will fill you in on your salary and benefits in the morning. Make sure you show up early to finish all the paperwork. We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.
Welcome to Maximize Magazine.”
