part 5

    27

I had been working my first week in Frisbee when I had the scheduled college tour appointment.

I was unfamiliar with the route, so I took the first bus I found that would travel there. By car, (if I ever learned to drive) it would have taken me about 20 minutes to get there. The bus I ended up taking, took 1 hour and 35 minutes to get to the destination. I would have definitely missed this ‘campus’ if the driver hadn’t told me that we were there, like I asked him to.

I got out and went to a large office building where I found a sign with a list of what company was on what floor. The college was on the 4th and 5th floor. I took a deep breath as I situated myself in the elevator and pushed the button. I arrived on the 4th floor and proceeded to where the receptionist was. I introduced myself. She was pleasant and entered me into the system, and then pointed at the TV they had in the waiting area and explained that when I saw my name out of the several names reach the top of the list, it would be my turn to speak to the college representative. I sat down and grabbed one of the pamphlets that were there. It showed the featured programs, and the one I was interested in was to become a teacher. There was no flight attendant course as I would have liked considering it would have been my first choice. The wait would be 15 minutes so I made myself comfortable. Finally my name on the television came up first, so I waited for the person who would do the tour with me to come and get me. 5 minutes passed and my name took the second place on the TV so I went and asked the receptionist what the problem was.

"Oh, I’m so sorry about that. Your representative must be busy with a future student. It’s a bit of paperwork that needs to be done when you sign up for a program."

I waited 10 minutes, then another 15, growing more and more impatient. And then he arrived. He was in very good spirits and extended an apology for his tardiness then explained that he was busy with individuals who were so eager to sign up, he couldn’t rudely stand in the way of their dream to pursue this wonderful education, and hoped that I would understand.

I nodded at him. He seemed extremely enthusiastic. This must be a great school as he was just bursting with excitement to show me around the 2 story campus.

We walked past a class with students typing away on the computers, and one where students were practicing performing CPR skills on funny looking dummies.

"They’re studying to be nurses," he pointed out the obvious. We carried on quickly and passed a few more rooms where students were listening to their instructors. The last place he took me to was the foyer. He quickly pointed at a board with several photographs attached to it.

"This is our wall of graduate students who graduated from this campus in the past 3 years, since we’ve moved to this location, and are now working in the career of their choice that they trained for here."

I studied the wall quickly, as he had no desire to loiter in this area, and motioned for me to follow him to his office. But all of a sudden I had a strange unsettling feeling. The wall with photographs was of students who had graduated from this school and moved on to a career of their choice in the past 3 years. But from what I could estimate, there were only 25, possibly 30 photographs. Maybe wall space was the issue here. I followed him to his office and took a seat.

"This is a very important day for you! You are about to sign up for something that will change your life!" In a good way I hope. He proceeded to take out sheets of paperwork.

"Well, how much will the classes cost me?"

He looked a little uncomfortable.

"Well it’s really just a number that you can pay off very quickly doing what you love."

"So how much am I looking at here."

In response, he ripped a corner of a white piece of paper, wrote something, folded it and pushed it to me. Is this necessary? Does it have to be this confidential? I was starting to feel annoyed. I opened up the scrap of paper and found a number higher then $12,000.

"Wow! That’s really a lot!"

"It looks like it now, but that’s how much it would cost you if you went to a traditional college. Except here you don’t have to take ‘filler’ classes you don’t need, and not waste your time. You just focus on the classes you need to get the career you want."

Less filler classes? They are exempt here, so I focus on just one course. Technically I’ll be getting less education but paying the same amount that I would be in other colleges that offer ‘filler’ classes.

"Well, yes, but I really don’t have that kind of money."

"Oh don’t worry. Most of our students don’t. We’ll help you with the application for the student loan. No problem. We’ll help you apply and we’ll process the application for you. You won’t have to worry about anything. We’ll do it all."

Will you wipe my a*s for me as well?

"It’s just a big decision. I’m already over 39 thousand dollars in dept."

"Oh, that’s no problem. You’ll pay it off before you know it, working at your dream job and have money left over!" he smiled. "So with that money left over, where do you plan to take me on vacation?" He chuckled and I smiled back to be polite. I had a feeling he would be receiving a hefty commission for signing me up. From money that was originally mine to begin with, so technically he should be the one taking me on vacation. D****e. But I stayed quite and smiled, then proceeded with, "This is a very big decision that I will not be making today. I have to sleep on it."

I could see that he was trying to hide his disappointment.

"Well... the thing is you’ll have to make a decision soon, because classes start next week."

Of course. Why not tomorrow?

It was becoming more and more apparent that there was a sense of desperation, so he was now presenting ‘time’ as being an important factor.

"Thank you so much for your time. I will sleep on it and call you tomorrow," I said politely.

"Oh... where are you going now?"

"Well, home."

"Well I’m leaving now too. You’re my last client. Hey, listen. I’ll give you a ride."

I was not expecting this so I said the first thing that came to my mind.

"Okay thanks. That’s nice of you."

We started proceeding to the elevators, and I was becoming more and more uncomfortable. He pressed the elevator button and we waited. The elevator arrived and the doors opened. I felt I needed to get away from him so I said,

"Oh, I really have to go to the washroom. Thank you so much for your offer. Maybe another time." I rushed off and when I looked behind me, he was not there. I was relieved that I had successfully amputated myself from his side.

I arrived at home and directly went to the computer where I used an internet search engine to search for reviews about this school. Something I should have done initially. I would have been happy with as much as just one other person’s opinion on the college before I sunk into further dept. In the end I came across many websites with peoples opinions, who had actually attended the college, and I became captivated by the reviews. In the several dozen that I read that night, I was unable to find a single one that said anything positive about the school. Many would complain that the ‘professors’ simply didn’t show up to teach the students. Some ‘professors’ were obviously not familiar with the material they were teaching. After graduation, the college did not provide help in finding work like they had strongly implied in their commercials by stating, "We will help you find work." The college just went as far as providing a list of websites, where employers posted job offers. Kind of like a list I got at the YMCA free of charge. The rest was up to the student, and only the student. The stories ranged from:

"It was a very disappointing waste of time and money," to "I lost my job and started sinking into dept, so I put faith into this school, only to end up in more dept. I had to sell my car and move into a family member’s basement because I could not afford to live in my own home any longer. No employer was impressed that I went to this college."

I remembered the commercial catch phrases and ran them over in my head. The message they were attempting to relay was that the students would not become some sort of faceless numbers in a student body, like someone may feel in a traditional post secondary school. I thought about this. I knew that if I attended this school I would not feel like some random faceless number. I would become several numbers on a paycheck. I knew then that if I had accepted the ride from the representative, he would have probably ended up convincing me to attend this college. And if he had, he would have no problem driving me back to the school to sign all the needed documents for the student loan and class enrolment.

It finally began to make sense to me. If the college was as good as it was claiming to be, then why did they need to bombard viewers with so many commercials claiming nothing short of a marvelous experience, with workers helping students find a job of their own afterwards. If in fact it was such an amazing college, wouldn’t word of mouth get around by now? These commercials had been on TV tirelessly for years. How did they not develop a spectacular reputation yet, if they were in fact so spectacular?

Originally I had been accepted into 3 universities, and one of the main reason why I selected the university of Toronto was simply because it had a wonderful reputation. To this day I still haven’t seen a single university of Toronto commercial. It had a good reputation, and not just anyone offering to pay the tuition was accepted. This college however had commercials convincing people to attend. It was not hard to acquire admission. Then I remembered the wall with the graduates’ photos. How there were only about 30 of them in the past several years. When I had walked past the classes, there must have been a grand total of 30 students in every class that I could estimate. So why was it that only 30 students in the past 3 years graduated successfully and found the work they were looking for? If this college was really what it claimed to be, then how was this possible?

I decided to just say my goodbyes to yet another year of post secondary education, and focus all of my attention on the job I had. Just a word to the wise, if you are pursuing a post secondary education that costs a few thousand dollars, do a little research first, and read some reviews. Do not, in any way trust the commercials above all else, considering the post secondary institution is the one paying for the commercials. With tuition money from their students probably. So you will hear what they want you to hear. If the college is as good as it claims to be, it will have no problem with you doing some research first.

 

 

28

I then threw myself into my work. I called the OSAP office and explained that making the $470 payments every single month would be a challenge. They sent me some documents to fill out, and after reviewing my income, they quickly put a 6 month hold on my repayments. They let me know that after the six months I could extend it, if I was still making a lousy salary. That was a load off my mind. And above all, I actually enjoyed going to work. It was almost an entire hour bus ride just tothere each day, six days a week, but I didn’t mind.

At work we had only a few customers come in every day. Sometimes none at all. It was decided that the best way for me to learn the exercise equipment and know it inside and out would be for me to just workout on it. And so that’s what I did. I got to workout and I got payed for it. Granted, the salary wasn’t extremely good, but it sure as hell was a lot better than what I earned at Goodweather.

For the first month I worked in Frisbee I had never experienced the kind of happiness I felt then. For the first time in my life, I was doing what I actually wanted to do, and not what I was expected to do. I was still bitter about the fact that my mother strongly insisted that I attend university (‘insisted’ is an understatement), so that I ended up with an education that in no way helped me acquire a job, only a huge dept. It is a good idea to attend university if you already have a career in mind that requires a university education. I however didn’t and I would pay for that. I would like to think it helped me get a job at Frisbee simply because Stephan could relate to this, and felt sorry for me. He could relate to the fact that I, like him had a university degree that was getting me nowhere. I was hired because of the sympathy my university experience provided. Technically the degree was good for something. Cost a shitload but provided and unexpected benefit.

So I began to settle into my first job. My first real job. At Frisbee I began to feel very much at peace. Back then I had enjoyed every day. Once in a while Robbie would sell a treadmill or some other piece of equipment and would put it in my name, and I would get the commission. It would be around $30 and I would be very grateful to Robbie thanking him, to which he would reply,

"Well it’ll look good on you if the company does reviews. They’ll see you’re a good employee and keep ya."

"Thank you so much. If you want I can give you the $30 for the commission I made off your sale."

"Oh no, keep it. I sell enough, plus I’m an assistant manager so I get paid more anyways. No worries."

I was making decent money then. At the end of the month we would all get bonuses on our paychecks for meeting our store sales goals. So every month I would get around an extra $400 just because our store was doing well. I was finally enjoying life like I never had before. This was the first time I felt truly happy. I had no idea that in just over a year it would all end and become only a memory.

My boss would hire new employees, then fire them after a few weeks. I wasn’t sure why he hired them in the first place. I was very sure that each person who was hired at our particular location was a much better sales person than me. Coming from a family who lived in poverty, I had a very impossible time convincing any individual that it was very important to cough up a few hundred more dollars to upgrade to a better fitness product, when I knew that the cheaper fitness product would absolutely do the necessary job the client needed it to do.

Stephan would comment on my sucky sales skills, but never came close to threatening to fire me. A bit more pressure was added though.

 

 

29

Every Friday and Saturday I would go out with my friends. We would go to one of the local restaurants and order chicken wings and beer. And I loved life. I lived for those Friday and Saturday nights. Fridays I would get together with some friends for a few hours, we would catch up on things, and I’d head home at around 11pm because I would have to work the next morning. But on Saturday nights I would stay out longer. I’d have a few beers with my friends and then call it a night. We all lived near each other and near the restaurants, so getting home was never a problem. I’d come home quietly and sneak into bed. Now and again my mother would let me know she wasn’t extremely pleased with my behaviour, to which I replied that for the first time in my life, this was actually my life. The last thing I did for her was go through university, that I will probably have to pay for, for the rest of my life and see no benefit from it. And that was done for her and only her. Not for me. And now at the age of 24 I would start living my life, the way I actually wanted to live my life. So until she came up with 39 thousand dollars for the student loan she helped make possible, she should keep her opinions to herself. Plus I was paying rent, and a little bit more on top of that. So she kept her comments to herself from then on. Until now.

Looking back on those days I want to cry, and sometimes do because I can remember how happy I was. How I loved those Friday and Saturday nights, and how in one split second it would all be taken away from me. I never had time to even prepare myself to say goodbye.

I had been working at Frisbee for about a year when I turned 25. I was saving up money every month in hopes that one day I would have enough to just pay off my entire student loan in one shot, and not pay the several thousands of dollars in interest they greedily expected me to pay.

It was a Saturday night and I went out with my friends to a restaurant and another one of my friend’s friend who I never met before asked to join us. His name was Orlando, and I was stunned when I first saw him. The young man was gorgeous. Most of my friends who were there were all boys, except one. Nadia. And she took a liking to Orlando right away, just like me. But unlike me she had no problem letting him know. I was actually amused watching him struggle to drink a pint of beer as she kept kissing his face. He let her. She was getting a little drunk, and we all found this to be an amusing show.

At one point I announced I needed to go to the washroom, and got up. As I was walking, I noticed Orlando was behind me. I walked into the women’s washroom, and he walked in right behind me, grabbed me by my waist and kissed me . We kissed until a waitress came in and broke up our "inappropriate" behavior. I then returned back to the table, and for the rest of the night we didn’t say a word to each other, but every time we looked at one another we would smile. And that night when I fell asleep, I fell asleep with a huge smile on my face, and I woke up with a smile on my face. As a result of this, my face was sore and I felt awesome.

 

 

30

Things at work started to change, and they changed fast. Sales had slowly been decreasing. For a few months, we no longer reached our store’s sales goal, so I no longer received the $400 bonus, but I still felt content. Stephan however, did not. And he had no problem whatsoever letting Robbie and I know about this. It started off with Stephan saying,

"Karina, you have got to get your sales numbers up! And Robbie! Get your thumbs out of your a*s and sell more." It was a little funny at first, and we’d snicker. Robbie actually had higher sales numbers than Stephan, so we let Stephan’s words slide. Customers tended to gravitate to Robbie, because unlike Stephan he had a very non threatening appearance. Stephan had a ‘smart-a*s’ attitude about him, whereas Robbie didn’t. Plus Robbie was not a bright young man, so he might have not understood the extent of the criticism or just chose to ignore it and not fight back. His simple nature was more comforting than annoying. I felt at ease when I was around him, especially when Stephan started to complain about us not making enough profit. Robbie’s presence alone was soothing.

In time things at work became more uncomfortable. Then one day Robbie opened up a program on the computer that all of us looked at on a daily basis. This program would show us how much each one of the staff members had sold, how much commission each employee received, what products we sold, how this was helping the store margin, how much we needed to sell to reach the store margin goal, and how other stores in the company where doing compared to us, etc... And so one day Robbie was on this program. We had two computers set up beside each other, so I was on one and he was on the other.

I remember this was on a Tuesday because Stephan had the day off. We were only allowed to have one day to serve as a weekend. As mentioned before, to be absent two days in a row would be frowned upon. So each employee would only take off one day, in order to not miss a sales opportunity. And Stephan in no way would chose to take his one day break on a weekend, because most customers would come to the store on the weekend. Stephan was hungry for business. Really hungry as I was about to see. So Robbie was clicking away, and stopped. He let out a slow heavy sigh.

"What is it?" I asked turning away from what I was doing.

He was frowning at the computer screen.

"This is the second time he’s done this. Stephan stole my sale. The people who bought that treadmill... those were my customers. I did the invoice. It was in my name! Stephan said, maybe 2 words to them."

"What?! How? A second time?"

He turned to me.

"Yeah... the first time he did this I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to have an awkward conversation with him. Maybe he made a mistake."

"Think about it Robbie. He would have to take the original invoice with your sales code. Input into the computer that the product was returned, so the original invoice becomes void. Then he would claim that he had sold that exact same product that was returned, and as a result get the commission. Basically the first time this happened could not have been a ‘mistake.’"

"Yeah, you’re right. I was hesitational about bringing it up to him."

"Hesitant"

"Yeah"

We stood in silence.

"I guess I really need to bring this up to him."

The next day Stephan came into work, Robbie told him that they needed to discuss something important.

Stephan signed in and followed Robbie to the back of the store. I could not hear their conversation from that distance, but several times I heard Stephan raise his voice. I felt uncomfortable because after all, Stephan was twice as big as Robbie. I bit my nails and waited in anticipation. Stephan was the first to emerge from the back of the store looking as agitated as all hell. If he could have gotten away with it, he probably would have smacked Robbie around. Robbie followed a few steps behind looking sheepish. He looked at me and shook his head. Stephan must have won this one. Luckily for Robbie, his schedule never overlapped Stephan’s except for on the weekends, because usually there was no need for a manager and an assistant manager to be working simultaneously on weekdays when there were so few customers. So Robbie, with a somber look on his face got his things and readied himself to go home. Stephan was on the computer beside the one I was on. I could sense he was fuming. Robbie left and Stephan turned to me and said,

"Robbie is such a retard." And that was all. He didn’t go into details, and I was thankful for that.

 

 

31

One day after work I got a text message on my cell phone from a number I did not recognize. It said, "Hey Kar. This is Orlando. I got your number from one of your friends to txt you so I hope you don’t mind. Just wondering how you’re doing?"

It was a week since I had met him and his message made me smile. I texted him back saying I didn’t mind, and so we continued from there. The next day he asked me if he could take me out. He didn’t need to twist my arm for me to agree . I waited impatiently for our date. When he took me out, we got giddy-silly drinking beer. This was followed by him asking me to be his girlfriend, and I quickly agreed. I figured he was just a little drunk, and that’s why he asked me, and would possibly regret it when he sobered up.

The next morning I didn’t have work and so I went on the computer. I logged on to my ‘Facebook’ account, and to my surprise (very pleasant surprise) there was a ‘relationship request’ that needed conformation from me, sent by him. Now it doesn’t get more serious than ‘Facebook,’ so I quickly clicked the ‘accept’ button and was officially in a relationship. I was happy.

My love life was good and taken care of, but my work life became hellish. The store wasn’t doing too well. The numbers were down, and I suppose head office began to put the pressure on Stephan because he began to crawl up everyone’s a*s about everything. When I first began working at the store, Stephan proudly decided to show me his paycheck for the month. I was very put off not impressed, by the fact that he was earning just over twice as much as my father was, and he would still try to sneak sales away from Robbie. Whereas my father spent money to take care of me, my mother, himself and save up a little to send to our family in Russia. Stephan had only himself and his dog to look after. But when the store’s profit was not high enough for the employees to receive a store bonus, if you didn’t know any better, you would think that Stephan had to support 24 children that he had adopted out of the kindness of his heart, and Robbie and I were just selfish little a******s who were trying to sponge off him. Slowly, but surely my respect for Stephan began to diminish.

The first month of my relationship with Orlando was heaven. He was more than willing to please. Whatever he thought I wanted, he did without question.

 

 

32

I cannot remember what exact day it was. It was sometime in December 2009. I came into work, and it was the beginning of the end. The only people in the store where Stephan and Robbie. Stephan noticed my presence but did not stop his behavior. He was yelling at Robbie.

"Buddy! You just totally let the customer f**k you up the a*s!" He then grabbed Robbie, and proceeded to exhibit a humping motion from behind. Obviously suggesting anal sex. I felt embarrassed. I think Robbie did too, and refused to make any eye contact with me. Even if he tried to, he wouldn’t be able to physically fight back because of his size. Stephan continued,

"Robbie is just whoring himself off to all the customers. Sucking c**k for $5. He’s gotta earn money somehow, since he’s not selling anything or making commission!"

Robbie’s time was up for the day, so he signed out and left. I was left with Stephan, who now focused his anger on me.

"Karina! You have got to get your numbers up! You are costing the company money! It’s gonna get to the point where you’ll have to w***e yourself off like Robbie."

That was only the beginning. Orlando noticed a change in my mood and tried to convince me to tell head office about the verbal abuse at work. I was also beginning to notice him pulling away from me. In the second month of the relationship he turned into the complete opposite of the boy I met. His father had gotten ill. I assumed that his nonchalant attitude towards me was the result of his worrying about his father. In time, things would get better. I was hopeful.

The work environment did not improve. One day I was standing by the computer as always, making price tags, and I could feel Stephan looking at me. I turned and looked at him.

"I’m just starting to notice how huge your nose is." I was in shock and he continued.

"But you look like you’ve been putting on a bit of weight. Hey, at this rate your a*s will catch up to your huge nose." He chuckled, obviously pleased with himself. I did not know how to respond to this. How could he even say this considering he looked to be about 270 lbs? If anyone should be concerned about weight...

"I’m a size 7," I tried to defend myself. He replied,

"In what definition is that considered to be okay?" I stood unable to respond. At that point Robbie was getting ready for his shift and overheard. Thankfully Stephan was done for the day. Before he left he pulled out a large, thick rubber band that had come off a piece of fitness equipment in order to hold it together while it was being shipped. He moved to stand behind me and in seconds I felt a sharp pain. He shot the elastic band at my butt. With some force I might add. Tears began to form in my eyes. Stephan signed out without a word and left the store, thankfully. Robbie noticed this and quickly took me in his arms.

"Don’t listen to him Kar. He’s being a jerk for no reason."

"Saying he’s a jerk is an understatement of the century." I responded trying not to cry, but I did anyway.

33

Jeremy began to send me e-mails. Remember him? He would tell me that he realized he loved me, to which I replied,

"That’s really nice and everything, but I’m dating someone, so I’m busy." We had been broken up for over a year, and during this time, I had very rarely thought about him. This in no way drew him away. He only became more persistent on talking me into giving him a second chance. So basically if I needed a boyfriend, I had one waiting for me. He could be an insensitive jerk, but he was a very good looking insensitive jerk.

At that point I had been dating Orlando for 2 months. Things had begun to go downhill at the beginning of the second month, and by the end they did not improve but had gotten worse. I had enough and one day decided to brake up with him. You know how they say you should break up with a person in person, because doing this over the phone is rude? Well I didn’t even bother to call. I broke up with him over a text message, to which he replied, "I guess I can’t blame you." So that relationship was done.

About a month after my breakup with Orlando, I told Jeremy I was ready to give him a second chance. It took him a year to love me back, but he finally did. I on the other hand began to realize, that even though I still had feelings for him, I did not love him. I simply wasn’t in love with him anymore. That ship had sailed. But hey, I could love him back one day. Maybe. Jeremy would make sure I was constantly convinced that he loved me and would do anything that my heart desired. Anything. Where was this love a year ago when I was in love with him? I wondered, but shrugged it off.

So again, my love life was great, but my life at work was becoming even more unbearable. Tuesdays where the only days I looked forward to working because Stephan was not there. I had began to develop a bruise on my bottom where Stephan had aimed the large elastic band. I presented this concern to Robbie.

"Oh man. Is it bad Kar?"

"Yeah the bruise is getting bigger, and it hurts. Wanna see?"

"Really?"

"No!" this made me laugh. "Ask me later."

Tuesdays where pretty much the only days when I would sell anything, and that was because I did not have Stephan breathing down my neck and pressuring me to sell. Tuesdays where good. If I was ever drawing a blank and didn’t know how to answer a customer’s question, Robbie would jump in, wrap up the sale and physically complete and print out the invoice with my sales code on it. Unlike Stephan, Robbie was very non threatening. The customers, and I were attracted to this. Stephan on the other hand was threatening as his large 6.2 foot frame would however over each customer. He would make sales, yes. Possibly because he made customers feel uncomfortable, so they would agree to buy whatever he was pushing them to buy. Sometime after, when it would only be Robbie and me working, some customers would come back and ask to return whatever Stephan pressured them into buying. Robbie would do the return, knowing full well that there would be hell to pay the next day.

"Robbie! You let them return that?! The store lost money because of you. You gotta stop letting customers f**k you up the a*s. Take it outside of work if you just like to give it away like that!"

"I’m sorry Stephan. There was nothing I could do to convince them to keep it."

"You’re a s****y salesperson Rob! All you do is bend over the front desk and let yourself get fucked. We’re gonna need to have a talk about your work performance."

They went to the back of the store. Again. A while passed, and I sat by the phone bitting whatever was left of my nails. Finally Stephan was finished doing whatever he was doing with Robbie and he was told to leave for the day. Robbie had kept his eyes on the ground. Stephan however walked back to the counter sticking a piece of gum into his mouth, and looking very composed and cocky. He glanced at his e-mail and let me know he was going out to the back to have a cigarette. Robbie came up to me and answered the question my eyes had been asking him.

"I got demoted Kar."

"What? Why?"

"Because I’m doing such a bad job with sales apparently. Stephan is the one taking my sales. I’ve been an assistant manager for 5 years. Last year I was transferred to this store. And so a year later I’m demoted from assistant manager. I’m just a sales person now."

I knew Robbie had been struggling with money before his demotion. He wasn’t a smart cookie, and didn’t tend to do much financial planning, if any. I knew this would take a huge toll on him.

Later Stephan explained,

"Robbie is wasting company money. He really could sell more, he’s just not trying and his sales are not as good as an assistant manager’s should be. He really puts the a*s in assistant manager. He’s just not trying."

Of course not. It has nothing to do with the fact that you steal his sales.

I began to feel even more stress. I tried to find what I could to calm my nerves.

Jeremy was a good shoulder to cry on and would comfort me with his love, and a bottle of wine.

"It can’t be good for you Kar," he would say as I would pour myself another glass.

"It is good. It’s calming me down. At least something is."

Jeremy would take a deep breath.

"You have to tell someone at work about Stephan. He’s a bully. He calls you and Robbie names, steals sales and then blames the both of you for not living up to your potential. You need to do something about it. If you don’t stop him now, imagine what he can be like."

I knew I had to do something. This was a situation for me that I had never been in before. This was my first real job. Watching as Stephan figuratively sodomized Robbie every day was heartbreaking. I knew I had to do something.