Termination Man: a novel (28 page)

Beyond these examples are the many, many grey areas of employment law. It depends on how much trouble one party wants to make; and how far each side is willing to fight the battle. TP Automotive had figured that Alan would put up a fight. I agreed with them; and we hadn’t missed that fact that Alan—as an employee over forty—could play the age discrimination card. Therefore, we needed to place him in an untenable position, where he would see a quiet departure from the company as his only viable option.

We thought we had him in such a position when we caught him red-handed in that storage room with Claire. But he didn’t buy it. At least not completely.

“She invited me to go back to the storage room,” Alan said. This had been his strategy throughout the meeting thus far. He was building a defense based on entrapment—which was exactly what the aborted tryst had been. But we were prepared for this line of argument.

“So you say.” Bernie looked at the notes scribbled on his legal pad. “But the preceding facts, and the situation we all saw back there, make that claim pretty unlikely. Did you not recently call Claire Michaels to ask her out—and didn’t she tell you no?”

This seemed to fluster Alan. “Yes—but—”

“And now you’re asking us to believe that this same woman asked you—in the middle of a workday—to follow her back to a location in our factory for a sexual encounter. Is that your version of the story, Alan?”

“Yes,” Alan said. But there was no conviction in his voice. On some level Alan knew that this had actually happened; but he was in a room full of authority figures who asserted otherwise. Whatever he said, Beth, Bernie, and Kurt would find a way to contradict or twist his words against him. Alan would be overwhelmed not only by their official status, but by their superior number as well.

This is a strategy that was understood and routinely utilized by agents of the Spanish Inquisition and the Soviet KGB. They understood that the perceived might of official authority is exponentially increased when the accused faces a group—even a relatively small group. Modern police forces employ this concept as well. Walk into any police interrogation room, anywhere in the world, and you’ll likely find that the interrogators outnumber the interrogated. Attacking the target from all sides, they eventually wear him down—to arrive at the truth, or (depending on the interrogators) the false answer that serves their ends.

This is a combination that corporate managers also regularly use to their benefit with considerable effect—even in this age of employee empowerment and rampant (but superficial) individualism. When outnumbered and out-titled, I have seen even the most defiant of targets begin to doubt their own interpretations of events and situations.

But Craig Parker was not an authority figure, at least as far as Alan Ferguson knew—although I believe that he was beginning to doubt even that. When Alan gave me a questioning glare, Beth informed him that my presence was meant to assure some objectivity.

“We’ve asked Craig to attend this meeting as a witness,” she said. “And also as a representative at the staff level. We don’t want to create the impression that you’re being railroaded, despite what you did.”

“How was it that Craig happened to be there when you opened that door?” Alan asked. “And how was it that
you
happened to be there?
All
of you.”

These were questions that Alan had already asked; and they were questions for which he would receive no satisfactory answer.

“We’ve already been through this,” Bernie replied. “You were in an area of the facility that any company employee has legitimate access to. No one here owes you an explanation in that regard.”

“Well, I know at least one person who does.” Alan said. “I want to see Claire Michaels. If her name really
is
Claire Michaels.”

I caught the full significance of his last words, and so did everyone else in the room. Alan obviously understood that this wasn’t a textbook sexual harassment case. But he probably hadn’t put all of the pieces together yet. How could he have?

“Claire Michaels is the coworker whom you viciously assaulted in that storage room,” Bernie said. “And no, she is not going to be present in this meeting.”

“Oh, yeah?” Alan asked. “What about the good old American sense of justice? Don’t I have the right to face my accuser?”

“Don’t try to school me in the law,” Bernie said. “This is not a public trial.”

“Claire is far too upset to be here,” Beth said. “I don’t have to tell you this, but I’ll inform you that we’ve told Claire that she can take the rest of the day off.”

“That’s pretty damned convenient, isn’t it? The person who entraps me—who lures me on false pretenses and then entraps me—is not even on the premises. And you doubtlessly plan to shuffle me out of here within the next hour, so I will never have the opportunity to expose that woman for what she is: a liar, and a probable TP Automotive plant.”

Bernie gave Alan a dismissive wave. “You’re delusional.” 

Alan Ferguson stared hard at me, then gave me the slightest hint of a smile.

“And you,” he said. “You’re not exactly the person you claim to be, are you?”

I played it straight. “You know exactly who I am, Alan. I’m your coworker, and I the only reason I am here is because I would lose my job if I refused.”

“But what, exactly,
is
your job?” Alan asked, obviously unconvinced. “Funny how you happened to be in the area at the same time as Bernie, Beth, and Kurt. You expect me to believe that was all a matter of serendipity?”

“You can believe whatever you’d like, Alan. But I’m sorry that you feel that way.”

“You, Alan,” Beth said, retaking control of the meeting. “You have bigger problems right now than your paranoid suspicions about your coworkers.”

“I’m not really sure who my coworkers are.” He looked at me again. “Or what they are.”

Beth ignored this remark. It was time to wrap things up. Before long Alan’s shock would give way to the raw anger that would inevitably follow. Then he would be far less controllable. 

“If you’re lucky,” she said. “We can convince Claire not to file charges. But you should take this incident seriously, Alan. I strongly recommend that you seek counseling.”

Alan laughed in Beth’s face. “Funny how you have all of this worked out, isn’t it?” He looked around the room, at each one of us. “Do you people really think I’m that stupid? Do you think I’m
not
going to go to the EEOC—and anyone else I can think of?”

We had anticipated in advance that Alan would threaten EEOC action. That would be the logical thing for him to do, or at least threaten to do. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is a branch of the U.S. government. While Alan was neither female nor a member of any ethnic minority, he
was
, as I’ve mentioned, over the age of forty. He could conceivably appeal to the EEOC on the grounds that he was wrongly terminated; and he could cite his age as one of the company’s likely motives for ousting him.

“Alan,” Beth said, her tone almost gentle. “Take a look at yourself, and take a look at Claire. Who do you think that the EEOC is going to believe?”

“You people have accounted for every eventuality, haven’t you? You’ve set this up to be airtight.”

“Listen, Alan: We’re prepared to give you two months of severance pay.”

“Two months?” Alan asked, incredulously. “Do you think that I can find another job like this one in two months?
In this economy?
I’ve got two kids to put through college, you know. And I’m still paying on the mortgage of the house where my ex-wife and children live.”

“You might have thought more about your children,” Kurt interjected. “Before you tracked Claire Michaels back to that storage room and assaulted her.”

“I didn’t ‘track’ her!” Alan shouted. “She invited me. Ask Craig here: he was there.”

Alan gave me an imploring look. His expression didn’t contain much hope. But he was asking me one last time to come clean, to resist this injustice.

Was it
really
injustice?
On some level it probably was. But hadn’t Alan followed Claire of his own freewill? He could have chosen a different path. He could have told her no.

But how could any single, unattached man—a man as lonely and pathetic as Alan Ferguson—possibly tell Claire Turner “no”?

I pushed this thought away.

“I wasn’t watching the two of you,” I said. “My attention was focused on my computer screen. And anyway, I was sitting out of earshot.”

“You son-of-a-bitch!” Alan pounded his fist on the table. He made as if to lunge for me. Bernie and Kurt half arose from their seats. They could have easily restrained him. There was nothing about Alan Ferguson that was physically intimidating.

“Please, Alan,” Beth said. “Don’t make this any worse on yourself than it already is. Like I said: We’re prepared to release you with two months pay. But we have some preconditions.”

Beth slid a prepared contract across the table to Alan. “This is our standard release form,” she told him. I knew otherwise: It was a contract that Bernie had written for the specific purpose of muzzling Alan Ferguson, and legally hamstringing him lest he attempt to seek redress against TP Automotive.

The contract stated that the undersigned was voluntarily leaving the employment of United Press & Stamping, a subsidiary of TP Automotive. The document further stated that he would have no further contact with any present or past employees of either company.

Finally, the contract stipulated that Alan’s severance pay would constitute a final settlement of all claims and responsibilities on the part of TP Automotive.

“Allow me to counsel you for a moment,” Bernie said. “Think about your family. Your children are daughters, aren’t they? If you turn this into a public mudslinging contest, it will be revealed that you went back to that room with the intention of engaging in illicit sex during working hours—and all of us agree on that, don’t we? What is that going to say to your daughters, Alan?”

“Damned right,” Kurt said. “A man with a family should exercise better judgment.”

Alan couldn’t argue with this sentiment, at least: He should have exercised better judgment. In that instant everyone in the room knew that Alan had been defeated. Beth Fisk and Bernie Chapman had done their homework. They had calculated that Alan would be sensitive about his relationship with his daughters. He wouldn’t want to risk a public legal battle that would expose one undeniable truth: He had indeed followed Claire to that storage room with the intention of engaging in sexual activity with her.

And this was the only fact that would matter to Alan’s daughters.

“This is fucking blackmail,” Alan said.

“Alan,” Beth said, lacing her fingers together on the tabletop. “If you would only pause to consider this matter rationally, I think you would find that we’re really being very generous with you. We could throw you out on the street without any severance pay. That’s common in cases of gross misconduct.”

“Gross misconduct?” Alan shouted.

“What else would you call it?” Beth asked.

“Alan,” Bernie said. “You really don’t have much of a case here.”

Even when a man knows that he is trapped, he doesn’t necessarily submit quietly. Alan was merely venting now. This too, had been expected. Alan knew that some sort of conspiracy had been contrived against him, although he would never be able to prove it to an outside third party—just as he would never be able to justify his heat-of-the-moment decision to follow Claire into the storage room.

And so we let Alan vent for a while. This was a part of the process, too. He had to make a show of indignation. He had to call down every manner of condemnation on Beth, Kurt, and Bernie. And also on me—this witness against him, who seemed to be playing a role that Alan could not quite define.

The three officers of TP Automotive remained impassive while Alan hurled his threats of legal retribution, and his denunciations of treachery and unfair play. Every few minutes, either Beth or Bernie would stop him, and gently guide him back to the contract. It was all about the contract at this point. All about convincing him to sign the document that would assure TP Automotive’s legal loophole.

Alan wasn’t going to do this quietly, and not without unbottling the rage that had been building up inside him for weeks. In the course of my undercover operations, I had seen many corporate employees deliver similar performances.

But in the end, Alan—like almost all of them—signed.

The matter of Alan Ferguson’s separation from TP Automotive was not complete—not quite yet. Alan had already left the building; but someone needed to explain his sudden departure to Lucy Browning.

This task fell to Beth Fisk.

“What do you mean—Alan is no longer with the company?” Lucy practically shouted inside the closed meeting room. “Alan didn't say anything to me about resigning. And I know that he would have told me.”

“Alan resigned rather suddenly,” Beth explained.

“You mean you fired him.”

“I mean that Alan resigned.”