This choice: Male boss - female secretary • Go Back... Lawrence Deluse rubbed his eyes, took off his reading glasses and set them on top of the folded newspaper next to his computer. He squinted at the clock in his office, staring blankly as the hour hand flirted closer and closer to seven o'clock.
He hadn't even had time to read today's Wall Street Journal. And now it was well beyond close of business.
The graying executive of Morpheus Industries leaned back in his chair and replayed the day's events over in his mind like a record tape.
Twelve hours ago, a snap meeting in the conference room on the fifth floor was called -- another large shareholder threatened to divest himself of the startup's funding. More setbacks in the "Retail Implementation" phase of the project. Earnings posted a negative 34 cents a share last quarter after Test Subject One reported unexpected aftereffects from the mind transfer machine. The experiment was supposed to be top secret, but somehow the reporters at the Middleburg Ledger identified, tracked down and cornered several employees briefed on the matter. It was Lawrence Deluse's job to know what those aftereffects were, and to dispatch a crisis management team to pacify the test subject while resolving whatever ghost in the machine caused the foul-up. At this point, preventing an ugly public lawsuit was the best-case scenario, he reported to the President of the corporation. That answer went about as well as could be expected.
The remainder of the morning was spent with the technicians on the basement level. The space used to be a subterranean parking lot until the upper floors were fully staffed with operational employees -- accountants, financial analysts, HR, marketers, and so-called 'client relationship specialists'. Dozens of new employees were on-boarded in anticipation of a successful roll out of Morpheus' darling prototype, which had yet to be christened a name. Focus grouping a name would have to be put on hold, or else people might cheekily call it the "brain scrambler" after the infamous Ledger article published on Monday of that week. The technicians, comprised of various ethnic minorities from India, China, Japan, and other places Lawrence Deluse would struggle pointing out on a map, poured over the schematics to try and diagnose the problem of Test Subject One. Lawrence Deluse was not a tech-head like them, but he did combine a business and engineering degree at MIT so he came from the same intellectual pedigree. That was why he was tapped to be the firm's Chief Technical Officer eight months ago.
The afternoon involved putting out several fires in the procurement division. Supply chain troubles flaring up again. For the third time in as many days, a Chinese shipping company failed to obtain import papers to allow Morpheus' shipment of rare earth minerals entrance into the country. The essential supplies were impounded in a port in Shanghai. Millions of dollars of cobalt, molybdenum, titanium, and zinc required to build more mind transfer machines were inaccessible. If the only prototype machine Morpheus constructed were to malfunction, then it could be days -- weeks -- before spare parts and supplies would arrive in sufficient quantity for repairs. Lawrence Deluse spent another few hours listening to the gripes coming out of Finance, wondering why this had to be another one of his problems.
If this wasn't enough, he had to endure another tirade from his wife when he explained the need to work late into the evening yet again. Helene Deluse, his wife of twenty-three years, was as helping as a woman could be. She helped herself to his hefty income, wealth, and leisure to travel and visit the local wineries as her husband worked. She herself came from a similarly privileged Yale family, with Yale friends and Yale money. That meant Helene Deluse also had a Yale appetite. She would complain about never being able to bring her husband along to weekend socials because of his proclivity for work. Through all of this, and especially through the last eight months, he never doubted her faith as a wife. But he noticed her figure becoming slimmer, fitter, her hair more vibrant and thick. Was she going to the gym and the salon for him? He didn't want to think of alternative reasons.
They never had any children. There were few pictures of family in Lawrence Deluse's corner office.
He looked out his eighth floor window at the other skyscrapers hugging the busy downtown streets. Most of the office windows were dark. Of the ones still lit, he wondered what the other harried, white-collar workers were fretting about this late into the evening. The fact that this was a Friday night hardly registered to him. Since the end of last quarter, Lawrence Deluse hadn't had any weekends off from work.
Yawning, he decided to finally unfold today's Wall Street Journal. Skipping over the Finance section entirely, he flipped to a section he almost never bothered with. Culture and Entertainment. On the front page, he mused over an interesting topic.
Power Structures in the Workplace:
Secretaries and Their Bosses
By Yehuda Klein, culture columnist
Jennifer Clark never imagined her career at Simpath Technologies (NASDAQ: SIMP) would take her so far. Or, that it would end amid allegations of systemic sexual harassment by senior executives at the mid-market semiconductor manufacturer. Now, the former secretary has written a book on her experiences as a warning to other young women facing a patriarchal power structure at work.
"I always thought the business world was male oriented," She said in a telephone interview. "I just never believed it was so pervasive."
Ms. Clark, 27, a graduate of Communications at Middleburg State University, touted her volunteer experience, proficiency in Spanish, and officer position on the Delta Epsilon Epsilon sorority as keys to landing a job as Secretary to former CEO Harry Torres. Mr. Torres, 62, resigned from his position at Simpath last week amid a flurry of accusations of sexual harassment. Ms. Clark has alleged that Mr. Torres pressured her into performing sexual acts for him to keep her job. While he has admitted no wrongdoing, Simpath has severed all ties to the former executive. Mr. Torres is now the third executive officer ousted from the corporation in the last three months for claims of sexual harassment, and the change in management has left shareholders reeling.
"I have to remember that men, including those in positions of power, are used to getting their way. Society gave a lot of privileges to men who used to get away with certain relationships with their subordinates. Not anymore. I hope women everywhere stand up, lean in, and demand to be treated fairly and without discrimination in the workplace."
In her book, Ms. Clark writes about growing up in a small town, living with two brothers, and being pressured into making life choices that, she says now, she would change if given the chance. She claims that her job as a secretary has been stereotyped only for women, which causes her to check her own privilege.
"Every story that you've ever read, you assume the secretary is a woman. Why do we allow this to happen?" She asks.
Ms. Clark is still seeking a publisher, but her book is expected to be a best seller as it details the imbroglio surrounding Mr. Torres and Simpath. According to a recent study by the Frank Herbert Institute, 89 percent of employees in a secretarial position are female. That compares to 92 percent five years ago, and 94 percent ten years ago.
A spokesperson for Simpath refused to comment on this article.
Lawrence Deluse folded up the newspaper and frowned. He didn't know Torres personally; they attended the same conference in San Francisco a few months back. But he never took him for sexual misconduct. He thought about the various C-suite titles he's held over the years, and the secretaries who have worked for him, not recalling any instance of impropriety that might make the front page of the newspaper. Then again, times have certainly changed, the innumerable corporate-sponsored diversity classes attesting to that fact. No, he wouldn't be foolish enough to let some floozie secretary tempt him.
But it was concerning: mere allegations were enough to oust the visionary Torres. For the longest time, you couldn't say Simpath without thinking of the guy behind the company, very much like a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Which was why the allegations struck the whole tech industry like an earthquake. Lawrence had no doubt in the veracity of at least some of those allegations. But what might someone less charitable or with an axe to grind say about him?
This is why Lawrence Deluse resolved to ask his own secretary of her opinion of him. Of course, he knew her answer may not be the most truthful, given the inherent "power structure" alluded to in the article. But he needed some kind of validation. After a rocky marriage, uncertain business outlook, and major setbacks in the company's performance, he needed to hear the words: You're still a good man.
He resolved to ask her first thing Monday morning. What was her response?
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