First John, now Kay. It’s been pretty depressing all ’round, and the old man isn’t taking it well. Not just because ‘golden boy’ Kay is leaving, no, but because his other ‘golden boy’ up north is leaving as well. From any angle, it looks as if the old man’s trusted lieutenants are leaving.
Which just leaves Martin and I. We smirk, cynically bitter. We knew it would come down to this because, really, no one knows the meaning of loyalty these days. I’m not saying that I know what loyalty is, but I’m not the one that’s leaving for short-term masturbatory material such as an extra bit of cash but no prospects.
But Martin and I are afflicted by the petty delusion of thinking we are, ultimately, faring better because we do our work better. Neither of us want to sink to the level where money becomes the most important factor. At the same time, we both know it is somewhat naive to think money does not matter.
When Kay first announced he was leaving, I felt a momentary pang of regret; I began working in this company with him. We both started the same day, and we both just acknowledged our time with the company recently. I remember how it was like back then; two weeks into the job, we were in the staircase smoking.
He was dressed in a shimmering something, stiff hair and head down and leaking smoke from his nostrils. He declared that he couldn’t take the job, and that it was too pressurizing. I never had the luxury of thinking that, I just had to do the job. In the weeks and months that followed, it soon became evident that, because there was too much pressure for Kay, he’d get privileged guidance from the old man.
None of us begrudged him that, because none of us actually gave it much thought. I was revelling in the newness of it all, and didn’t care. It was only after Kay’s tendency to lord his explicit connections with the old man over us that we began to take notice; working in an all guy environment seems to be that way: everyone’s everybody’s soccer buddy till one person stands out without, you know, actually standing out.
The detailed list of transgressions aside, we pretty much left each other alone; I didn’t want to have anything to do with Kay’s obsession with himself. He felt he could handle the big jobs, the really complicated multi-million dollar ones that Martin and I had been doing since I first joined. And Kay was given the opportunity. Martin and I were relieved. We had been working on a large account, and it took almost 4 weeks of slumming with the dirt and grime from sun up to sundown.
A month into the job, Kay and his-then oyabun managed to fuck things up so bad a director came to JB with fire and brimstone in his right hand, and the threat of sacking in his left. Inexplicably, Martin and I found ourselves involved in the job. But it soon devolved into a situation where it was just Kay and I, reporting to the old man.
I remember all of this clearly, and bitterly. The next 2 weeks were spent trying to salvage the situation; the local clients were gangland types, and our clients in KL were washing their hands off the case, instead referring the case to Hong Kong and then to New York. So Kay doesn’t know what to do. I knew what had to be done. So I just did it. And that was one week of sleepless nights trying to come up with a report that would withstand scrutiny.
When the green light came down from New York, I felt a huge sense of relief, and my heart literally swelled with pride; I was just two years into the job, and I had convinced our American clients. It all came crashing down when the old man publicly acknowledged Kay’s ‘contribution’ to the case. I was mentioned in passing. Martin, at the time, read the look in my eyes during that meeting. I didn’t storm out or protest, there was no such drama. But I was cut to the quick when Kay didn’t correct the old man.
I have never forgotten.
So Kay made the announcement. I didn’t know what to say. Maybe there was a residual attachment I felt since we’ve been in the company together now for a long time; maybe it’s just a natural disappointment between colleagues who are very tightly knit in one way or another. Maybe it was a lot of things. All I could do was feel an odd sense of bitterness.