A Life More Complete(7)
Ellie bustles into the office, all flowing red hair and file folders. For once, I’m happy she has arrived. Her suit is too tight around her middle and she’s flustered like always. She’s a micro-manager who loves dissecting news articles depicting public relations disasters and she loves, loves, loves to be in control. She is, for some reason inexplicably terrifying. I remind myself again for the thousandth time not to think badly of Ellie. Not only is she my boss, but she also took a chance on a twenty-two year old with no experience or connection to her company. She hired me and I like to believe it was because of my great interview, but I think it had more to do with my mention of being from Illinois. Ellie is from Indiana and her eyes lit up when I told her. I think she was looking for a protégé to mold into a mini control freak like her. I never conformed and as much as she liked to come down on me, she knew our little team was her ticket to catapult her company beyond her vision. She started the company at eighteen and has kept it running for thirty plus years, but had never seen the success that Melinda, Bob and I brought. We landed a gold mine six years ago and didn’t even know it.
Ellie begins the meeting with a schedule of events that need promoting and continues on to the nightmare of dividing and conquering the new client list. This seems to go on for hours and I zone out. Dropping my phone twice with a loud clatter on the table warrants nasty looks from Ellie and a slight laugh from Bob. I mouth “sorry” to Ellie but she seems unfazed by my ill-fated attempts to feign interest. It doesn’t concern me. There will be no new clients assigned to Melinda, Bob or me. After six years our little group should have been disbanded, we should be independent of each other taking on our own clients, traveling alone, being lonely. Yet our clients became so accustomed to having at least two of us present at press junkets or grand openings or interviews that we remained intact. We branched away somewhat, each of us having someone that worked only with one of us, but we always bounced ideas off each other and treated the clients as a whole rather than belonging to one person. Ellie dismisses the meeting and I realize an hour has passed and I have no idea what went on. Whoops!
“Melinda, Kristin and Bob I need you to remain behind. We have some business to attend to and I want your full attention.” All three of us stare at Ellie. She’s tapping her pointed toed pump on the ground as the rest of the group shuffles out the door. The annoyance is evident as she sighs heavily.
“Okay, here’s the deal. I received an email this morning from Debi Miller, Kathy’s assistant, of Green Pea Baby. I guess there was some backlash from her customers regarding changes to her products that she failed to mention. Some chemical additions in efforts to save money on production. Customers have had awful reactions to the changes and are now emailing and forwarding pictures to her of their broken and burned skin. And in Debi’s words, Kathy “lost her shit” and shot off a mass email to every customer on their email list. She claims that it could ruin the company. Not only did she send the email, but also she turned into a screaming lunatic outside her Calabasas store.” Ellie pulls her hand through her hair and shakes her head. She thrives on this shit even though she wants everyone to think she can’t handle a minute more.
Green Pea Baby was one of our first clients. We worked for hours on end with Kathy to promote her product. She had created baby shampoos and washes in BPA free plastic containers using only natural ingredients. We pushed the product into the hands of every retailer who would take it. She opened her store in Calabasas with a lavish party and seemed fit to enjoy her early retirement. But recently cracks began to show in the façade and to say I’m surprised she “lost her shit” would be a lie. She wanted to create a product she could be proud of and it never really mattered if it went very far. This was our first lesson in knowing your clients. We assumed everyone wanted wealth and success. She was a prime example of how wrong we were.
“Bob,” Ellie addresses him harshly causing all three of us to whip our heads around to stare at her. “Work with IT and figure out if there is anything we can do about the mass email. Liaison with Green Pea’s IT department if needed. Melinda, type up a statement regarding the changes in the product after you meet with Debi Miller. She’ll be able to fill you in on the changes that have been made. This will be hitting the news soon, so make sure the statement is ready when the calls come in. Kristin, I need you to meet with Kathy and find out how serious the damage is. Meet her in the Calabasas store. And Melinda, email the statement to Kristin, because she’ll need to do some damage control. All statements need to match in order for this to be seamless. We need this to blow over, Kathy needs this to blow over.” That’s Ellie for you. She doesn’t even come up for air. She thrives on this kind of shit and her day has been made.