Free Hard Feelings by Jason Starr

that this was only temporary—once the tide turned and I had some clout I’d either demand a new office or get a job at another company. Until then, I’d have to pretend this was all a bad dream.
    I didn’t have very much stuff to move. I put some files and books into a couple of boxes, but most of my information was on disk. I cleared out my desk and gathered some small objects—a coffee mug, a stapler, a paperweight. I wanted to get back to work right away, but I had to wait for the IT guys to hook up my computer and my phone line. In the meantime, I logged on to my laptop and sat in a corner doing some work, preparing for my eleven o’clock.
    Finally, my new workstation was ready. I organized myself and got to work as quickly as possible. I was so embroiled in what I was doing I almost forgot that I was sitting in a cubicle, until Joe from Marketing came over to me and said, “This really sucks, man.” Joe was a nice guy and I knew he meant well, but I still felt patronized. To everyone in the office I was a big joke now. They were probably whispering about me in the bathroom and by the water cooler: “Did you hear what happened to Richard Segal? He got kicked out of his office today.” Jackie, a young secretary, passed by and said “Hi, Richard.” When I had an office, she used to say “Hello, Richard.” But now that I was a fellow cubicle worker she obviously felt comfortable and informal enough around me to say “Hi.”
    I left for my eleven o’clock meeting, glad to have the opportunity to get away from the office for a while. It turned out to be the best meeting I’d had in a long time. An insurance company on Church Street needed four Windows NT consultants with programming experience for an ongoing project and I really hit it off with Don Chaney, the MIS manager. He was a young guy, about thirty, and at the end of the meeting he said he was willing to give our company a tryout. They were having an emergency with their web server and he wanted to use one of our consultants to resolve it. Assuming the job went well, he would sign us up for the major project.
    From Chaney’s office, I called Jill in Recruiting at my company to see if we had a web consultant available for this afternoon. Jill said that Mark Singer, one of our top technicians, could be downtown by two o’clock. Chaney was thrilled. We shook hands and I told him I’d call him later in the day to see how the project was going.
    Riding the subway uptown, I felt better about my job than I had in a long time. I had a big foot in the door with what could turn into a major contract. This could be the momentum swinger I’d been waiting for. Before I knew it, I’d be closing sales left and right and then I could go into Bob Goldstein’s office and command some respect.
    I didn’t want to risk being caught for taking another long lunch, so when I got off the subway I picked up a corned beef on rye from a deli and took it to go.
    Back at the office, I passed Steve Ferguson in the hallway. I was planning to say hello and perhaps apologize for the way I’d behaved yesterday, but he passed by me without looking at me or saying anything. I laughed to myself and shook my head. If he wanted to act like a child, that was up to him, and if he never spoke to me again it wouldn’t exactly be a great loss.
    I ate lunch in my cubicle while I prepared the quote for the four consultants. My old confidence was back. I was the best goddamn computer-networking salesman in New York. Soon I’d have a corner office and my own secretary and my whole life would be different.
    My phone rang. It was Jill from Recruiting and she said she needed to talk to me right away. I figured it had to do with the billing for Don Chaney’s web-server job. She probably wanted to know if I wanted to bill on a fixed rate or on an hourly basis. I finished the last bite of my sandwich, then I went down the hallway to Jill’s office.
    Jill was several years older than me, with an