an excerpt from  

Tales of the Sofa

Ed Easton was still chairman emeritus when Jeffrey Elkins was named CEO of The Easton Company. On that day, Jeffrey received a hand-delivered linen envelope with “Jeffrey” penned in green ink across the front. Inside the envelope he found a formal note card with the phrase “a line from Ed” embossed in the lower right hand corner. The message within was written in Ed Easton’s distinctive green felt-tip scrawl:

    Although curious about the “something special,” when nothing arrived that week Jeffrey decided whatever Ed had contemplated sending had slipped the old man’s mind.
    Fifteen weeks later, Jeffrey’s secretary received an overseas phone call. It was from a furniture company in Milan advising that a special order for Jeffery Elkins was ready to ship. The shipment was scheduled to arrive in the States in approximately ten days via white glove delivery. At first Jeffery was certain the message must be a mistake. He had Gloria, his secretary, call back to confirm. It was then Gloria learned Ed Easton had placed the order. How nice, Jeffrey thought. No doubt some odd little lamp or unique writing desk. That would be the kind of thing Ed would choose to send.
    Immediately after Jeffrey became CEO, his wife’s New York interior designer redecorated his new office. It contained a wonderful collection of eclectic but tasteful eighteenth-century post-colonial and western expansion American furnishings appropriate for an executive suite. Jeffrey chose to display a few favorite pieces of original art from The Easton Company’s art and artifacts collection. In particular, two original Leroy Neimans added a touch of excitement and color to the otherwise staid décor.
    Jeffrey was out of town when Ed’s gift arrived. Gloria was appalled when the deliverymen carted the huge crate into Jeffery’s office. She cautioned the unpackers to use care not to disturb or mar the other fine antique pieces already placed in the room. Once the packing materials were taken away and the men departed, what remained was a small, custom-made Italian leather sofa.
    The piece was from the Galaxy line of a top name Italian furniture designer-a throwback to 1960s modern styling. The supple leather was of the highest quality in a pale shade of butter yellow. The sofa sat where the movers had placed it-angled off to the right of Jeffrey’s desk, wedged between a Hepplewhite sideboard and a Goddard tea table.
    Gloria felt ill just looking at the thing. It reminded her of a melting block of reused lard. When Don Asher, Easton’s community liaison executive, walked by Jeffrey’s office he joked that the sofa looked like an Italian designer’s interpretation of Captain Kirk’s chair on the Enterprise. Like much European furniture, the sofa appeared invitingly comfortable but in reality it was painful to occupy. The sofa cushions nearly swallowed any occupant and it required a helping hand to free oneself. Don Asher, trying it out at Gloria’s request, found himself seated with his knees close to his ears. As if the sofa’s design wasn’t atrocious enough, Ed had arranged to have the Easton logo branded into the back cushion, which made the thing hideous.
    Pushing himself up out of the sofa, Don’s hand slipped between the cushions and he extracted a small envelope, unaddressed and unsealed. Assuming it to be part of the delivery paperwork he handed it to Gloria. Inside was a one-by-two inch newspaper clipping with just a few lines of type. Nothing else. Gloria’s face went white as she scanned it. Without saying a word she handed it back to Don. The clipping read:

In the lower corner of the tiny bit of newsprint was a happy face scrawled in green felt-tip ink.
    “Oh man,” Don chuckled as he left Jeffrey’s office, “this is a day I’m glad not to be CEO.”
    Gloria contemplated calling Jeffrey to give him some advance warning about the sofa’s arrival, but decided against it. She would rather not deal with his initial reaction by phone, especially if it included instructions to get rid of the thing before he returned. Monday would be here soon enough. Better to wait and let him see it for himself. She sighed loudly just imagining her boss’s reaction. There would be no rush to send a thank you to Ed Easton-that was certain.
    On Monday morning, the sight of the sofa stopped Jeffrey at the entrance to his office. His first reaction was a sputter of words and then he stared slack-jawed. He turned to Gloria for an explanation. She had been sitting at her desk holding her breath and looking busy. Smiling weakly she told him, “It’s from Ed.”
    Jeffrey’s sigh was audible. He turned on his heel and marched off. “Take care of that, Gloria,” he said without looking her way as he walked past. “I’ll be back after lunch.”
    In Jeffrey’s morning absence, Gloria consulted with Jeffrey’s wife, with Don Asher, and with the General Counsel’s office. Then she contacted the in-house maintenance team and had the sofa moved to a far corner of Jeffrey’s office. A courier package arrived at noon. In the box was a large cashmere throw in subtle tones that echoed those of the walls and furnishings in the executive suite. Gloria carefully draped the throw over two-thirds of the yellow sofa as shown in the diagram faxed to her from the interior designer in New York. One of the maintenance crew had already come and gone with a ladder to reposition the angle of two recessed lights, drawing attention away from the sofa’s new location.
    When Jeffrey returned after lunch he stopped in the doorway and leaned forward to peer around the corner into his office. Gloria watched carefully without actually staring. She was sure that for a brief moment Jeffrey thought the sofa was gone. And then he realized it wasn’t.
    “Alright then,” Jeffrey mumbled, “if that’s the best we can do.”
     “Yes. Everyone I consulted this morning about the sofa situation agreed. No matter how ugly the sofa is, it can’t go into storage,” Gloria explained. “It must stay in the CEO’s office. It is, after all, a gift from Ed.”
……….
Three weeks after the Easton/Pratt-Miles merger was complete-with more than 110 jobs already eliminated-nearly half the offices in the former Easton headquarters building stood unoccupied. Entire sections of the building, including two back entrance hallways, were left dark when employees arrived in the morning. Employees coming to work through any of the doors other than the main entrance now experienced the strange sensation of entering a deserted building. It was eerie. Just a month before-and every business day for decades before that-the building had possessed its own soundtrack of voices, phones, footfalls on hardwood floors, and the general buzz and hum of generations of office equipment. Now it was like entering a morgue. Dark and quiet. Too quiet for a building this size. The phones had stopped ringing. The sound of conversations, meetings, laughter and even the hum of the lights and electronics was disturbingly subdued or absent.
    Occasionally, an employee from one floor of the building would wander to another floor for the sole purpose of seeing a fellow human being. The conversation often began with, “Everyone left in my group is out of the office this week except me. It’s a little lonely.”
    In those early days of December when the daylight hours were seasonally scarce, the dark and quiet atmosphere inside the former headquarters was more than some remaining employees could tolerate. During those closing weeks of the year, it was commonplace for a worker to stand up and announce in a relatively loud voice some version of:  “It’s too quiet in this place. I gotta get out of here for a while.” And out the person would go for fresh air and the comfort of some coffee shop noise. On cloudy days someone usually walked around and turned on lights in portions of the unoccupied spaces saying, “I know it’s wasteful but I just can’t stand it being so dark in here. It’s depressing enough-we don’t need to make it gloomier.”
    On one of those gloomy days, a marketing specialist walked through the main level intent on shedding a little more light throughout the building. On a whim, she flipped on the lights in the CEO’s reception suite. Later that morning, because it was an exceptionally gray and quiet day, Kate Cooper and two other remaining Easton human resources employees decided to take their meeting to a new location in the building, hoping for better light and some new perspective. Turning a corner on the main level, Kate noticed the lights on in the CEO’s suite.
    “Wow, that’s eerie,” Kate’s said, stopping at the executive suite entrance. Set apart from other offices on the floor the suite was out of the way and easy to ignore, especially once the furnishings were removed and the space left dark. But with the lights on, it caught her interest and attention. “You don’t think…” she began, and then stopped, turning to look at her workmates.
    Jim Fisher chuckled and immediately strode confidently into the entryway of the suite, calling over his shoulder, “Oh you’ve got to be kidding me, Kate. You don’t really think the $90 million man got homesick and felt the need to return to his former office for one last pensive visit, do you?” Kate chuckled, and along with Sylvia Carter followed Jim into the suite’s empty reception area. “I’m not sure I’ve ever been in here before, have you?” Jim turned and asked.
    “Oh yes,” Kate replied. “Several times. All memorable but none of them particularly enjoyable. Even the social visit when I was invited to come meet Jeffrey for the first time was awkward and sweaty.”
    “Sweaty?” Jim turned to Kate with a huge grin on his face. “You don’t really mean sweaty, do you?”
    “Not that kind of sweaty, you moron. I was referring to the first time I entered Jeffrey Elkins’ office and was formally introduced to him. When he shook my hand it was sweaty-his hand, I mean. His hand!” Kate’s lame explanation had accelerated Jim’s chuckles into a belly laugh.
    “Kate, my dear, that wasn’t sweat,” Jim managed, gasping for air between fits of expelled laughter. “That was the antibacterial gel he squirted into his hands just before you walked in.” At that line, all three of them dissolved in a good laugh-something they hadn’t shared for quite a while.
    The door leading into Jeffrey’s office was ajar, but the space beyond was dark. “Come on, let’s go,” Sylvia said after they recovered from the joke.
    “What’s wrong? You’re not scared are you?” Jim smiled as he looked at Sylvia.
    “Not scared, Fisher, just a little spooked. It’s sort of creepy in here with the furniture all gone and the blinds drawn. Let’s get out of here and find someplace comfy to meet.”
    “Not until I get a peek into what was once the cerebral engine room of this place.” Jim moved toward the office door.
    “Wait a sec, Jim,” Kate said. “I don’t know why but somehow this feels like we’re doing something wrong. I know that’s crazy, but I’m with Sylvia. Let’s save this adventure for another day.”
    “Hey, no one said you had to join me. But I am definitely not leaving without a tour of the executive washroom. I may not get a second chance. They could deliver my walking papers any day now,” Jim continued, only half jokingly.
    “Okay, okay, we’ll go with you, but we’re not staying,” Kate said in her best motherly tone.
    “What’s wrong, Kate? Worried someone will catch us in here?”
    “I suppose something like that,” she replied. Sylvia was looking more worried as she gripped her legal notepad close to her chest.
    Pulling the door open wide and stepping confidently into what had been Jeffrey Elkins’ office, Jim raised his voice, “Don’t be such wusses, ladies. There’s nothing left here to fear,” and then Jim’s voice dissolved into another round of uncontrollable laughter.
    “What the heck’s so darn funny?” Sylvia insisted, losing some of her hesitancy and taking a few steps toward the door.
    “Just come see. There’re really no words to describe it.” That statement changed the two women’s caution to curiosity and they walked quickly into the dark office. “Take a look at that,” Jim pointed to a far corner of the otherwise empty room. “Can you believe it?” The three again lost their composure in a new round of giggles and snorts.
    “I claim it,” Jim said when he finally managed to stop laughing. “It’s mine ’til I’m gone.”
    “Tell me you’re not serious,” Kate responded. “Where will you put it?”
    “In my office.”
    “You can’t do that,” the two women replied simultaneously.
    “Who’s going to stop me? The merger police?”
    “Seriously, Jim,” Kate began.
    “Don’t use that mother superior tone with me, Kate. With the run up to the holidays, we’re not expecting a visit from anyone at Pratt-Miles Denver headquarters until year-end when they show up with the next round of pink slips. You and I both know my name is probably on that list. So in the meantime I might as well work in luxury. Unless you want it, of course. Since you still outrank me post-merger I would defer to you if you want it,” Jim gave Kate a courtly bow.
    “No I don’t want it,” Kate said taking a step back.
    “There’s no room for that sofa in your office, Fisher,” Sylvia noted, returning to practical matters.
    “And how would you move it?” Kate joined in. “It must weigh a ton.”
    “I’ll find a way,” Jim said.
    “You’re crazy, Jim. That thing won’t even fit thorough your office door.”
    “Then I’ll just have to change offices again. There are plenty to choose from. There’s got to be one somewhere in our area that will accommodate this fine specimen.”
    Just then a female voice called from out in the hallway, “Yoo hoo-anybody in there?” Kate recognized the voice. It was Jane Richards, one of the administrative assistants who no longer had a manager. Without anyone to provide her with work to do Jane spent a good part of every day wandering the building and getting into everyone else’s business.
    “We’re in here Jane,” Kate called back. “Just doing a little HR tour of the offices. No reason for concern.” An important statement to make since Jane, without any other mission, was suspected of being the latest snitch, providing details of activities great and small back to Pratt-Miles management in Denver. “Come on, Jim. Let’s exit gracefully,” Kate whispered. “I’m not interested in providing Jane any new gossip.”
    “I’m not leaving until I pee in the executive toilet,” Jim hissed back. At that Sylvia’s face turned pale and she started to back toward the door. Before Kate could respond, Jane appeared in the doorway.
    “Well, look who it is,” she said in her affected lilt. “What brings you all in here?” Jane chattered, walking toward Jim, Kate and Sylvia. Then she pulled up short and both hands shot up to cover her mouth, which had suddenly dropped open as she pronounced, “Oh-my-word!” Jim stepped aside so Jane could get a better look at the focus of their attention.
    “Like it?” Jim smiled at Jane. “It’s my new sofa. I’m already taking names to see who gets it when I’m gone. We’ll have a drawing or a raffle or something. It’ll be great. I might even make it a fundraiser. What do you think, Jane? Wanna get in on this?” The look on Jane’s face was too much for Kate to bear. She erupted in laughter, and was joined by Sylvia and Jim.
    “You can’t be serous,” Jane gawked.
    “Oh but I am. This is one serious piece of history. I think it needs a better home.”
    “But it doesn’t belong to you,” Jane pointed out.
    “I didn’t say it did. I just plan to use it just like my other office furniture until I leave.”
    Jane looked surprised, “You know you’re leaving?”
    “Jane. Get a grip. Most of us are leaving. That’s how this merger thing works. Now run along and make your call to Denver. Be sure to tell them it’s the yellow sofa from Jeffrey’s office with the Easton logo. Don’t leave out any details. And don’t incriminate Sylvia and Kate-they’re just innocent observers.” Jim stopped talking and folded his arms across his chest, giving Jane one of his best big fake smiles.
    “Well, I….” Jane sputtered. Clearly Jim had left her at a loss for words. She blinked twice then backed out the door.
    As they heard her walking swiftly away Jim called, “Bye Jane. Give the folks in Denver my love.”
    The next morning, the yellow sofa had replaced the small round worktable and chairs in Jim’s office. It now sat directly under Jim’s favorite new piece of office art:  a three-by-five-foot framed poster of a horse clearly captioned “COW.” Jim had hung it on his wall the week after the merger closed. Whenever anyone asked him what it meant, he replied, “It’s a reminder. In the world of mergers and acquisitions, you can label stuff anything you want. Regardless of what someone chooses to call it-the thing is what it is. Don’t be fooled.”
    Admiring the sofa, Jim was already gleefully anticipating the arrival of the Pratt-Miles human resources team from Denver later in the month. Janice Foss, the vice president, was a petite fifty-something platinum blonde with skinny legs who sported stiletto heels, short skirts, trendy jackets and chunky jewelry. Janice had made a lasting impression on former Easton employees the day the sale closed. Speaking to human resources staff members not RIFed that day, she responded to one employee’s “What’s going to happen to us next?” with a terse, “Get over it. Enough of this Easton angst. Just get over it and move on.” That little speech was delivered an hour after the first forty Easton employees had been pink-slipped and told to clean out their desks and exit the building. Janice Foss had not made any friends on that day in their offices-or since.
    It didn’t take much effort for Jim to imagine Janice walking into his office and deliberately closing the door, her nail extensions clicking against the knob. Clutched in her other hand would be a manila envelope containing his termination paperwork. He knew exactly how the meeting would go. As a human resources rep, he had witnessed plenty of these meetings over the past few weeks. Though if all went according to plan, Janice’s meeting with Jim would be just a little different.
    Janice was big on making a deliberate entrance and swift exit for these reduction-in-force tête-à-têtes. It was part of her routine. Jim was looking forward to inviting her to take a seat on the sofa-the only place to sit in his office-to deliver her little talk. When she was done with her “thanks for everything, we won’t be needing your services any longer” speech, he planned to be intently studying his paperwork as she attempted to stand up. It gave him great pleasure knowing that she would require his gentlemanly assistance to get out of the sofa and depart. He planned to make her ask for help. After all, she would have just told him she no longer needed his services.

Jim Fisher accurately predicted the timing of his own involuntary termination from the company. As a human resources representative, it was easier to see the impending end of one’s own job after performing exit interviews for so many others.
    Soon after lunch on Jim’s last day at work, a small group of employees gathered outside his office for a farewell toast and to share slices of a grocery store sheet cake. This was the downsized version of the more lavish parties historically arranged for people departing the company. As the number of employees leaving started to exceed those who still remained at the former Easton headquarters, the catered going away events gave way to smaller and smaller recognitions.
    Sipping Asti Spumante from a plastic champagne glass, Jim joked, “Soon these send-offs will be reduced to a shared bottle of Coke and a bag of pretzels.”
    What made Jim’s going away gathering unique, however, was the auction. After the cake was mostly gone and everyone was on his or her second glass of cheap bubbly, Jim auctioned off the yellow sofa. Conditions of transfer were clearly stated:  The highest bidder would be the sofa’s next caretaker. The recipient would be responsible for moving the thing to its next location. The auction proceeds would go to Habitat for Humanity.
    After three rounds of fast-paced bidding by a half dozen individuals-peppered with lots of hoots and side comments from those assembled-the final bidding faced off between two guys from Information Technology who had been competing with each other for years on everything from the Super Bowl pool to the next promotion. When the bidding hit $260, the IT geeks decided to call a truce and share the sofa. Those assembled clapped and cheered. The spirit of Jim’s departure event was something right out of the old Easton Company playbook. A bit of personal recognition wrapped in conviviality, community and charity.

Several months later when most members of the IT department were laid off, the yellow sofa once again was without a home. In the wake of the extensive downsizing, an effort was made to consolidate the remaining employees in the building.
    It was during this physical office reorganization that the in-house maintenance men were asked to move the yellow sofa out of the old IT area to make room for a group of employees from the third floor. Initially, Lenny and Sam, the only remaining staff from the Easton building maintenance team, protested the manager’s request to move the heavy piece of furniture.
    “Is it really necessary given all the space throughout the entire building?” Sam wanted to know.
    The manager, one of few who had been reassigned from Denver to Pratt-Miles’ newest regional office (the former Easton headquarters building) did not appreciate the push back. “Look fellas. You can’t tell me you have so much to do that you can’t move a sofa. With the rest of your team already RIFed, I’d think you’d act like you still want a job around here. After all, if we need maintenance help, we can always call a contractor. What you guys do isn’t rocket science, you know.”
    “Okay, okay, okay,” Sam finally mumbled to the manager. “Where the heck do you want us to put this thing?”
    “I couldn’t care less,” the manager replied, “as long as it’s out of here.”
    Sam and Lenny exchanged looks. “So you don’t care where it goes?” Lenny asked the manager, just to be certain there was no misunderstanding.
    “That’s correct. But I want it gone by morning.” He huffed off and slammed his office door in their faces.
    “Well Lenny,” Sam grinned, “looks like we have a new sofa for the break room.”
    Throughout the spring, Lenny and Sam enjoyed lounging on the yellow sofa in the basement break room, adjacent to the maintenance office. It was a fine addition to the other amenities they had collected from throughout the building as more and more employees were let go and offices stood abandoned. The break room already had a recliner, a coffee table, nice floor lamps, two computers for surfing the net, a DVD player and a good-sized TV on a rolling cart acquired from the abandoned communications conference room, nice artwork, several large potted plants, and a small refrigerator from a former lunchroom. Since no one ever came down to the maintenance area, Lenny and Sam were free to entertain themselves during work hours, interrupted only occasionally by a call from someone to fix, move, unlock or clean something.
    The sofa was great for catching a nap or settling in to watch an afternoon baseball game on TV. Sam had even entertained his latest lady friend in the break room after normal business hours, letting her in through the downstairs entrance next to the loading dock so she wouldn’t have to go past the receptionist or the security guard at the front desk.
    “It’s the perfect make-out couch,” Sam told Lenny, referring to the yellow sofa. “Easy to maneuver around but difficult to escape from.”
    Unfortunately for Sam and Lenny their good life at work did not last long. Pratt-Miles’ Denver management finally determined there was no need for the remaining on-staff maintenance employees. Their jobs were eliminated and they left behind most of the goodies in the break room feathered nest. The maintenance managers had been let go months before. The decision to keep two low level employees was simply for convenience, but now it was clear to the company’s new management that an outside contractor could handle any maintenance problems. So on the first of June, Sam and Lenny left the building for the last time, ending the yellow sofa’s days of sports, movies and evening amour.
    Although Sam and Lenny were sad to go, they had won a $150 bet with Easton’s former mailroom workers. The wager was made between the last two mailroom employees and the last two maintenance men. They had bet on who among them would be the last to go. The mailroom clerks were certain they would outlast Sam and Lenny; and they might have won the bet had it not been for their prank or serious error (they never admitted which) involving the Denver office. The event in question happened soon after another “RIF visit” to the former Easton offices by Janice Foss, the Pratt-Miles vice president of human resources. Janice arrived at her Denver office one morning to find it piled high with Fed Ex packages. There were so many boxes and envelopes that she could barely reach her desk, which was also stacked high with Fed Ex bundles. Closer examination of the packages revealed they were all sent out from the former Easton headquarters mailroom over a three-day period. Every package was addressed to Janice. The Fed Ex shipments included several mass mailings to retirees, vendors and former employees-hundreds of pieces of mail and boxes of materials.
    The mailroom staff back in Virginia claimed that the Fed Ex label process must have erroneously repeated Janice’s address on all the labels instead of picking up the correct addresses. Janice wasn’t buying the explanation. She knew the former Easton personnel didn’t like her and the feeling was mutual. It angered her that the mailroom employees didn’t even bother to apologize, just shrugged it off by saying, “Oops. Well these things happen.”
    It took two days for staff in Denver to sort out the mess. Within a month after the Fed Ex fiasco, the mailroom jobs in Virginia were eliminated and the mailroom duties outsourced. So the last two mailroom employees lost their jobs first, which meant Sam and Lenny won the bet.

Before the merger, The Easton Company’s seven-person maintenance crew had a number of important responsibilities, not the least of which was preventive maintenance on the building. Since the exterior was painted stucco adorned with exposed teakwood trellises, ongoing maintenance activities included patching, painting, sanding and staining. Likewise, the storm drainage system required special attention, especially during spring rains and summer storms. The flat-roofed building had been constructed without gutters; so leaf debris from surrounding trees wrecked havoc with the built-in drain lines, which required constant monitoring and periodic cleaning.
    When Easton’s maintenance managers were laid off, the maintenance director, Ken Bradford, called Pratt-Miles headquarters and spoke with a human resources representative handling the maintenance group’s terminations. He wanted to know who to send his files to-the ones containing information on the building’s HVAC contracts, scheduled maintenance needs, the key codes to control panels, city fire drill schedules, and building security protocols. The HR rep in Denver said he would get back to Ken, but never did. On his final day at work, Ken tried one last time to contact someone at Pratt-Miles headquarters to pass along what he considered important information. This time he called Janice Foss on her direct line.
    After he explained the reason for his call, Janice responded in a tone one might use when talking to an adolescent, “Ken you don’t have to worry about any of that any more. You just need to let it go so you can move on. I think you’ve become a bit obsessive a