Charitable Getting: Draft 2, Chapter 3

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CHAPTER THREE

By Monday night, Internpocalypse had passed. To everyone's surprise, Zoe won the Crying Intern pool with a bet on 'four at four pm' though Sparks had to mediate a dispute over whether tears of rage counted as 'crying'. Zoe, who was feeling especially generous, announced that she was blowing her winnings on alcohol and sushi boats for the staff, and was immediately the most popular person in the office. The new interns, at least those that remained, had been sent away from work. The rest of the staff had evacuated to Beermaki.

Beermaki was technically a sushi bar but, unlike most of the downtown sushi places, it was heavy on the bar. It looked essentially like every other mid-range beer joint in Chicago, maybe even a little shabbier than some: low curtains on the neon-lit windows, taps at the bar, a couple of wall-mounted TVs for game nights, and a digital jukebox in the corner. Sparks had discovered it, he refused to tell the story of how, and each new employee inducted into SparkVISION's family was sworn to secrecy about it. The first time Zoe had gone there with the staff, she'd been highly dubious -- until she noticed the sushi chefs at the little glassed-in counter next to the bar.

"Seriously," Ian was saying to Sarah, gesturing with his chopsticks. "How do you do it?"

"You said you didn't want to be a mistress of the black arts," Sarah replied.

"It was mostly the mistress part," Ian admitted. Zoe grinned to herself.

"It's not hard. It's just reading people," Sarah said, adjusting her glasses as she explained her methods. "You put the girl in the impractical high heels in the file room moving dirty boxes and cleaning binders and shredding. You send the nervous one on errands. The ambitious ones get to file things all alone, all day long, and the weasels get to serial-stamp documents. Jess already told them they can't tweet or text or whatever -- "

"SOCIAL MEDIA. DO A SHOT," Erin announced.

"Then you tell them you're not going to insult their intelligence by showing them how to work the equipment, and sit back and see which ones are smart enough to ask anyway," Naomi added.

"Alcohol got me through making a webinar slideshow all weekend," Erin confided to Vicky, tucking stray tendrils of red hair back behind her ears. "I played the Non Prophet Drinking Game too. Every time you use a buzzword you get to sip your beer."

"I like to give interns The Look," Naomi told Sarah, who nodded vigorously.

"The Look?" Sparks asked, seating himself next to Naomi. Naomi Looked at him. "What? What'd I do?"

"That Look," Naomi said.

"I give my kid the Look a lot," Zoe volunteered. "I'm trying to build up his immunity."

"Kids are always guilty of something anyway," Sarah agreed. "Where's the spicy tuna?"

John levered a slice of spicy tuna roll off his plate and onto hers. "I've never been happier I never had to intern."

"All right," Sparks said, setting a bottle of beer on the table. "With this microbrew, I call the meeting to order."

"We're meeting?" Zoe whispered to Anna.

"Does that mean Sparks can pick up the tab?" Anna whispered back, slyly tugging Zoe's french fries closer to her own plate.

"We are gathered here to divvy up the remaining three interns and put a plan in place for when one of them inevitably abandons ship in a few weeks," Sparks continued inexorably. "I'd like to begin by saying thank you to Sarah; as always, you are our finest acid test."

"I'm going to break Question Mark Girl if it's the last thing I do," Sarah said. "I can't believe she made the cut."

"Really? You can't believe it? But she worked really hard? Even though her shoes were inappropriate?" Naomi said. Sarah threatened her with chopsticks.

"Aww, be nice," Zoe said, perhaps with not quite as much conviction as she felt. She didn't especially enjoy watching the interns cry; true, they had to weed out the slackers, but it seemed cruel. She always wanted to give them a hug and a cookie afterwards.

"I'd also like to congratulate John, Ian, and myself on a very successful Movember Moustache Fundraiser -- I don't think I've ever been so relieved to be clean-shaven as I was after getting rid of the epic pornstache," Sparks was saying. "And thank you, ladies, for your end-of-month show of solidarity with the fake moustaches."

"I might grow mine back, I was getting fond of it," John said.

"It suited you," Zoe agreed. "Cee, don't you think the mustache suited him?"

"I didn't really notice," Cee said airily. Zoe winked at her.

"Now, that's old business put to rest," Sparks continued. "New business. Three interns. What are their names?" he asked Jess.

"Question Mark Girl, Rhinestone Shoe Boy, and The Other Guy," Jess said.

"Wow. Kids of hippies, huh?" Sparks grinned. "Okay. Question Mark Girl. Naomi -- "

"I reject your interns," Naomi said. "I reject them wholesale. I have no use for anyone who can't do double-entry book-keeping."

"Isn't that illegal?" Roxy asked.

"That's double-book-keeping," Naomi sighed. "I don't want an intern."

"Well, we do," Zoe jumped in. "Anna needs someone new to shout at, and I can't constantly be pricing print jobs and designing them at the same time."

"Rhinestone Shoe Boy, what's his deal?" Sparks asked.

"He stamped stuff all day. He might even have smiled a little," Sarah said. "We know he's a good unitasker. Question Mark Girl would be better for the Creatives. They won't notice her unfortunate conversational tic."

"Hey!" John frowned. "I'd notice."

"You'd notice the rhinestones more. I don't want you distracted by sparkle," Anna said.

"Look, I'm not some idiot who gets sidetracked by every shiny thing I see," John retorted.

"Okay, before the Your Mom jokes start, I'm making an executive decision," Sparks announced. "Sarah gets Question Mark Girl in the mornings. Creative gets her in the afternoons and if she snaps and runs away screaming, well, you'll have only yourselves to blame. Sarah can have Rhinestone Shoe Boy in the afternoons. Who needs him in the mornings?"

"Until we know what he's capable of, I'd like to keep him around," Jess said. "Vicky can show him how to do stuff and if he fails there we'll shove him off on Erin, she can teach him to fetch and play dead."

"That would impress our clients," Erin pointed out.

"Done and done. This management thing is way easier than the movies make it look," Sparks remarked. "Now, who's this The Other Guy?"

He was met by a series of blank looks. Zoe didn't blame them; she didn't remember him at all.

"We didn't get him at all in the design pod," she said. "I didn't know we had a third intern standing until you mentioned it."

"I don't pay attention to them," Naomi sniffed.

"I made someone wind cords for a while but I thought that was the Rhinestone guy," Roxy put in.

"Wasn't he working with you?" Cee asked Vicky. "I'm sure I saw him following you around."

"He kept looking at his phone and twitching," Vicky said. "Can I have some spider roll?"

"Why doesn't Vic have a beer?" Sparks demanded, out of nowhere.

"She's nineteen," Ian told him.

"The Other Guy," Cee reminded Sparks, poking him with a chopstick.

"Okay, okay! So. Who needs an intern?" Sparks asked. Silence reigned. "Why did we hire seven interns?"

"We thought it'd be like the group Vicky came with," Ian said.

"You know. There can be only one," Anna added.

"Is...is that from Survivor?" Vicky asked. Anna sighed deeply. "What did I do?"

"It's from Highlander. I'll lend you the DVDs," Zoe told her, patting her arm.

"Naomi has very graciously given up her intern and there are no other takers?" Sparks asked.

"I didn't give him up! I rejected him. Actively. I declined to employ," Naomi said.

"Ian? Cee?"

"Don't need one," Ian mumbled around a mouthful of rice.

"No place to put one," Cee agreed.

"I could probably give him a few days' worth of fetch and carry work," Roxy volunteered. "Stacking CPUs and stuff. If he doesn't go insane, he might be able to help out on the website."

"Then I consider the matter closed," Sparks declared.

"Before we move on to new new business, I'm stepping outside," Anna said. John set his chopsticks aside, gave Ian a suspicious look, and licked the sushi on his plate to ensure nobody stole it. Zoe pushed her chair back and followed.

Outside, under the Beermaki awning and pressed up against the hotel-next-door's plexiglass barrier, Anna lit a cigarette and exhaled considerately away from them. Zoe didn't approve, but she had to admit it was a nice five-minute break, and since she wasn't getting cancer directly she confined herself to a once-yearly remark about smoking, usually delivered sometime around New Year's.

"So when you go back in there, I need you to make my excuses," Anna said, looking very serious.

"Why? Are you staying out here?" John asked.

"It'd keep the sushi cold," Zoe said thoughtfully.

"No, I have to take off. Trent's meeting me for cocktails," Anna told them.

"Who?" John asked.

"Mr. Union Arms," Zoe reminded him.

"Ooooh, Union Arms," John crooned, grinning.

"See? That's why!" Anna pointed at him with her cigarette. Zoe avoided a small cloud of ash floating her way. "Everyone's going to tease me."

"Yeah, I can see that," John said. "I'm teasing you right now. I have a strong feeling this is the right thing to do."

"Stop," Anna moaned.

"Anna's got a booooyfriend, Anna's got a sugar-daddy," John sing-songed. Zoe elbowed him, a warning to tone it down. He looked unrepentant.

"You have an arts degree and all you can manage is 'Anna's got a sugar daddy'?" Anna asked, disdain curling her lip.

"It's not in musical composition," John protested. Zoe elbowed him again.

"Where are you going?" she asked Anna, hoping to sidetrack the conversation.

"Signature Lounge," Anna said. John gave a low whistle. "Have you ever had cosmos on the ninety-sixth floor of the Hancock building? It's like twenty dollars just to breathe the air there."

"Are you changing before you meet up?" Zoe asked.

"Do you own a revealing dress?" John added.

"Though, not too revealing," Zoe advised. "Make him work a little."

"I stashed it this morning. I'm going to run back to the office, change in the bathroom, and meet him at the Water Tower," Anna said. "We who are about to freeze to death in a short dress salute you."

"He must be pretty high up in the food chain," Zoe remarked, "if he's taking you to the Signature Lounge for a second date."

"Specially since I've already put out," Anna agreed, exhaling a cloud of smoke and laughing. "But he, uh, he goes after what he wants, I like that in a person. And, you know, why shouldn't people who work in the charitable sector make good money?"

"Here we go again," Zoe groaned.

"I'm not saying they shouldn't, I never said they shouldn't," John said, diving back into an old argument that had Zoe wanting to knock their heads together on a monthly basis. "I'm just saying, when people are giving you something for nothing, it looks weird to be living the high life. Ordinary working people don't buy twenty-dollar cosmos."

"Yeah, but what if that's what it takes to keep a great fundraiser in the game?" Anna asked. "Say you pay someone a million dollars and they raise three million. Isn't that better than paying someone fifty thousand and they only raise sixty thousand?"

"I'm sure if I were a mathematician I could refute something in your logic," John said.

"Sucks to be you, then. I'm just saying, if Trent Byron is earning his keep, I don't see why he shouldn't be paid appropriately."

"Look, nobody has to be an idealist, but if you don't go into charitable giving with at least a feeling that philanthropy is the right thing to do, it goes nowhere positive," John said. "And if you're making millions of dollars at it, and you don't believe in it...I just think it's a slippery slope, that's all."

"A slippery slope into a delicious dirty martini with gold flecks floating in it," Anna said, stubbing out her cigarette. "Tell 'em I had to go save puppies or something."

"At least he's spending it in the community," Zoe said, as she and John walked back inside.

"I want a martini with gold flecks in it," John sulked.

"I think you could get beer in a martini glass..."

***

The view from the ninety-sixth floor of the Hancock building should have been breathtaking, but Anna had the same feeling she'd had when she took the obligatory tour of Sears Tower with some friends-playing-tourist a few years ago: the city looked so big and so detailed at the same time that it was almost pointless to try looking at it. Instead she looked at her drink, which was deep red and tasted like cherries.

"So," Trent Byron said, leaning back and studying the skyline. Without the formal suit she'd seen him in last time, he looked like an ad for expensive alcohol -- tie gone, two collar buttons undone, relaxing in the reflected glow of the city. "You write for SparkVISION."

"It's a living," she replied with a smile.

"Most of our in-house writers are blossoming novelists," Trent said. "We probably lose money to their endless printing and mailing, but I suppose it nurtures art or something. Do you write in your spare time?"

"Oh -- urgh, no, I do that all day, I don't want to do it when I get home," she said.

"Really?" he asked, looking surprised. "Are you sure?"

"Um...yes?" Anna replied. "I'm just good at writing, so that's the job I do."

"Well, I guess that makes sense," he mused. "But what do you do?"

"Do?"

"Outside of your job. Tell me your secret passion," he commanded. She smiled mysteriously and sipped her drink.

"Conceptual art," she confided.

"Really! You'll have to show me your paintings sometime," he said, in a way that made her suspect paintings was not what he really meant.

"I don't paint -- I'm more interested in installation pieces," Anna replied.

"Oh?" He looked like he wasn't sure what it meant.

"At the moment I'm in a sticky note phase."

Trent frowned. "Sorry?"

"I'm exploring the New Industrialization," she said. Conceptual art was, in fact, really easy if you knew how to explain it. "I work with objects people find relevant in their everyday lives. It's like found art, but it's easy to see the beauty in found objects. It takes more time to see it in things we use every day, like sticky notes."

He was looking at her with a fixed and slightly confused smile on his face, but she plunged onwards.

"Anyway, everyone knows what a sticky note is, so in a symbolic way they represent the basic unity of western culture," she said, and sipped her wine again. "I draw tiny portraits and caricatures on them, then combine them for an overall effect. Also I cover models with them and take their pictures."

"That's interesting," he said. "You know, I recently bought a Chagall?"

Anna tilted her head. Not the reaction she generally got to the sticky note speech.

"Anyway, all this talk of office equipment reminds me: I'm visiting your office soon," he said, and she would have noticed the change in subject if she hadn't heard the last part of the sentence and freaked out.

"You're what?" she asked.

"The way I see it is, if Bo Sparks can hold on to you this long, he must be useful," He told her. Anna clutched the table, and Trent laughed.

"I'm mostly kidding," he assured her. "We're a client of yours. Sparks is working on ideas for a name change for us. If he does a good job, who knows? We might start sending more business your way."

"But your branding is like..."

"A hundred and forty-six years old, yes." Trent smiled gently, and his tone had a hint of affectionate tolerance in it. Anna felt offended in a way she couldn't quite define. "But we have to move with the times, don't we? Union Arms was founded to help war orphans in 1863, but it sounds very...militaristic. We sometimes have people ask us if we make weapons, for Christ's sake."

"I can see how that would be counterintuitive," Anna said.

"I wish we did make weapons," he continued, finishing his wine and signaling for another one. "Better than kissing donor butt all day, right?"

Anna drank while she tried to think of a response.

"I mean, weapons manufacture, that's...macho," Trent said.

"I think sheltering survivors of abuse is...probably more productive, though," Anna replied.

"Well, yeah, but image is everything -- you know that better than anyone." Trent patted her hand. "I mean, which strikes more fear, a guy with a starving kid under one arm, or a guy with a Kalashnikov? You know I'm right."

"I guess if you're going for fear," she agreed.

"Let me get you another drink," he said, grinning at her. "And we'll stop talking shop and start talking much more interesting things."

***



Date: 12/9/09
Subject: Non Versus The News

It's easy to glibly say that history is written by the victors, and the added benefit of that statement is that it's mostly true. Before the age of mass communication, the losers didn't get a soapbox, or if they did they got shot off it pretty quickly. Traditionally, dominant culture has not been kind to its subjects, nor magnanimous in hearing their grievances.

Deep, huh?

I've tangled before with the news media, especially since people think they can just pull quotes off my public writing without context or credit. What you put on the internet for the public to consume is subject to, well, public consumption, but all free information is subject to public criticism. If you get to steal from me, I get to publicly shame you for it. That's a terrible way to go through life, but until we stop being asshats to each other, it's the way of things.

A few days ago I was offered a position writing a weekly column with a local daily newspaper here in Chicago. Sales are flagging; printing and door-to-door distribution of daily papers is a terrible way to run a business, but people still like to read newspapers on the train and not everyone has access to the internet, so for now it's the way they have to do it, I suppose.

My considerable readership could benefit any newspaper, after all. Circulation might slightly increase, but it would also bring eyeballs to the newspaper's web feed, where those eyeballs would see the advertisements and special features all news sites pepper their content with. I am, not to put too fine a point on it, their internet messiah.

The thing is, I don't need any prestige a newspaper could offer me. I don't really see that there would be much, because as a legitimizing factor newspapers kind of suck. They're subjective while pretending to be objective, and they're designed to make money. They might pay me to write the column, but I already have a day job. Plus, why should I reward your loyalty by shilling for a company I don't believe in?

You should have seen the response I got when I told the newspaper I wasn't interested. It was like I was turning down an invitation to dine at the White House. I felt a distinct sense that I was somehow being unpatriotic.

Print media is dying, and I'm not sure they know it yet. I'm not a radical; I don't wish for its death, and with its passing an important source of historical information may also pass. It's just that I can see the writing on the digital wall. Major papers have to sell more ad space and write more controversial headlines in order to make their bank, and the really big national papers often run at a deficit. Even papers that run weekly, like the Daily City, are losing eyeballs and making up for it by filling slick pages with celebrity gossip and stories meant to attract rather than inform. Sometimes I'll have a newspaper sitting on my desk and someone will come up to ask me something and get distracted by a headline. (Which is a completely different rant: since when did it become good manners to stand at my desk and read something off my desk while ignoring me?)

Obviously I'm cranky, because the email I got from the paper did touch a nerve. How dare I, an uppity blogger, challenge the institution of the daily news? My world is wires and drives, utterly devoid of the romance of the newsroom, and I have no legitimate standing other than "being kind of funny" and "having lots of readers". I'm not a god; I have my insecurities, and the dream of seeing my name on a printed byline has its appeal. Nobody pays to subscribe here. My work is not directly worth money.

On the other hand, my mild-mannered alter ego works in an industry whose ostensible major concern is compassion and empathy. Whatever I do on this end, the result on the other is that someone who didn't have food gets fed. I don't have to have qualifications as long as what I say is reasonable, supported by evidence, and written with considered thought.

I expect that in posting this, I may be firing the first shot of another pitched battle between me and the newspapers. I say bring it on. I'm ready for the sly op-ed barbs in the dailies, and Weekly City's renewed quest to find out my real identity (for the hilarious time they put a bounty on my head, which is actually so unfunny it hurts, see this post).

This won't be the first fight, or probably the last, but I'm not here to advocate for the winners. They've already got a voice.

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Chapter Four