by Carrie Sullivan

Created on: July 02, 2010

Unbound

The woman sat in the cold folding chair, her body numb.  Her legs were pressed stiff in her pantyhose, her hair so tightly bound that it pulled at the skin of her face, making her temples ache with a dull throb.  In the hotel ballroom, hundreds of career-driven people, just like her, held attention on the speaker of the annual motivation seminar for professional business leaders of the region.

“Create a sense of group affiliation,” the speaker said, his voice a sharp contrast to the hum of the ceiling fans. “Everyone should feel important with specific roles.  You should be prepared to accept some grumbling.”

Laughter bubbled up from the crowd.

“I see you know what I’m talking about.  The answer is simple—be sure to provide perks.  Remember back when you were children and your parents rewarded you when you cleaned your room?  The same principle applies to adults. We like being rewarded for hard work, too.”

Perks.  Rewards.  Money.

Yes, money.  That’s what it all boiled down to, the mad dash for the hard-earned cash.  But what was it all really worth?

She’d worked for the phone company for five years, had gladly shaken the hand of the woman who’d hired her after turning down a much-less-paying job arranging bouquets for her aunt.  She was an adult now; she couldn’t afford to hang onto childish dreams of working with nature.  There were car payments to take care of, expensive office work shoes to buy.  Groceries and health insurance and Internet to purchase.

She’d watched the phone company grow from a small business to a large corporation—one that chose not to pay bills on time yet shut off customers’ cell service if they were so much as a day late sending in their checks.  They continued to take million-dollar advances from partners yet veered away from giving secretaries like her a raise in over four years.

The woman breathed a steady rhythm and blinked, inconspicuously pointing her toes to increase the circulation in her legs.  Her boss had thought she might benefit from going to this event.  She seemed “distant” of late, not quite “connected to the goal.”  This was the fifth lecture of the seminar, and though all took place in this posh hotel, paid for by her company, they seemed like horrible mirrors of each other.  All about money.  How to

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