...they offered me a job, Vice President in Charge of Reeducation. I’d have a desk on the seventy-fifth floor and an inbox that brings in data (knowledge) and an outbox that reflects my thoughts on that knowledge. They just want me to think about what they should do and they promise to take my ideas into consideration. I asked my ex-wife about it and she invited me out to dinner. I told my manager about it and she laughed in my face.
Dear Laertes8,
I am so happy that you finally decided to answer me. Reading your communications I felt for the first time in so long that there was finally a kindred out there for me. Not a lover or a husband, not a sugar daddy or father figure. Not even a mentor, not really. You are, at least potentially, a friend.
And as a friend I feel your fear and confusion. The office of that CEO is the heir to the offices that made your people slaves. Would working for them, no matter how good all intentions were, be a betrayal of your truth? Can you make a difference? Probably not. But should you try? That is a question that only you can answer.
All that happened six months ago. Laertes still has his job at Maritime Merchants Bank. He still has the most zero-balance days of any teller ever. His ex-wife asks him on Saturdays if he’s taken the new job. His mother has taken to asking him if he’s seen his father anywhere. He and Mona_Loa_Love write to each other every other day. Winsome Millerton-Pomerantz calls on Saturday nights to ask whether he has finally made up his mind.
“I figured if I waited long enough that you’d find someone else,” Laertes told the CEO.
“There is no one else, Mr. Jackson. It is either you or nothing.”