Author’s Notes: This is a new series that I’m working on with fbhkbki regarding a few ideas he had. Over time we fleshed out the ideas for what I think could be a good story. It is set in the Harbor City Universe along with a few of my other stories such as Purity and The Club of Chester County. I’m planning on this being a long story with a long intro. It will take a while to get to the action. As I’m writing this I’m about 17k words in and I’m just getting started.
This story, once it gets to it, will contain graphic scenes of sexual violence, drug use, incest, blackmail, extortion, abuse, violence, alcoholism, veganism, and stalking. The author does not condone any of these actions. Well, maybe the occasional veganism. It wouldn’t kill the reader to eat a god damned salad once in a while. And no, taco salads don’t count.
Content tags will be included with each chapter when appropriate.
Finally, many characters in this story are Australian visiting the crazy third world country called the United States of America, and the main protagonist for the story is an American. Accents are mentioned but also what the characters say is spelled out to how it sounds to the protagonist. As the story unfolds, we’ll see why some characters speak with different accents than others, even though they’re from the same country. Also, there’s some work with the units of measurements. Depending on who is talking or thinking, the story will use their point of view and their preferences. So, if one chapter has a character talking about something being 100 miles away and the next chapter talks about the same thing being 160 kilometers away, I’m in two different people’s heads. I blame the Americans for not fully embracing the metric system back in the 1970’s.
Part 1: Introduction.
Chapter 1
Tommy Gearheardt could barely contain his unbridled boredom. The young man, fresh out of grad school, sat in a conference room that was more like a small movie theater or a college lecture hall than a normal conference room. He was in orientation for his new career at Pharma, the worldwide conglomerate that arose after several other drug companies were bought, sold, rebranded, split off, bought, sold again, and rebranded again. He couldn’t wait to get started in his new job as Project Manager for the Astrimort project.
But first, he has to get through a mind-numbing series of HR videos and speak to his contact about his new position. Videos of all kinds. There was the sexual harassment video, the workplace violence video, the corporate structure video, the ombudsman video, the video about the videos, the video about the videos he would need to watch next week, and the video about how to file tax paperwork. That one seemed important enough to not skip through.
As Tommy went through this video, he looked up and scanned the auditorium. It was mostly empty now. It was full an hour ago, but where did everyone go? He looked for more details. One of the young women a few rows in front of him sat, staring at her laptop screen just like he was doing. He kept an eye on her while he did his tax withholding calculations. This part never made sense to him. Hell, it probably didn’t make sense to the IRS middle manager who authorized this, either. As Tommy tried to calculate this number before giving up and putting 1 and an extra $25 each week, he saw the woman in front of him receive a Teams message. She went to the front of the room, talked to an HR person for a moment, then came back and grabbed her stuff. She saw Tommy looking at her and briefly smiled. Before he took a better look at her, Tommy’s computer showed an incoming message.
“Mr. Gearheardt, could you please come down to the stage and see me? - Barry.” Tommy closed his laptop and walked down. It took only a few seconds to navigate the chairs and steps. He descended the audience steps and bounced up the steps to the stage. He was hopeful that he could finally get to work.
He was hopeful, until he saw the look on Barry’s face. The young man from HR had an unsettled look on his face. “Please, sit.” He motioned to the chair across from him. Tommy was suddenly worried. This didn’t look good.
“Mr. Gearheardt. Thomas?” Barry asked.
“Tommy or Tom is fine.” Tommy responded.
“There’s no easy to way to say this, but there was a problem with your position. It no longer exists.” Barry tried to break the bad news to Tommy easily. That just made it worse.
“Wait, what?” Tommy was in shock.
“Yes, unfortunately you were hired on to work on a specific project, Astrimort.”
“Yes. I’ve been looking forward to this day for months, ever since I was recruited in school.” Tommy said, not sure where this was going.
“That project was cancelled this past Friday and everyone involved was dispersed or laid off. Because you never reported to the project since you were just onboarded today, you weren’t eligible for automatic reassignment to a similar project, and since you have no time vested for the free pool, you were terminated.”
Tommy was flabbergasted. He had nothing to say for a moment until the realization hit him. Just as it did, Barry continued.
“I know this sucks, but I’m going to make this right.” Barry said, trying to be empathetic.
“I was fired.” Tommy said incredulously.
“Yes.” Barry said, calmly.
“On my first day.”
“Technically on Friday when the project was cancelled, but you weren’t added into the system until today for it take effect.”
“Wait. I was fired the weekend before I started?”
“Yeah, that looks pretty weird on the HR system. Computer was not designed for this to happen. But like I said, I’m going to make this right.”
“How?” Tommy was shellshocked. How could this happen?
“Give me an hour and I will find you a new position, commensurate with your experience and pay. Pay will be the same unless the position we find you pays more, then we’ll bump you for the inconvenience. If you can give me a little time, I’ll have a couple positions ready for you. However, I would suggest not leaving the building. Or the floor for that matter. Your badge was deactivated, so you won’t be able to get back in. Just relax, and I’ll take care of it.” Barry went to work on his computer while Tommy stood up and slowly walked back to his chair. As he did, another person was called up to the stage.
Tommy stood in the doorway for a moment, not sure what to do. He was in a trance. ‘Surely this can’t be real’ he thought. He exited the auditorium and went to bathroom across the hall.
Tommy stood in the bathroom for who knows how long. He has no clue, lost track of time. He just sat in one of the stalls, trying not to cry. Then the tears started, and didn’t stop. How could this happen? He turned down job offers from several other Fortune 100 companies and tech startups to take this position, and it vanished before he was even hired? How? Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, he left the stall and went to the mirror. He looked at himself in the mirror.
He was a good-looking man, if a little on the skinny side. He was close to 6 feet 3 inches tall, but weighed maybe 170 pounds soaking wet wearing boots. His friends in college said he looked like a ‘nerdy version of Clark Kent’ with his thick glasses, dark hair, brown eyes, and sharp jawline. His hair was combed in just the right way with a part over his left eye to make him look even younger than he was at 25 years old. He was dressed to the nines today in a tailored dark blue suit, white shirt, and dark tie that complemented his look. He loved to practice the old saying “dress for the job you want.” He wanted to run this place, but one step at a time.
Another look at his face. His eyes were red from crying. He splashed some water on his face, drank a little from his cupped hands, then tried to dry himself off with some towels. That’s when he noticed this place used blowers instead of towels.
“Fuck.” Tommy hated swearing, but the moment overtook him. It was an awkward couple minutes, but he dried himself enough and straightened himself up to go back in. He looked at his watch, it was almost an hour later. He had spent an hour crying in the bathroom. At this point, he just wanted to get an answer to things. Either he’d have a new job with Pharma, or he’d go back on the market this afternoon. He was confident that even if he didn’t have a position here, he’d have an offer before sunset.
Tommy returned to his desk and opened his laptop. There was a message from Barry asking him to come up to the stage when he returned. Tommy closed the laptop again and met Barry back on stage. Tommy took a seat across from Barry’s while the man from HR was still typing away at something on his screen.
“I’m sorry about what happened. I did find some stuff that I think you’d be a good fit for, and a couple others that might be a bit of a stretch. I just want to verify some information first. You have your Masters?” Barry was reading Tommy’s resume off of the computer screen. He could see the answer there, but Tommy obliged him.
“Yes, I have my MBA with a focus on Project Management.”
“Ok, good. How do you feel about relocating?” Barry asked. He was filtering out the available positions based on location first, then qualifications and titles.
“I signed a lease for an apartment last week and just finished moving in. I don’t want to do that again.” Tommy said. Barry nodded.
“Hmm… this is interesting. Did they ever tell you your pay grade when they hired you?” Tommy knew that Barry had to have a better answer than him, but he still needed to answer.
“I’m not sure, I think B4, something like that.” Tommy saw Barry’s eyebrows scrunch.
“Hmm…”
“What hmm?” Tommy leaned in closer.
“It looks like this might be a little more difficult than I thought. You were listed at a different pay grade than is normal for an Associate Project Manager. The title and pay were for a Project Manager but the position was for Associate. Minor issue, until it wasn’t when the project disappeared. Because of that, there’s a problem.” Barry explained it as best as he could.
“Really? What’s that?” Tommy was starting to get a little defensive at this point. He might need to call up some of those recruiters he talked to a few weeks ago.
“If I assign you to another project here in the HQ, you will take a hit on your pay for years because you’ll be graded incorrectly. You make too little for a PM, but too much for an APM. I need to assign you to a position outside of the PM Organization for a few months, or outside of the HQ. How is your code? Any IT experience?” Barry asked, looking at the screen the whole time.
“I’m not that good with computers. I was never the IT nerd, aside from setting up Mom and Dad’s WiFi.”
“Okay, how about Sales? I have a ton of sales positions?” Barry looked at Tommy with that ‘stupid-question-but-I-have-to-ask’ face.
“No sales. I don’t like sales, and if I wanted to do sales for my career, I wouldn’t have gone to school for my MBA.” Tommy sat back a little, crossing his arms as if to reject the very notion.
“I’m not sure what to do here. I can’t put you in a Project Manager position in this building without causing a lot of issues, and relocation isn’t’ an option. If there was... Wait a second.” Barry paused for a moment, then furiously searched through the HR Database for a listing that he knew would be there. There’s no way it was filled again. He found it, then clicked on the listing. “Got it.” Barry smiled briefly when he found what he was looking for.
“Got what?” Tommy was curious. He really didn’t want to start the job search over, and would like to see where this was going.
“Have you ever been on a construction site? Large building, small building, home being built?”
“No, not really.” Tommy shook his head.
“What about carpentry, or metal working? Any hobbies like that?”
“No.”
“Ever work as a house painter?”
“No.”
“What about home repairs? Ever use a wrench? Build an IKEA table?”
“I…built some IKEA furniture before.”
“Does it still stand?”
“Sort of.” Tommy said.
“Have you ever seen an episode of This Old House?” Barry was getting desperate to find anything that would give him a reason to recommend Tommy for this position.
“Years ago. Occasionally I’ll watch something on YouTube. My parents would put on HGTV as background noise.”
“Close enough. That sounds like years of construction knowledge to me.” Barry filled out some stuff on the HR website while he talked to Tommy.
“I’ve got some good news. I found a position for you. Project Manager under the Lead Project Manager for Harbor City Contracting.” Barry smiled, barely looking up from the screen as he talked.
“What’s Harbor City Contracting?” Tommy asked.
“That’s one of our many subsidiaries. There the construction company we created for handling most of Pharma’s needs in Chester County. H2C is the general contractor for our new North American headquarters that are being built next door. It won’t be ready for a few years, they just started work on it. You would work directly with the General Contractor and Lead Project Manager, James St. Croix. He’s umm, he’s…”
“He’s?”
“He’s kind of a dick.” Barry said. Tommy sat there shocked that someone from HR would call someone a dick. “When HR calls someone a dick, they’re a dick. I’m going to be honest with you.” Barry lowered his laptop screen to get a better look at Tommy. “James is an asshole. He’s foul mouthed, brutish, will run over his own mother to get the job done, but is one of the best in the field. This project is a few years behind schedule, and he is one of a handful of people on Earth that could bring this thing back on track, but he doesn’t have time for, and I quote, ‘doing that f---ing bulls--- to keep those f---ing c---s in corporate happy.’ That’s where you come in. You will be the liaison between H2C and Pharma. You’re an employee of both, but the pay stub comes from H2C. You have access to both buildings, and get the Pharma benefits package, as does anyone else in management over there. You’ll also get a company truck to use for going to the jobsite. The pay is the same you were going to get here, but you also qualify for overtime. And there will be overtime. Usually about 10 hours a week on average. Most of it comes when a major deadline approaches so you’ll go a month without any extra time then have one week where the crunch is on and you’re logging 40 extra hours in a week. What do you say?”
Tommy wasn’t sure what to say.
“I’ve never been on a construction site. I don’t know any of that stuff.”
“Then you have something to learn. I’ll throw in a $10,000 bonus if you make it 6 months.”
“3 months, and another $5,000 for signing on.”
“Deal.” Barry put his hand out to shake. Tommy took it. He immediately knew that this was a bad idea. Barry was too quick to agree to that signing bonus. He wouldn’t have agreed so fast if he wasn’t desperate. And if Barry was desperate, he could’ve gone higher. Much higher.