The First World Problems of a Deep State Shill
Atlanta, GA
November 22, 2018
Our Senior Vice President of International Finance scrolled the résumé, flipped the page, continued her futile scanning, then looked up at me quizzically.
“I am looking for your Spanish skills.”
“Oh…well…I admit I’m not fluent, but do know some and am able to learn. Meanwhile, I am fully capable of being understood in any country simply by raising my voice to an absurd volume and speaking English at an insultingly slow pace.”
“Huh?”
“Just kidding. If nothing else, I can carry a cheat sheet like Butch and Sundance in Bolivia.”
“You mean walk into rooms reading aloud ‘Esto es un robo!’ while pointing a gun at people?”
“Well, when you put it that way, perhaps that would be an overly aggressive negotiating tactic. Maybe I should just learn the language. After all, things didn’t turn out so well for Butch and Sundance.”
“Yeah…I think that would be better. Anyway, why don’t you tell me about some of your other weaknesses…”
Despite my inadequate Spanish and misplaced “humor”, I eventually snookered the right inattentive gatekeepers and bamboozled enough indifferent executives to be selected as our company’s new International Pricing Leader.
The last seven years I carved a well-worn path, a redundant rut, between the banks of the Chattahoochee and the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri.
The winds of change were now set to carry me further afield, albeit with less frequency, toward the Thames, the Parramatta, the Mapocho, the St Lawrence, the Manzanares, and the Rio de la Plata…
…with eager side trips to the Loire, Arno, Danube, and Rhône just over the horizon of upcoming expense reports.
Unfortunately, a corporate reorganization blew the petals off my rosy scenario, and every shard of responsibility and appeal from the pane of my intended rôle.
The position was stripped not only of its direct reports and extended team across 23 countries, but also of its clout and raison d’être.
The spam on the plate being very different than the sirloin on the menu, I sent it back.
That was three months ago. Last week that job, among hundreds at the company, was eliminated entirely.
I dodged a bullet…which passed close enough for me to feel its breeze.
As such, the white cliffs of Dover, the fertile fields of the Pampas, and the glacial plains abutting Lake Ontario keep their distance, while I return each week to the familiar shadow of the Gateway Arch.
Five hundred miles east, another re-organization was underway…and real First World problems began to unfold.
Having recently returned from Walla Walla with new cases for our wine inventory, we decided the time was right to re-position the existing bottles within our make-shift cellar.
Those least amenable to lengthy storage advanced nearer the front, while more sturdy vintages and varietals retreated from the impulsive reach of my daily grasp.
We should have done this earlier.
Upon inspection and selective sampling, we realized that perhaps a dozen bottles, star prospects when drafted years ago, had passed their prime while waiting patiently to be called into the game.
Bitter, reeking, and of foul disposition, they were reluctantly removed from the roster, allowing space for new players that can expect a shorter career, but a more festive retirement. Like un-tapped talent tossed in a common grave, we dumped our weary wine down the drain.
We may as well have emptied it onto the basement floor. Walking across it a few weeks later, I was perplexed that the carpet was almost universally damp, and sporadically soaked.
The ceiling was dry, so no water appeared to be dripping from above. Dry walls also proclaimed their innocence. We do have three pets, ordinarily prime suspects in such a case. But, none of them being an elephant, they could not have created this Okefenokee.
Slowly opening the door to the back room of the basement, I cautiously turned on the light…and nailed the culprit, still in the act.
Standing in, and adding to, a two-inch deep flood was our valiant yet decrepit old water tank, its creaky bladder no longer able to withstand the persistent pressure of its relentless contents. Our basement had become its bedpan.
We installed a new tank, and drained and de-humidified the basement. We must next replace its Mesozoic carpet and dispose assorted boxed detritus that has languished there since the last Medici pontificate.
Such are the ways and means of home-ownership, which continue to defy dull moments, yet do not obscure the pleasure of having such a place…nor the joy of sharing it with Rita, Alexander, and David.
Regrettably, I am often away from there, and from them…typically at the St Louis Ritz-Carlton, so not every thorn is without its rose.
That hotel treats me exceptionally well, even employing quarantine tactics to place me upon a pedestal of privacy within my preferred corner of its spacious lobby.
How I came to be cordoned from fellow hotel guests is a story that is a charming reflection on the Ritz-Carlton, albeit a depressing commentary on my transient lifestyle.
Stepping off the elevator one morning a couple months ago, the Concierge approached, apprehensively…
“Good morning, Mr. Breen. I am afraid someone is…um…in your seat.”
Peering across the lobby, I spied my upholstered redoubt, adjoining the marble mantle from which a perpetual fire lends lazy light and cozy warmth to this Elysium, a room encased in paneled wood, adorned with classic books of bound leather, and evoking a aura of fine cognac.
This is no mere hotel lobby…this is the Ideal, the Platonic Form, of a hotel lobby.
Being tucked in a corner, my chair provides perspective on the entire scene, with all other seats, exits, and patrons visible…making it impossible for anyone to approach or disturb without warning.
After all, you can’t be too careful: just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. And, this particular morning, someone did!
Feigning a countenance of disgust and disappointment, I stared firmly back at the Concierge…
“I assume you will do something about this.”
“Uh, well…you see, the thing is…”
I hadn’t the heart to keep spinning him on the spit…
“Please…I’m kidding. I appreciate your concern, but am sure I will be fine in another spot.”
And of course I managed, but from my unaccustomed post the scene was disorienting and slightly off-kilter, as if I were in a Carroll novel or a Dali painting.
Somehow surviving this ordeal, the next morning I again stepped off the elevator…
Mercifully, my seat was vacant, but the table beside it was not.
It supported a white cloth under a silver tray, bearing an elaborate display of coffee accoutrements and elegantly scripted notes informing potential intruders that this seat was reserved for Mr. Breen, with a separate envelope conveying appreciation to Mr. Breen for his “weekly” patronage (I am not there quite that often, but somewhat disturbing that it seems I am).
A burgundy velvet rope secured my place and reinforced my prerogative, but did not clear the cloud over my career’s current climate…this hotel being but a thin silver lining.
My company sits at the nexus and mercy of that vast financial-military-intelligence-corporate-medical-industrial complex known as “The Deep State”.
Most of what we do is noble, enabling effective risk-management and beneficial decision-making by admirable institutions facilitating the productive win-win exchanges that characterize any free, well-adjusted, voluntary society.
Much else relies on our clients’ obligation to comply with a compulsory stream of back-scratching and distortionary employment, banking, lending, health, and securities regulations flowing, like waste from a whale, out of the bowels of K Street and the orifices of Capitol Hill.
We are far from alone having much of our revenue coated in a toxic sludge of regulatory requirements and government contracts. Most companies are to some degree complicit in, reliant upon, or at least must succumb to, that racket. This tangled web has been woven for centuries, and has snared bugs far bigger than us.
I suppose, like tanners to the perfumes of their trade, I have grown accustomed to the situation, choosing instead to look past or thru my job’s noxious elements to focus on its more appealing aspects…which are now being systematically eradicated by a new culture of derision and extensive lay-offs.
But this is Thanksgiving, and we who are still shy of fifty appreciate Mark Twain’s notion that those under that age who are pessimistic know too much…while they who remain optimistic in their second half-century know too little.
Since I am rarely accused of knowing too much, I continue to expect things will work out for the best…and will do what we can to ensure they do, including Rita ditching her Thanksgiving salad after my mother warned us off Romaine lettuce this morning.
So…despite our travails, and amid rising strains of exasperated violins, we reflect that our prolific lives – filled with an incomparable family, enviable health, bountiful homes, luxury hotels, reliable food, fine wine, extensive travel, supportive friends, and interminable group emails – are such that the tepid nature of our passing problems serves primarily to accentuate the ample scope of our abiding blessings.
Among them are that today we are home, with those we hold dear… lamenting the absence of you who are not here.
But we keep you on our minds…and in our hearts.
And we are thankful.
JD