Bribes

It all began with Andrea plopping down in her chair behind me and asking, "How would you feel about not working a game day this fall."

"Sure! Which one?"

"No, I mean, how would you feel about not working any game days this fall?"

How would I feel? Is now a bad time to mention that I have plotted waiting until two weeks before football season begins to give my notice, willing to reconsider only on this very stipulation? Granted, it would have been a gamble. I am not looking to quit for real just yet, but I have honestly doubted my abilities to make it through another football season, despite my life plan and budget.

"What's the catch?"

"That you commit to work through football season."

...

"We are bribing you not to quit."

...

"We can't do without you."

And there it was. More than an acknowledgement of good work, more than gratitude. Begging. Negotiations. Bribes.

Kevin and I made a plan that included me working through this coming December. As I get paid better and have better benefits where I am than anywhere else I could find, I will be staying with my current company. I have it in the budget. The fuzzier end of that plan is when I will be quitting. Sometime around a year from now, I think. Unless I can't get Christmas off again, because then I will be giving my notice two weeks before Christmas. I am going to Illinois this year. I have given my word.

Anywho, I have made many plans in my head for negotiating a better situation, all of which negotiations involve my threatening to quit. I know they need me, and I had day dreamed about telling them so.

Turns out, they already knew it. Kris has heard that Kevin and I are looking at houses further North. She has heard the interns ask me when I plan to have a baby. And then she was denied her request to hire a new buyer. That leaves her doing two people's work for over an entire year. The one concession she was given was that she could hire "another Audrey," to supply the defunct department with some stable employee, as opposed to the intern it had last fall. Kris responded that an assistant doesn't do her any good if he/she is not as well-trained as Audrey. That's where the bribes come in. They need me. Desperately. If I quit, there are two people to run the entire show, with no time to train anyone. Kris can't help our department if she is running another. So, they need me to stay. They want a commitment. They want me to stay through football season to train and oversee the "other Audrey." Even better, if I would give them enough notice of when I choose to leave so that I can also train my replacement.

There’s a raise in it for me, as well as the game days off. I even made the offer of staying an entire year if I can be guaranteed the week off between Christmas and New Years. I think I should have made higher demands, because Andrea actually rubbed her hands together gleefully in imitation of Kris’s reception to the news.

Oh well. I’m content with my lot: weekends and holidays off, a hefty raise, and eternal gratitude from Kris. I’m okay with that.