The next morning, I showed up, ready to tackle my new role as Marketing Manager—a position I hadn’t signed up for but decided to take on with everything I had. I dove into creating social media profiles, brainstorming catchy taglines, and envisioning a brighter future for the company. But while I buried myself in work, something kept pulling my attention: our new office manager, stepping outside every hour to smoke. She seemed oblivious to the chaos piling up inside—the unanswered messages, the mounting complaints, the simmering anger from neglected customers. How, I wondered, could this company grow the way Harry envisioned when the leader of the office spent more time outside than at her desk?
I wanted to step in, take the reins, and whip things into shape. But my hands were tied. I had been confined to one corner of the business, told to focus on marketing and little else. Fine, I thought. If marketing was my lane, I’d stay in it, but every day I watched the dysfunction unfold, my frustration grew. This wasn’t who I was. I didn’t sign up to sit idly by while things fell apart—I built companies. But how do you build something when you’re locked out of the tool shed?
About a month later, Richard walked into my office. His face was a mix of exhaustion and defeat, but his words were casual, almost flippant: “Well, how would you like to be the Office Manager again?” In my mind, I screamed, What the hell took you so long? But I plastered on a polite smile and replied, “I’m here to do whatever you need me to do.”
That should have been a victory, right? Finally, I had the authority to fix things. But it wasn’t a promotion—it was a punishment. What I didn’t know then was that I was about to step into a storm far worse than I could’ve imagined.
Richard strolled in around 9 a.m. each day, took his leisurely hour-and-a-half lunch, and was out the door by 3 p.m. Meanwhile, I was in the office by 5:30 a.m., skipping lunch, and lucky if I left before 8 p.m. The weight of the world wasn’t just on my shoulders; it was crushing me. Harry, the company’s founder, had promised me, “If you grow my company, I’ll grow you.” That promise became my North Star, but the sacrifice it demanded—long hours, relentless stress, and time stolen from my family—was far more than I had bargained for.
Still, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. The first order of business? Untangling the mess. I powered through the mountain of messages, took the heat from irate customers, and built spreadsheets to bring order to the chaos. I hired my first team member, Sandy, who was my saving grace. She was quick to learn, uncomplaining, and a powerhouse at executing every task I threw her way. Together, we started turning the ship around.
But the more I peeled back the layers of this company, the uglier it got. I learned about the sex room. Yes, you read that right. A dingy closet in the old pier-and-beam office, filled with musty files and questionable flooring, where employees apparently… got busy. Keith, one of the project managers, loved regaling me with tales of its sordid history. “Everybody used it,” he’d say with a smirk, leaning against my doorway like he was trying to impress me. It wasn’t just the room—it was the culture. Keith missed the days when the team would snort cocaine on the way to customer calls, drunkenly knock on doors, and party their way through running a business. “Growth?” he sneered one day. “We don’t need growth. We need to bring back the fun.”
Cocaine? A sex room? This wasn’t a business—it was a circus, and I was trying to rewrite the script with a team still clinging to their past glory days. I couldn’t talk to Richard; he was checked out, coasting through his short workdays. And Harry? Oh, Harry had his own ways of “motivating” people.
One afternoon, he summoned me to his garage apartment. I braced myself for what I thought would be a serious discussion about the company’s future. Instead, Harry pulled out a wad of cash, fanned it in the air, and tossed it at me like I was in a nightclub. “I usually make people dance for it,” he said, laughing at my stunned expression. Was this supposed to be appreciation? Gratitude? I awkwardly bent down to pick up the bills, muttering a thank-you, while he leaned back, grinning. “Too bad you’re married,” he added, his voice dripping with suggestion.
I forced a laugh, my skin crawling, and made a hasty exit. My mind raced as I walked back to my desk. How had I ended up here? I was trying to build something real—a company with integrity, a legacy worth being proud of. But it felt like I was standing knee-deep in quicksand, with no lifeline in sight.
And just when I thought I’d seen it all, the real bombshell dropped…
Stay tuned for part 3 full of twist and turns that will have you shocked!
