The next day Dan made his proposal to Marvin for an evening dean and said he had someone in mind if benefits could be included with a 20 hour per week part time job. He held back the idea of Saturday classes in case the proposal was rejected and Gene expressed an interest. By 5:00 p.m., just as Katie was leaving for the day, Marvin went to see Dan in his office.
“Good news,” he said. “The evening dean position is approved for 20 hours with full health benefits but no vacation time. I think two-week’s vacation might be added depending on the person you have in mind and the salary—they told me the absolute cap would be $20,000.”
“Sounds great,” Dan said. Let me talk to my friend and get back to you. I’ll see him this weekend. If he’s not interested, we can put an ad in next week if that’s o.k. with you.”
“Sounds good,” Marvin said and left.
That weekend Dan and Gene got together early and by the end of the day, Gene had agreed to interview for the job. Dan asked him to submit a cover letter and resume as a formality which would be needed for the file. Ultimately, it would be up to Marvin whether to approve the position or not, with the lack of a degree the only possible stumbling block.
A week later, Gene was interviewed by Dan and Marvin together and, after some back and forth with Dan, Marvin approved the hire.
“What do we do with the catalog? We can’t have our degrees and list nothing for him” Marvin said.
“Sure, you can. Just let them, think it’s an oversight. Or leave out all our degrees. Who cares? It’s not an issue for State Ed unless he teaches, right? If it comes to that he can always get a degree through Regent’s College [now Excelsior College] or SUNY Empire State College as he has more than 150 undergrad credits and can get anything else he needs as far as any missing distribution credits through credit by examination,” Dan said.
Gene was hired and quit his current job shortly after accepting the PEMTI position. Like Dan, salary was of secondary importance to him, though it was the one aspect of their job that grated on them both. Dan was finally able to leave sometime between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. on most days, and Gene often came in early so that their time overlapped. Dan, Gene, and Katie would often be in the office together for an hour or so before her shift ended and, though she was Dan’s secretary, she also did work for Gene from time to time, though he, like Dan, liked to do most of his own correspondence and record keeping himself. Over the following several months, the three of them became close, and Dan’s own relationship with Linda slowly deteriorated—his fault, not hers—despite the greater freedom that Gene provided for him to spend more time with her by no longer requiring him to work unreasonably long hours. He nevertheless found himself growing apart from Linda and being drawn ever closer to Katie. As Gene and Katie also got to know one another and developed a friendly relationship, Dan became aware of irrational, unfounded and completely inappropriate incipient feelings of jealousy towards Katie—something he had never felt for the closer, long-standing relationship between Gene, himself and Linda who had become close friends early on in Gene and Dan’s friendship. The difference, perhaps, is that he knew without the shadow of a doubt Linda’s unconditional love for him and had no such assurance about Katie. It was never a question about trust in Gene—both Gene and Dan would first cut off their right arm than pursue a woman the other loved. But that, of course, is irrelevant when the green-eyed monster decides to raise its ugly head.
Recognizing finally the nature of his feelings for Katie, and not knowing what to do about them, he told Lisa. Her reaction was understandable—anger and a feeling of betrayal that led to an immediate breakup that would last for more than a year before they would again even speak to one another and put a strain on their relationship that could never be fully overcome. Dan did not “cheat” on Lisa insofar as there was no physical relationship involved with Katie, any more than with his prior similar situation. The idea that Dan could begin to fall in love with another woman was just too much to bear, and the fact that nothing had happened between them was irrelevant—easier to forgive a one-night stand in a moment of weakness than the betrayal of actually falling in love with someone else after a long-term, committed, monogamous relationship. Dan understood that. And he would have broken off the relationship even if Linda had not wanted to, feeling anger at himself, and conflicted by the situation—not for the first time.
The following months were very difficult for Dan emotionally, though he did what he always did and would do for the rest of his life—bury himself in work and try to plow on. Months later, just over nine months after starting work at PEMTI and nearly three months before resigning, some additional major issues arose adding to Dan’s frustration and piling on the final straws that broke the camel’s back.
The first instance was an issue involving the nursing instructor he had personally hired, Mr. Okonkwo. Marvin received a frantic call from a nursing home administrator that sponsored their students about Mr. Okonkwo breaching patient confidentiality by distributing patient files to his students for review and discussion at the nursing home. That is, of course, a serious breach of protocol that the nursing home could not tolerate. And Marvin was informed all future practicums were being cancelled. Dan told Marvin he would immediately investigate and take appropriate action. He called the instructor into his office and asked him to explain what had transpired. The instructor was upset that he and the students had been kicked out of the nursing home but admitted that, yes, he had taken patient records from the facility’s nursing office and distributed them to his students for a discussion of the various patients’ ailments and their treatment. The instructor did not see anything wrong with his actions and apparently resented being asked about it. Dan fired him on the spot. This done, Marvin and Dan made an appointment to see the nursing home director in question and, in a difficult meeting, made assurances that nothing like that would ever happen again, informed him that the instructor had been dismissed, and eventually prevailed on him to allow students back for their practicums when a new Registered Nurse could be assigned to the class.
The story, however, did not end there. As open and shut a case as this was for firing the instructor, he complained to the New York State Labor Department alleging that his civil rights had been violated under New York law, claiming that he was dismissed both because of his race (he was black) and because of his sexual orientation. Dan was well aware of both federal and New York State civil rights laws, including the fact that, unlike Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, New York Law at the time protected employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation as well as race, religion, color national origin and sex. The firing, however, had nothing whatever to do in whole or in part with any of the protected criteria. After all, Dan had hired the same faculty member months before over two white applicants he had also considered as finalists for the position, and he was obviously just as black now as then. And as to his sexual orientation, Dan had never asked, been told, nor cared in the least whether he was gay or straight. The individual was inarguably fired for cause and had zero evidence of any other contributing factor beyond his own imagination. Nevertheless, the incident was thoroughly investigated by the New York State Division of Human Rights which sent investigators to interview all faculty, reviewed the employment files, held hearings, and took more than six months to render the obvious decision that there was no discrimination involved in the firing. Dan was never questioned by anyone about this—the investigators went directly to the faculty, HR, and Marvin, and only Marvin had been called to testify at various hearings.
The second issue that arose, also funny in its absurdity in its own way, related to a routine site visit by the State Education Department regarding the certification of the existing courses. When Marvin received the notification and reviewed his files in preparation for the visit, he came across a snag that he wanted Dan to help correct and immediately headed to Dan’s office.
“We have a problem,” he announced upon entering.
“What now,” Dan asked, sighing warily.
“We have an upcoming visit from SED, and we have to get our library in order.”
Dan was genuinely confused by this and asked, “Since when do we have a library?”
“I never showed you?” Marvin asked with an intensely serious face.
“No, this is the first I’ve heard of it. Where are you hiding it if I may ask?”
“Come with me, I’ll show you.” Saying that, he led the way down the hallway on the fourth floor just past Mr. Chang’s office. He pointed at two metal doors and fished in his pocket for his key ring with the key.
“I always assumed this was a storage closet,” Dan said, still confused.
“No, it’s our library. We’re required to have one.” Marvin said, finding the small key and unlocking the double doors. Inside was, what Dan had suspected all along: a closet—albeit one with four deep shelves full of books piled in a helter-skelter manner and an old Encyclopedia Americana. Dan reached in and looked at some of the books at random. Almost all were desk copies or instructor’s copies of current and past textbooks adopted for use in the various courses. There were also sundry magazines and some dusty paperback and hard cover Book Club editions of nondescript novels.
“You’re joking, right?”
“No, Dan, this is serious. They’ll be here in three weeks, and we have to have the library ready.”
Dan groaned and cursed. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”
“Get Katie and a work study student to organize these as best you can. We’re supposed to have a lending library.”
Dan nearly walked our then but managed to keep his cool. “I’ll do what I can, Marvin, but don’t expect miracles.”
“That’s all I ask,” he said, and walked away, after leaving Dan the small key.
Dan went back to the office where Katie was organizing and filing some of the papers on the “out box” on his desk.
“You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “I don’t know whether to laugh hysterically or bang my head on the desk.
“I’d go with option number one, Dan. I just straightened your desk,” she quipped, giving him a wry smile.
“Come with me,” he said, leading the way. “We’re going to our library.”
“We have a library, she said, a puzzled look on her face.”
“Of course, we do. Don’t you know anything?” He told her in mock exasperation.
He led her to the closet, opened it and said, “See?”
She looked at him then burst out laughing. “You’re joking, right?”
“That’s pretty much what I said five minutes ago. Sadly, I’m not.”
“What are we supposed to do with it?”
“Organize it, catalog the books and I guess develop a system of sorts to make it appear to be a lending library.”
“Are you sure you’re not pulling my leg,” she asked, looking at him sideways and giggling.
“I’m as serious as the heart attack I’m expecting at any moment.”
“Geez Louise.” She said, shaking her head.
“Let’s go back to the office to bang our heads on our respective desks,” Dan suggested, closing the closet, and locking it, though he knew not why.
“So, what do you want to do,” she asked as soon as they were back in the office.
“Quit.”
“No, really.”
“Really.”
She just rolled her eyes. “You keep saying that, but you’ll never go,” she said.
“We can have a serious talk about that later,” he said. “For now, let’s see what we can do. Here’s an idea, though I’d welcome other suggestions. There’s no way we can do any real organization. We have a site visit in three weeks and, to be frank, we both have other things to do. But obviously it can’t stay the way it is. So, I suggest trying to organize the books into at most four or five rough categories and then simply alphabetize them by title. Forget about anything formal, like the Dewey Decimal System. Sound reasonable?”
“I guess,” she said.
“Then we can make an electronic catalog of the books we have, and jury rig some sort of system we could use if anyone wanted to borrow a book—like a sign-out sheet or some such. It’s not like we’re ever going to actually use the damned thing—it’s absurd if you look at the content, but at least we’ll have something in place that is better organized.”
“And by we you mean moi, right?”
You and Paula and maybe some other student worker. I don’t want to pull you away from what you normally do. If you are willing, you can put in some overtime, come in early or stay late an hour a day or something like that. Or we can find work study students to help—Paula, or maybe your friend Christine—whoever.”
“I can put in some overtime. Is an hour a day for a couple of weeks, ok?”
“Whatever you’re willing to do.”
“Okey dokey.”
“I suggest first, taking out books of a type—all computer books, for example, then Business English books, and so on and bringing them into the office to catalog. I suggest using dBase III to develop a very simple catalog system—I can do that. I’m thinking something super basic, like Title, Author, Genre, Copyright date and that’s it. When we have the database completed, we can print out a listing of what we have alphabetized by Genre. And as each category is completed, we can put the books on the shelf, with a label in front of the shelf as to what the category is, and the books alphabetized by title. What do you think?”
“That could work. When do we start?”
“I’ll do the database now. How about the student workers? Do you want Christine to be made into one, or do we use Paula? Both?”
“Let me ask Christine. I think she’d like working in the office. Will Mr. Lantz approve?
“He’ll approve or I’ll strangle him, throw him in the closet and forget the whole thing.”
“Gee, this is a new side of you I hadn’t seen?”
“Stick around. Homicidal maniac is just the beginning of my personality development courtesy of PEMTI.”
She smiled wryly. “I’ll talk to Christine during the class change. You talk to Mr. Lantz.”
“Done. Then I’ll create the simple database for you and Christine to use.”
“She’ll be happy to work with you,” Katie said with a blank expression, then added, “How is Linda going to like your having two gorgeous women in the office?” She giggled.
“She won’t know.”
“Hiding stuff, are we?”
“No, we’re . . . not together anymore,” Dan said, his voice faltering.
“Huh? Why?
“Long story.”
“I have time—working overtime now, remember?” another wry smile.
“Some other time. Let me get on the computer to do the database—just ten minutes to set it up at most. Then I’ll go talk to Marvin.
“O.k. she said,” looking at Dan who was purposely not looking at her with an unusually serious face.
Just then the change of class bell rang, and she headed out to find Christine as Dan quickly set up a simple database and left it on the data entry screen for their use, then moved to his desk and dialed Marvin’s extension.
“Hi Marvin, this is Dan,” he said when Marvin picked up the phone. “I need your permission to give Katie five additional hours a week to help with the library—and I’d like to hire a new work study student, Christine Anderson and possibly also use Paula for an hour or two a day until the project gets completed. I assume that’s fine with you?”
“Whatever you need, Dan. Thanks.” Marvin said and hung up the phone.
No sooner had he done that, the door opened, and Katie walked in with Christine in tow.
“She’ll do it, boss,” Katie said.
“Hello Dean Amor,” Christine said, looking at Dan. “I’ll be happy to help if you can use me.”
“Hi Christine,” Dan said smiling. “I just got approval for you to get assigned to me as a work study student—you’ll have to see Mr. Wiener in HR—I’ll give him a call when you’re ready to go fill out the paperwork.”
“I’m ready now—I’ll just go tell Ms. Hunter that I’ll be a few minutes late for class. I know she’ll be fine with it.”
“Great,” Dan said, “I’ll call him right now.” He then picked up the phone, dialed Bob’s extension and told him he was sending Christine who was to be assigned to him as a work study student for an indefinite period of time.
“Sure thing, Dan,” Bob said, adding “You lucky dog. How come you get all the pretty girls working for you. It’s just not fair.” He then hung up the phone, chuckling.
“All set,” he said.
“So, when do you want me to start?”
“I don’t want to interfere with your classes, how about after your last class? I’m here until around six usually and Gene is here until ten, so you can work with him or with me.
“I’m done around 4:00 p.m. Can I work from then on for two or three hours? I can start today.”
“Perfect Christine. I’m really grateful for your help.”
She gave him a smile that could light a small city and he noticed, not for the first or last time, how incredibly beautiful she was. “Happy to do it—anything you need.” She then walked out.
