The Office: Cleveland Cavaliers Branch
LJ is our star. She knows it. We know it. Everyone knows it.
She doesn’t know it in a negative way, a selfish way. She’s earned her stardom within this office and within her profession. Pegged for greatness from an early age, she strove to meet her destiny head-on with a superhuman work ethic and drive.
Those of us lucky enough to be in her orbit, a part of her team, take the responsibility of our given tasks in our given cubicles graciously and seriously. When she crushes a presentation, we all crush the presentation, and she repays our contributions by giving us her respect and taking us along for the ride upon her road to professional glory.
And when she’s up there on stage at the end of the year, being presented the award for best branch, she shields her eyes from the spotlight to find us at our table amongst the other branches, and thanks us individually. Yes, she got us there, and yes, she’s the one holding the award, but she wants us to know it is all of ours. And all the pressure and the infighting and the late nights and her frustrations with maybe not having the best team around her at all times boiling over every once in a while, it all disappears with our shared victory.
Until the new year starts.
Until another name is called up on that stage. A name that maybe doesn’t belong in the same category as LJ, from a professional legacy standpoint. A name that possibly… probably… has a better team around them.
To her credit, LJ never points the finger at any of us. She may voice her opinion with the higher ups what she would need to get back up on that stage, but she wouldn’t throw us under the bus. Quite frankly, she’s gotten some of us raises we would have never gotten anywhere else. She skyrocketed our value, and fought for us to be paid accordingly.
But you have to understand, even though she’s in the spotlight, we’re under a magnifying glass and sometimes it’s an asshole kid holding it under the sun. It gets hot where we are. She may not blame us, but we hear the noise. We know that they’re right, for the most part. We may not be holding her back, but we’re not exactly giving her the greatest opportunity at success.
We could be successful in other branches, don’t get me wrong. Individually, we could maybe even lead a branch of our own and fight for a chance to stand up on that stage at some point ourselves in the future. It’s not that she is keeping us down or anything, it’s just that when you don’t operate on her level, on her superhuman, will always find a way to be better than you, work harder than you, work faster than you, level… it just wears you down man. And that asshole kid with the magnifying glass holds his hand a little steadier, and the beam gets hotter, and you just want out of this fucking cubicle and into a nice corner office at a different fucking branch even if that means taking a job in a branch that isn’t quite as built for success right now.
Being a part of something led by someone like LJ is unequivocally special. The weight of which carries a shelf life.
