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flustered like always. She’s a
micro-manager who loves dissecting news articles depicting public relations
disasters and she loves, loves, loves to be in control. She is, for some reason
inexplicably terrifying. I remind myself again for the thousandth time not to
think badly of Ellie. Not only is she my boss, but she also took a chance on a twenty-two
year old with no experience or connection to her company. She hired me and I
like to believe it was because of my great interview, but I think it had more
to do with my mention of being from Illinois. Ellie is from Indiana and her
eyes lit up when I told her. I think she was looking for a protégé to mold into
a mini control freak like her. I never conformed and as much as she liked to
come down on me, she knew our little team was her ticket to catapult her
company beyond her vision. She started the company at eighteen and has kept it
running for thirty plus years, but had never seen the success that Melinda, Bob
and I brought. We landed a gold mine six years ago and didn’t even know it.
    Ellie begins the meeting with a
schedule of events that need promoting and continues on to the nightmare of
dividing and conquering the new client list. This seems to go on for hours and
I zone out. Dropping my phone twice with a loud clatter on the table warrants
nasty looks from Ellie and a slight laugh from Bob. I mouth “sorry” to Ellie
but she seems unfazed by my ill-fated attempts to feign interest. It doesn’t
concern me. There will be no new clients assigned to Melinda, Bob or me. After
six years our little group should have been disbanded, we should be independent
of each other taking on our own clients, traveling alone, being lonely. Yet our
clients became so accustomed to having at least two of us present at press
junkets or grand openings or interviews that we remained intact. We branched
away somewhat, each of us having someone that worked only with one of us, but
we always bounced ideas off each other and treated the clients as a whole
rather than belonging to one person. Ellie dismisses the meeting and I realize
an hour has passed and I have no idea what went on. Whoops!
    “Melinda, Kristin and Bob I need you
to remain behind. We have some business to attend to and I want your full
attention.” All three of us stare at Ellie. She’s tapping her pointed toed pump
on the ground as the rest of the group shuffles out the door. The annoyance is
evident as she sighs heavily.
      “Okay, here’s the deal. I received an
email this morning from Debi Miller, Kathy’s assistant, of Green Pea Baby. I
guess there was some backlash from her customers regarding changes to her
products that she failed to mention. Some chemical additions in efforts to save
money on production. Customers have had awful reactions to the changes and are
now emailing and forwarding pictures to her of their broken and burned skin. And
in Debi’s words, Kathy “lost her shit” and shot off a mass email to every
customer on their email list. She claims that it could ruin the company. Not
only did she send the email, but also she turned into a screaming lunatic
outside her Calabasas store.” Ellie pulls her hand through her hair and shakes
her head. She thrives on this shit even though she wants everyone to think she
can’t handle a minute more.
    Green Pea Baby was one of our first
clients. We worked for hours on end with Kathy to promote her product. She had
created baby shampoos and washes in BPA free plastic containers using only
natural ingredients. We pushed the product into the hands of every retailer who
would take it. She opened her store in Calabasas with a lavish party and seemed
fit to enjoy her early retirement. But recently cracks began to show in the
façade and to say I’m surprised she “lost her shit” would be a lie. She wanted
to create a product she could be proud of and it never really mattered if it
went very far. This was our first lesson in knowing your clients. We