NICK SPITZMAN

Gravity

After grinding many years at startups, Ryan finally decided to go into Big Corporate. Working on interesting tech was great, but as he entered his thirties, what seemed really great was finishing work at 5 p.m., the equity actually being worth something, and a paycheck that came every two weeks no matter what kind of month the company had. He was tired, and it was time.

The recruiter called him to give him the details of the offer. She sounded junior and read from a script, clearly not understanding all the terms. Afterwards, she emailed him the contract to review. It all seemed fair. After a couple of days of thinking about it, he called the recruiter back.

“I’m really excited about joining, but before I sign, I have one request. In my last few companies, the equity went to zero. I want to be really committed here, and I like the long-term potential of this company. I know this is unusual, but would it be possible to lower the salary in exchange for more stock options?”

“I’d have to ask management,” the recruiter said.

That night, his hiring manager called him. “Are you sure you want to work here?” the manager said.

“I’m very sure. Why?”

“HR told me you wouldn’t sign, and that you want more salary and less stock. That really sends the wrong signal before you even start. There are people here talking about rescinding your offer.”

“There seems to be some miscommunication here. I said exactly the opposite.”

“HR said you’re worried because you ended up not being paid by your previous companies, so now you want higher pay.”

“No, that’s not quite what I said.”

There was silence. It wasn’t clear if the manager believed him.

“Look,” Ryan said, “I’m sorry about all this. I’ll sign the offer as-is. I honestly don’t know how this happened. I’m excited to join.”

He went in for his first day. The first email in his inbox was a message from the chief of staff introducing him to the whole company. His last name was misspelled with an extra i. His college was listed as Penn State, not UPenn. His title was missing the “senior.”

At his first one-on-one with his manager, they went over his responsibilities. At the end, Ryan decided to bring it up. “This is a little awkward, but the intro email that went out today had a few errors.”

“I noticed that too,” the manager said.

“Should I—”

“No. It’s not worth it.”

“What if I just reply-all to the email and introduce myself, not even mentioning the mistakes, but it would have my name spelled correctly, and my title, and where I went to college, so it’s—”

“No. Correcting someone senior like that, and in public, is not a good idea. It just sends the wrong signal.”

The next day, his manager came into his office around lunch. “Hey. We missed you this morning at the financial review meeting.”

“I’m sorry, which meeting? I had no meetings on my calendar today.”

“Finance runs it every Tuesday at 9 a.m. You should have gotten an invite. Check your email.”

He checked. Nothing. He turned his screen around to show his manager the empty calendar.

His manager didn’t look like he believed him. “I’ll forward you the email,” he said, and walked out.

A few minutes later, Ryan received the forwarded email from the manager. In the thread, he saw that finance had misspelled his last name with an extra i, so he had never received it. He took a screenshot and sent this to his manager, explaining the sender’s error, likely caused by the intro email with the same misspelling. The manager never replied.

The next day, his manager came in again and closed the door. “Hey. You weren’t at the SLT meeting this morning.”

“SLT?”

“Senior Leadership Team. It’s for senior directors and up. I had a speech ready to introduce you to the whole team, but you weren’t there. It really makes me look bad,” he said. “And it makes you look bad too. And this early in your tenure, it really sends the wrong signal.”

“This is weird,” he said. “I didn’t have anything on my calendar, again.”

“You need to figure this out,” the manager said, and left.

Ryan went to the IT counter. “For some reason, I’m not getting some calendar invites. Can you help?”

“Sure, let’s test it.” The IT guy sent him an invite. It showed up on his calendar immediately.

“Weird. This morning, my manager said I should have received an SLT invite that I never received.”

“That goes out only to senior directors and above.”

“I’m a senior director,” he said.

The IT guy pulled up his profile in the system. “Well, according to this, you’re a director. Someone in HR must have put in the wrong title when they put you in the system. If you get your manager to send us an email confirming your title, we can fix it.”

He thanked the IT guy and went straight to the HR department. The head of HR happened to be in her office and waved him in. “Hi! You’re the new director, right? How is your first week going?”

“I think—” Ryan paused, unsure if he should say it. “I think I may be getting sabotaged here.”

“By whom?” she asked, taken aback.

“I don’t know exactly. Everybody, it seems. Something is not right.”

“But you are brand new.”

“Yes.”

“So after just a couple of days of working here, you have angered enough people that they are actively trying to harm your career?”

“It started even before my first day, when I was negotiating my offer. But no, that’s not the point. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Either you did actually do something very wrong to elicit this behavior from your colleagues, or you are imagining this… persecution. I’m afraid both possibilities are really not good for your optics here.”

“This is crazy. I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong, then,” he said.

“I’m sorry you are going through this. Do you want an executive coach? They can help in situations like this.”

“And what exactly is this situation?”

The head of HR did not reply but wrote a small note on the corner of her paper. Ryan couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the word difficult.

“OK, OK,” he said. “I’ll talk to a coach.”

“Here is her number,” the head of HR said, handing him a card. “I recommend you call her ASAP, so you can still make the most of your first week.”

He got back to his desk and was able to reach the coach. They had their first call right then, and she was a breath of fresh air. He felt understood.

“You haven’t worked in corporate before, have you?” she asked.

“No. This is my first time.”

“Corporate is like this,” the coach said. “All this stuff you’re describing, it’s baked into the package. That’s part of the job. Disorganization, incompetence, unaccountability—it’s like a natural force. It’s not for you to be confused by or offended by. It’s for you to foresee, to circumvent, to handle elegantly. You shouldn’t even bring it up to your manager or to HR or whoever else. It sends the wrong signal.”

“But I feel like it’s actually holding me back,” he said. “How am I supposed to climb the corporate ladder and all that if at every turn I’m getting hit with this nonsense?”

“When you climb a real ladder, do you worry about gravity? Do you complain about gravity pulling you down?”

“No.”

“There you go.”

He felt better after the talk with the coach. But after work, outside in the parking lot, he couldn’t find his car. He went to talk to the security guard at the front.

“Oh yeah, I saw them towing a blue sedan earlier today. Was that yours?”

He got the address to the towing yard and Ubered there. He paid the fee. While they were retrieving his car, he asked the guy at the desk: “Do you know who called this in? Or what reason they gave for the tow?”

“Well, whoever has authority over that parking lot. If it’s a private parking lot, we don’t really verify the reason. That’s not our job.”

“OK, but in a big corporate parking lot like that, without assigned parking, in the middle of the day, with hundreds of other cars there, what possible reason could there have been to tow my car? Specifically my car?”

“Buddy, I don’t know. Take it up with your company.”

“I can’t,” he said. “It sends the wrong signal.”

“Then I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“Please help me. I’m trying to figure out how this could have happened. I think my company is sabotaging me.”

“Look, man, I just work here,” he said, and turned his back.

On the drive home, Ryan called the coach. “This couldn’t have been an accident. I’m not crazy; someone has it out for me here. This isn’t just everyday incompetence or gravity or whatever.”

“Have you heard of Hanlon’s Razor?” the coach said. “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.”

The next day, he fought back the urge of mentioning the tow to anyone, determined not to send the wrong signal.

His manager came by his office. “I heard your car got towed,” the manager said.

“Yes,” he said, neutrally.

“Man, tough break.”

“Yes. Sure is.”

“Anyway, do you want to do lunch in my office today? I have some ideas I want to discuss with you, and lunch is the only time I have open.”

“Absolutely, sounds great.”

“Great. Come up at 12:30. Please tell Jo what you want to order from Ratana’s Thai.”

The manager left. Ryan looked up the menu online and Slacked Jo. “Hi, Jo, I’m coming for lunch at 12:30. Just wanted to confirm my order from Ratana’s. Chicken sandwich, no peanut sauce (I have a bad allergy). Thank you!”

Jo replied with a thumbs-up emoji.

The lunch went smoothly. The manager told him about big ideas for their department and even let him in on a confidential acquisition happening next month. It felt like things were finally turning around. As they were wrapping up, Jo came in with a plate of sweets.

“Macaroons?” the manager asked, smiling.

“Of course!” she said. “Your favorite!”

Jo left the plate and closed the door.

“Jo is the best,” the manager said. There was genuine affection in his voice. “I would be lost without this woman. Try this macaroon; it’s incredible.”

“I don’t know if I should,” he said. “I have a nut allergy. Macaroons often have nuts.”

“Did you tell Jo about the nut allergy?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, then you’re fine. Try it.”

He took a macaroon from the box. It was indeed delicious. Before he had even finished chewing, his throat began tingling and closing up. He turned red.

“Are you OK?” the manager asked.

“No. I think there are nuts in this.”

“There can’t be,” the manager said. “You told Jo about the nuts.” Then he shouted: “Jo, get in here!”

Jo rushed in.

“Jo, are there nuts in the macaroons?” the manager asked.

“I don’t know, why?”

“Didn’t he tell you he was allergic to nuts?”

“He said not to get peanut sauce for the chicken sandwich.”

“Jo, call an ambulance!” the manager barked.

“No,” Ryan said, grabbing her by the arm. “Go to my desk. I have an EpiPen in the right drawer.”

Jo rushed out. Others nearby had heard the shouting and were craning their necks from their cubicles or walking over to see what was happening.

“You’re going to be OK,” the manager was saying repeatedly, unsure of what else to do.

Ryan could breathe, but with difficulty. His cheeks and eyelids swelled up. His blood pressure dropped, but he tried to remain sitting upright, to not cause more panic by falling off the chair.

“Do you want me to call an ambulance?” someone asked from the door.

“No,” the manager said. “Jo’s got it all under control.”

Ryan vomited onto the carpeted floor. Some got on the manager’s shoes. Then Ryan fell off the chair. For about two minutes, it actually seemed like he was going to die. His airways were closing, and his vision became blurry. There was a crowd around him now, arguing about calling an ambulance, or Slacking to check where Jo was, or finding Gary from accounting on the second floor who also had EpiPens, but it turned out to be insulin.

This was the end, he thought, death by anaphylaxis on the blue carpet of a cheesy corporate office, next to a pile of his own vomit, while these clucking hens couldn’t figure out how to keep him from dying. He began to lose consciousness. But then, after way too long for the round trip to his office, Jo came back with the EpiPen. Ryan gave himself the shot. He was able to move to a couch, and within minutes he was breathing normally.

The next day he asked for a meeting with HR. Enough was enough. He had almost died.

“I heard about the incident at your manager’s office yesterday,” the head of HR said. “That was really unfortunate.”

“‘Unfortunate’ is a euphemism,” he said, no longer able to hold back. “I almost died. This woman’s incompetence could have literally killed me.”

“It was an honest mistake,” she said.

“Look, like I said last time, there is something going on here. I told someone that I had a nut allergy, and hours later, she is serving me something with nuts.”

“Jo is a valued member of the team,” she said. “Your manager rates her very highly. She’s been with him for over ten years.”

“Why is that important?”

The head of HR seemed genuinely confused by the question. “In Q4 we conduct 360 feedback globally,” she said. “At that time you can maybe provide feedback to Jo that she should be more careful with food allergies. It could be a development opportunity for her.”

He got up as politely as he could and left. Back in his office, he called his coach and caught her up on the latest. “I know everything you said about incompetence being a normal part of corporate life, a natural force, but all these things, cumulatively, it’s all just too improbable. There’s no amount of incompetence that explains singling out my car among hundreds, for no apparent reason. Or giving me something with nuts, hours after I mention I have a nut allergy.”

“You like the aphorisms,” the coach said. “Have you heard of Occam’s Razor?”

“About the most obvious explanation typically being the right one?”

“Yes. So maybe they just towed the wrong car. Tow truck guys are not the brightest. They make mistakes. And maybe the assistant really didn’t think about the nuts in the macaroons. It happens.”

“No way. Just, no way. It’s too much. I’m not imagining this.”

The coach was silent for a moment. “OK. In that case, maybe the corollary to Hanlon’s Razor applies. It’s related to the one I told you, about not attributing to malice what you can attribute to incompetence.”

“And what’s the corollary?”

“An advanced enough level of incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.”

Right as he hung up with the coach, an invite popped up on his screen. “Catch-up.” It was with his manager, at 4:30 p.m.

At 4:30 he went to his manager’s office. Jo was at her desk outside the door and gave him a polite and carefree smile, as if nothing had happened.

He opened the door and stepped inside. His manager was there with the head of HR.

“Hi, Ryan, have a seat,” the manager said. “We’ve come to a difficult conclusion, that unfortunately this may not be a good place for you.”

“I agree,” Ryan said. “But I’m curious, why exactly?”

“Well,” the head of HR began, “in just your first few days, you have lodged complaints about the recruiter, the company’s chief of staff, the HR data entry associate, and even your own manager’s executive assistant. You have complained about mistakes as small as a simple typo. We’re just not sure you can be a team player.”

“I don’t recall ever ‘lodging any complaints,’ per se.”

“We also received a complaint from a vendor about your behavior. This has caused the vendor to terminate their relationship with us.”

“That’s weird,” Ryan said. “I don’t deal with vendors.”

She checked her notes. “This came from the facilities department. A vendor called to complain about an employee of ours coming to their location and harassing one of their employees. I can’t offer more details.”

“I don’t even know what to say.”

“Additionally, the cost of your executive coach is beyond the budget allocated for your role.”

“You offered that.”

“Yes, but I do not control the budget for your department. Your accepting it has meant that your department is running over budget for labor costs. It’s highly unusual and frankly not a good look for an employee to cause a budget overage in their first week. It’s also not customary for senior directors to have executive coaches. They are reserved for SVP roles and above.”

“Incredible,” Ryan said.

“Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, we cannot guarantee your physical safety. You’ve stated that your employment here puts you in danger, so we know this resonates with you.”

“Danger?”

“Your comment today was” – she looked at her notes – “‘this woman wanted to kill me.’”

“I don’t think that’s exactly what I said.”

“So, if you don’t feel safe here, we are likely not a good fit for your career.”

He paused as he absorbed this last comment, taking in the head of HR’s dispassionate, scientific tone. No one was to blame; there was no malice, no incompetence, no agency; it was just “not a fit.”

“OK,” he said.

“So, as a next step, we wanted to invite you to collect your things and leave the premises. We will deposit your final check next week as well as any reimbursements or monies due.”

“Absolutely,” he said, getting up. “But before I go, I have one question.”

“We are not legally required to answer questions,” the head of HR said. “But you can ask.”

“What if I had actually died?”

The head of HR seemed perplexed by the question.

The manager chimed in. “Listen. I know it didn’t work out here, but I wanted to give you some advice for your next role. I’ve been doing this corporate thing for a long time. You have to relax. It’s not like it’s life or death.”

Nick Spitzman is a fiction writer based in Austin, Texas. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in One Story, Expat Press, Half and One, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Fiction on the Web, and Flash Fiction Magazine. He received an Honorable Mention from Glimmer Train, attended the 2026 Disquiet International Literary Program, and is a Spring 2027 resident at Vermont Studio Center.

Website: nickspitzman.com
IG: @nick.spitzman
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