Death by Manicure: The Case of the Poison Polish. Dr. Robert T. Spalding Jr.
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he used to fantasize about creating something spectacular that would make him a rich man who wouldn’t have to work for the rest of his life. He envisioned success with such things as a magic youth potion for instance, something that appealed to the vanity of the masses. The advantage of working in the beauty industry, Tad decided, was that there would always be a market for beauty products; after all, looking good never seemed to go out of fashion. Perhaps one day in the future people would care less about their appearances, but it was still all conjecture. The leading beauty companies were willing to gamble that things would not change too drastically for a considerable time and continued to spend considerable amounts of money to create new or varied products that they hoped would bring in far greater monetary rewards. Of course trends would come and go but that was a different matter entirely. In the mean time, Tad plodded along with a real job, while he still dreamed and plotted about some magnificent success.
The term “beauty” was a complex beast. It encompassed several elements like what someone physically looked like called the foundations. Then what someone added on top in terms of cosmetics and could eventually become. Also, there was the more physical element of what clothes to wear. Some would argue that clothes were fashion and not beauty, but those who were wise in the beauty industry knew that the two went hand in hand. For example if the gothic look suddenly became mega-popular it would affect the sales of both clothes and make-up with no one element being more important than the other and the two elements were mutually dependable if the look was going to work.
What was “in” last year might not be in the next year, but the desire to look good remained a constant and that was the key aspect. Take that away and the beauty industry would lose its foundation.
In recent times the pressure to look good would often put people in danger, like the models whose health would suffer as they strove to get the size zero look, and for those who became so paranoid that they weighed too much when their weight was normal.
The competition in the beauty industry was always fierce and the key to success was being able to successfully preempt what the next “in” thing would be. Greed had motivated Tad to skim a little off the top at his longtime place of employment. Now he needed money not to make his life-style more lavish, but just to merely survive, and he continued to take greater risks at work.
With his new nail polish enterprise floundering that he recently started, Tad found himself in financial debt for the first time since his college days. He could no longer keep up the repayments on the loan that he had taken out. The new business was making some money but not enough to turn a profit. It all hung on the classic phrase “To make money you have to spend money.”
Times had changed since he had joined ZOPIE as a fresh-faced college graduate in the ‘70s. It was a fact that people were willing to spend significantly more, in terms of a percentage of their income, on their personal appearance in the 21st century, but now it was a time of recession. And it was also a much more modern world now. There were so many avenues through which today’s consumer could be rich. Newspapers, television, radio, the Internet, junk mail to name but a few.
ZOPIE had gotten big because it had moved with the times and hired marketing experts, and that was a big difference between the major company and Tad’s business venture. Tad had the skills but no idea how to market his products. Did he know the cost of advertising space in a local newspaper? Did he have contacts at local radio stations that could sell his discounted airtime for advertisements? Did he know how to set up and maintain a Web site? Could he come up with an eye-catching flyer and arrange to have it bulk-printed and mailed to local households? The answer was “no” to all these questions. This was not to say that anyone who had ventured out on his own business was doomed to fail, but it helped to have a game-plan well in advance of taking the plunge.
And then one of the worst things that could happen happened. Tad didn’t know if anyone else would employ him when ZOPIE decided to let him go. News of his firing did make it into several local papers but it was hardly scandal worthy of the front page. He still had some pride left and was loathe being made to look small at interviews by someone who might have heard of him. Many companies nowadays ran detailed checks on potential employees and that would be a barrier to even getting an interview. There was a touch of paranoia at play, the reality being that for some companies their policy was not to discriminate against convicted criminals.
The real kicker was that technically Tad wasn’t a criminal in the sense that he had been arrested. ZOPIE’s legal team had decided that it would be in the company’s best interest not to take legal action as long as he paid back what he had taken. They figured that the publicity that taking legal action would attract would be negative to the company’s image. After all they would be going on record as admitting that they failed to spot illegal activity within their company for many years. They thought that it would make them look a laughing stock in court and in the beauty industry.
Tad had to pay it all back, but he still got fired and had no hope of ever working for them again. He was paranoid that his name would go onto some sort of beauty industry blacklist. It never actually happened, but the bigwigs at all the big beauty companies were aware of his fall from grace and his name was effectively mud now. Rumors that were flying around ZOPIE after Tad had departed were that he had been like a sacrificial lamb that was meant to send out a loud and clear message to all ZOPIE employees that the new hierarchy meant business. Tad could just picture the small talk around the water coolers over the next few days:
“Hey did you hear what happened to old Barger?”
“Yeah I did; better watch our butts or we could be next and the excuses for canning people will most likely get smaller each time.”
But Tad couldn’t really blame them if they were talking about him. He would most likely have done the same thing. Nobody had rushed to help him save his job. A few people had expressed their sadness that he was going and some asked him to keep in touch. But just how much of that was insincere was anybody’s guess. In a few weeks everyone at ZOPIE would have moved on. Tad needed to move on as well.
CHAPTER 5
For the first few weeks of his sudden freedom from having to work Tad actually enjoyed having a more relaxed lifestyle. He could get up when he felt like it and not be in a rush to get ready to go to work. He could sit around his house all day in his pyjamas if he felt like it. And sometimes he did, or rather he made himself do it just for the simple fact that he could. He was his own boss for once.
Eventually he applied to a few cosmetics companies in Texas hoping that something would happen. The bills didn’t stop coming in just because regular checks did, and they still had to be paid. He had not ruled out the idea of relocating to a different state. After all Texas was not exactly the beauty capital of the world. There were much more glamorous states and cities; New York, Los Angeles and Chicago to name but three.
The letters he had been getting back from potential new employers were of the standard, “We thank you for your interest in our company but we are not hiring at the present time,” variety. Some added a few frills and bows to the effect that the company would keep his resume on file and be in contact if a suitable vacancy arose in the future, but Tad was not holding his breath. Some company’s idea of a file was the wastepaper basket; that was just a harsh fact of life. The simple truth was that most companies, at least the good ones, got far more people interested in working for them than they could ever hope to employ. Times were hard and many companies were tightening the purse strings and cutting jobs rather than creating more positions.
Also, being on the wrong side of 40 didn’t exactly count in his favor. Experience usually was a dominant factor but only up to a point. Just a few years makes the difference between a person who had a wealth of experience and a person who was ready to be slung on the scrap heap. Tad had given the best years of his life to ZOPIE without a doubt and his best years were behind him in the eyes of any new potential employer. He never really took stock of the money that his innovations had made for the company, but he estimated that by the time he left ZOPIE, it was into seven digits.
At length, tired of too much freedom and no income, Tad decided that it was time to get off his butt and do something to pick himself up out of the doldrums.