Susan Miller

Now my rate tripled...

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The 26-year-old who took my job held up my Rolodex like it was a dead mouse. “Babe. Nobody uses paper anymore.” Then she dropped 31 years of my handwriting in the recycling bin. I smiled, finished training her, and taught her everything except the one name in it that kept that company running. Six weeks later my boss called me begging. My rate had tripled. I smiled, trained her for two weeks, and taught her everything except the one thing that kept that company running. Six weeks later they called me begging. My rate had tripled. Here’s what I left out. For 31 years I ran the office at Brennan Restaurant Supply in Dayton, Ohio. Ovens, fryers, walk-in freezers, every spatula in every diner within 300 miles. I was hired by old Mr. Brennan in 1995. I typed his invoices, answered his phone, and on two different Christmas Eves I drove a replacement fryer to a restaurant myself because the delivery guy had the flu. When Mr. Brennan retired, his son Tyler took over. Tyler is 38. He wears a vest to work and says “circle back” like it means something. In September he called me into his office. There was a girl already sitting in my usual chair. “Carol, this is Kayla. She’s our new Head of Customer Experience.” I said, “That’s my job.” “It was your job. We’re going in a fresh direction. She brings energy, Carol. You bring… experience.” Then he said the part he’d clearly practiced. “You fell asleep in the Q3 meeting. With a pen in your hand. The whole room saw it.” Kayla looked at her nails. He gave me two weeks to train her. A box for my desk. And a handshake he’d probably read about in a leadership book. I smiled. I said, “Of course.” Then I drove home, sat in my garage with the engine off, and didn’t get out for forty minutes. Because I did fall asleep in that meeting. Somewhere after menopause, I’d started running on empty. I was dragging by 10 in the morning and done by 2. I’d sit at my desk at 3 p.m. and read the same email four times. Then I’d lie in bed at 3 a.m., wide awake, staring at the ceiling. My knees cracked when I stood up from my chair. My rings didn’t fit. I’d put on 21 pounds I couldn’t account for, and I spent more on coffee pods than on groceries. I’d tried everything a woman can buy at a pharmacy. B12. Ashwagandha. Magnesium. Collagen in my coffee. Iron. A standing desk I never once stood at. My doctor gave me two minutes and the same sentence as always. “It’s your age, Carol.” So maybe Tyler was right. Maybe I’d become furniture. Kayla started on Monday. On Monday she renamed my files. On Tuesday she filmed a video at my desk for her TikTok: “Day two of corporate girlie era.” On Wednesday she called me “babe” eleven times. I counted. On Thursday she found my Rolodex. Thirty-one years of names, numbers and notes in my handwriting. Whose kid had just started college. Who only ordered on Fridays. Whose husband had passed. She held it up like it was a dead mouse. “Babe. Nobody uses paper anymore.” And she dropped it in the recycling bin. I trained her anyway. I taught her the system. The vendors. The invoices. The return policy. The trucks. Every single thing I knew. Except one. Her name is Dot Haskell. Dot is 76. She owns Haskell’s, 22 diners across Ohio and Kentucky. Every one of them runs on Brennan equipment. Dot alone was 38% of that company. And Dot wasn’t in the computer. She has never sent an email in her life. In 1987 she shook old Mr. Brennan’s hand across a diner counter, and that was the contract. On the first Monday of every month, at 7 a.m. sharp, Dot calls the office landline. I pick up. We talk for twenty minutes about her grandkids, her knees and the weather. Then she places an order worth more than most people’s houses. Before he retired, old Mr. Brennan told me one thing. “Carol, whatever happens to this place, you answer that phone.” Nobody else knew. It was the one thing I’d saved for my last afternoon. On my last afternoon, I walked over to Kayla’s desk to tell her. She didn’t look up from her phone. “Babe, honestly? I’ve got it from here. You can head home early.” I stood there for a second. Then I noticed the landline was gone from the desk. She’d unplugged it and put it in a drawer. “Who even calls landlines?” I could have written it down. I could have gone to Tyler. Instead I walked over to the recycling bin, took my Rolodex out, put it in my box, and went home early. Just like she said. At 4:30 they gave me a sheet cake from the grocery store. In blue icing it said “Happy Retirement, Carol.” I wasn’t retiring. Nobody had asked. The next morning, I drove two hours to Dot’s original diner in Lexington. I wasn’t going to let her hear it from a voicemail. It was 6 a.m. Dot was behind the counter in an apron, carrying a full tub of dishes on her hip, laughing at something a trucker said. 76 years old. Up since 4:30. Hair done. I sat at the counter, and before I could say anything she put a coffee in front of me and said, “Honey. You look like hell.” So I told her everything. Tyler. Kayla. The meeting. The cake. When I got to “she brings energy,” Dot laughed so hard the cook came out to check on her. “Energy? I’ve buried two husbands and a health inspector.” Then she stopped laughing and looked at me for a long time. “But he’s not wrong about you, is he?” I started crying into my coffee. In a diner. At 6 in the morning. Dot sat down next to me. She told me that at 64, she nearly sold all 22 diners. Her sons wanted to move her to a condo in Florida. She was exhausted all day and awake all night, her joints ached, she’d gained weight, and she couldn’t remember her own suppliers’ names. Her doctor told her what mine told me. Then one of her regulars, a retired surgeon who’d eaten two eggs over easy at her counter every morning for 25 years, asked her a question no doctor ever had. “Dot, when did anybody last check your muscle?” She reached under the counter and set down a shaker bottle. Half full. Something purple in it. I told her I’d spent 31 years in an office watching salesmen promise things. “Good,” she said. “Then you’ll know a liar when you see one. I’m not one.” Then she explained it the way only a woman who’s run kitchens for 50 years could. Your muscles run on creatine. Your body only makes about half of what it needs. The rest comes from food, and after menopause most women are running low. Nobody tests for it, so every doctor says it’s your age. And every muscle you’ve got is wrapped in something called fascia. When the muscle runs empty, the wrap around it dries out and goes stiff. So when your muscles slow down, everything slows down with them. You’re tired, so you sit. You sit, so the weight comes and your joints go stiff. Then you stop sleeping. Then your head goes foggy, because your brain runs on creatine too. “You know what happens in a kitchen when the gas line’s half closed?” she said. “Every burner on the stove runs low. You can buy new pans all day long. Won’t matter. You open the line.” I thought about my kitchen cabinet. Seven bottles. Seven new pans. I asked why I couldn’t just buy the tub of creatine my nephew keeps in his gym bag. She said that’s half the job. It fills the muscle and does nothing for the wrap. Hers has collagen for the wrap and electrolytes to carry it all in. One scoop in water, every morning. I asked why no doctor had ever said one word about it. “Because nobody can patent creatine, honey. Who’s going to pay to tell you?” She’s had a scoop every morning for twelve years. Once, she quit to prove to her sons it was nonsense. By day four she was asleep in the office chair at 2 in the afternoon. The shaker came back out that night. For years she mixed three different tubs herself. Now she drinks one. It’s called Sculptique, and it was made by a woman named Lauren, for women our age. Dot made me promise not to buy the cheap tubs online. Most of them are plain creatine made for 25-year-old men. They do nothing for the wrap, and they blow you up like a balloon. Then Dot said something I didn’t expect. “In the spring I’m opening four new locations. I need someone running purchasing for all 26. Every supplier, every truck, every store. On the road. On your feet. 5 a.m. starts.” She tapped the counter. “Get your energy back, and the job’s yours. You’ve got till the first of December. That’s when my Brennan order is due. I want to see what that boy does without you.” I ordered it before I finished my coffee. The first week did nothing. I told Dot so. She said, “Neither does a seed.” The second week, I slept straight through to 6:15. I woke up confused and checked my phone to make sure it was really morning. The third week, I stopped needing the 2 p.m. coffee. Then the 10 a.m. one. The fourth week, I skipped my scoop, because I’m stubborn and I wanted to prove it was the sleep. By day four I was foggy and stiff and asleep on the couch with the TV on. The shaker came back out and I haven’t missed a morning since. By week five I was driving to Lexington twice a week at 4 a.m. to shadow Dot. I walked the kitchens with her. I carried boxes up from the basement storeroom. I stood behind that counter for eight hours and didn’t sit down once. By week six I was down 17 pounds. I never dieted. I just stopped sitting. My rings fit again. Meanwhile, at Brennan Restaurant Supply, the first Monday of November came around. At 7 a.m. sharp, Dot called the office landline. It rang in a drawer. She called again at 7:15. Then at 8. Then she called the main number and got Kayla’s new voicemail. “Hiii! For all inquiries please submit a ticket through our online portal! Have the best day!” Dot is 76. She doesn’t do portals. She placed her order with Brennan’s biggest competitor that afternoon. It took Tyler eleven days to notice that 38% of his company had disappeared. He searched the computer. No Dot. He asked Kayla. Kayla said, “Who’s Dot?” On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, six weeks after my last day, my phone rang. It was Tyler. He didn’t say hello. “Carol. Who is Dot Haskell? And do you still have that… wheel thing?” I was sitting at my kitchen table. My Rolodex was right in front of me. “I do.” “Can you come in? We need you. Just for a few weeks. Whatever we were paying you.” I told him my rate. Triple. Paid weekly. Starting that Monday. And Kayla comes with me. He didn’t even argue. That Monday at 5:30 in the morning, I walked into Dot’s diner in Lexington with Tyler and Kayla behind me. Tyler was yawning. Kayla was in heels. Dot didn’t sit down for that meeting. Dot doesn’t sit down. She walked them through the kitchen, out to the loading dock, down to the basement storeroom and back up the stairs. Twice. I stayed right next to her the whole way. Halfway up the second time, Kayla stopped on the landing with her hand on the wall. Out of breath. Twenty-six years old. “Babe,” she said to me. “How do you have this much energy?” Dot answered for me. “She brings energy. You bring… experience.” Tyler made a sound like a tire losing air. Dot gave Brennan her business back that morning. On one condition. Her account goes through one person, at one rate, and that person is not in a vest. Tyler signed it on the diner counter. Same counter old Mr. Brennan shook her hand on in 1987. And in March, when Dot opens her four new locations, I’ll be running purchasing for all 26. On the drive home that day I ordered four more pouches. Sculptique is 50% off right now, and the more pouches you add, the less each one costs. One for my sister, who still drinks five coffees a day. One for Linda, the receptionist at Brennan, who called me the day I left to say she’d cried in the parking lot. One for Dot’s daughter-in-law, who asked. And one for Kayla’s mom. Kayla asked for that one herself, very quietly, on the loading dock. You get 30 days. If you feel nothing, every penny back. My first week did nothing, so give it the whole month. Last week, Tyler sent an email to the whole company about “bringing new energy into the new year.” He cc’d me. I was at 30,000 feet, flying to Nashville to look at Dot’s new location. I didn’t reply. 👉 https://trysculptique.com/products/new-maximum-potency-formula-creatine-formula-for-women-rbl20