▸ Column · Modern Gotham syndicate-era office, advice solicited from the Penguin's underworld column
THE PENGUIN replies.
Replied to by The Penguin, with a rebuttal from Batman.
The letter
Mr. Cobblepot — there's a woman two desks over, Priya, passing the hat for our floor manager's retirement. Doug. Forty a head from all twelve of us, for a weekend at some vineyard resort. Trouble is Doug spent three years making my life small — the sighs over my work, the "feedback" that's really just contempt, and mangling my name on purpose after I've corrected him more times than I can count. I mumbled "I'll think about it," but now the Slack reminders are piling up and I can feel the room turning. Funding Doug's wine weekend while I daydream about never seeing his face again is almost a joke. I don't want to wound Priya or become the cheapskate they whisper about by the coffee machine. Is there a dignified way out, or do I plug my nose and send the forty?
The Penguin replies
My dear correspondent, you've mistaken a transaction for an obligation — a common affliction among the gainfully meek. Forty dollars to gild a tyrant's retirement? I would sooner feed my own umbrellas to the harbor. A gentleman of business never funds the comfort of a man who spent three years pecking at him. That isn't generosity, my pet — that's tribute, and you pay tribute only to those who can still hurt you. Doug is leaving. His talons are clipped. Waugh-waugh!
So. We do not refuse loudly — vulgar, and it makes you the office villain you so fear. No. You go to Priya, all warmth, and announce you'll organize the card. The card, the toasts, the little speech. You give your time, not your coin, and you become the indispensable one everyone remembers fondly — while your forty stays warm in your pocket. Priya is charmed. The flock follows the bird who hosts.
And the name he never learned? At the farewell, you say yours — slowly, beautifully — so the whole room learns it correctly the day he stops mattering. Let him remember it. I always land on top, old bird. You shall too.
— The Penguin
Batman weighs in
Cobblepot turns lunch money into a racket. He always does.
Listen to me. It is not forty dollars. It is whether you can say no without lying.
Don't organize the card to dodge the bill. Don't perform fondness you don't feel. That's his trick — leverage dressed up as charm.
Tell Priya the truth, quietly. You'll sign the card. You won't fund the resort. No speech. No angle.
Doug mispronounced your name for three years. Note that. People who erase you do it on purpose. Watch the next one who tries.
Keep your money. Keep your record clean. That matters more than the break room.
— Batman
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