Growing the Culture

Chapter 1 - Finding New Comfort

Wendy had been a highly successful admin in her early 20s before settling down at 26 with her husband and having four kids in six years. It had been a wonderful and crazy ride, but now that the kids were in school, Wendy had decided to rejoin the workforce.

She’d found the job through one of her mom friends who happened to be married to one of the executives at a local bank. She didn’t really knowing banking, but she knew how to manage an organization and help executives manage their time and resources better, so she’d agreed to take up a new position supporting the whole group.

She bought some new work clothes (as her old ones were now too small and pre-baby body) and enjoyed getting to learn the culture while taking over a lot of responsibilities slowly and intelligently the first few months. It was exhilarating to be back in the work force and out of the house. She quickly figured out that the job was still pretty amorphous for the executives who were used to doing for themselves, so she was able to immediately find usefulness and it made her happy.

One of the regular processes Wendy immediately took over was the group lunch orders, which they happily included Wendy in for taking care of the day-to-day hassle. She would rotate to a new local restaurant each day, and they would prod her to have leftovers and get dessert and have something other than a salad.

By the third month, Wendy noticed that her new skirts were pinching her soft baby belly and hips. She’d never completely eliminated the soft child-bearing bulge, even after swearing she would over five years of aggressive dieting. It didn’t help she was indulging herself and enjoying all the food she got to sample from around the area daily.

Cheryl and Max were the office jokesters. Cheryl was the chief loan officer and Max was the chief finance officer. They would often “blame” each other for the “poor” function of the bank, while in fact collaborating to boost quarterly earnings quarter after quarter.

Cheryl and Max started to include Wendy in their banter, chiding her for not eating enough and picking food that was too healthy. The comedy was that they were both fat people in their mid to late 50s who had worked together since their early 30s. They were comfortable with themselves and with each other. They started to push Wendy to relax her own food barriers and indulge with both of them.

Wendy slowly gave in. By her fourth month, she started to notice her belly was rounding out again instead of just being pudgy. She had lunch one day with Cheryl in her office while they talked about kids. While taking notes and eating from the platter of food Cheryl carried in at the beginning of the meeting, Wendy suddenly realized that she felt very full as Cheryl insisted they both have some donuts for dessert.

“Come on. I need a partner so I don’t feel so bad about this.”
“Oh… I already ate more than I thought. I’m full.”
“That means you’re on the right track. Come on. Eat up.”

Wendy ended up eating two Boston crèmes, and walked back to her desk feeling the waist band biting sharply into her expanded belly. Despite that experience, Wendy started to eat with Cheryl more often, and enjoyed indulging more and more each time.