What I Did That Day

An Ode to My Former Teammates at IBM

Heya, so you know what I did? Took the day off 
to think about what was actually happening, 
was really going on behind the scenes, behind 
the screens and the gaslighting. I mean, I got up 
like any other day, let the dog out. Freshened her 
water. Made coffee for me and my husband, not
necessarily all in that order. I took out my big bag 
of meds from my file cabinet that serves as a my
homespun pharmacy, sat at my makeshift desk, 

the one with all the monitors and keyboards, lit 
a scented candle, dispensed my own pills, double 
checking instructions because you know how it is 
when you’re doing things first thing in the morning
and you didn’t sleep well the night before. I put on 
my fat neck collar so I could think without hurting, 
tried to pen a short poem, but what do you think I 

discovered? The more I wrote, the more in pain
I became, not just for myself but for us, how every 
fucking day was the same, an hourly enduring of tricks
and lies. And I thought how we tried and tried again 
to fix it, to tell them what they were doing to us—only 
to be talked over, looked over, run over. And I didn’t think 
it fair. And since we’d been told, “Don’t come to us with 
problems, Come to us with solutions,” that is what I did, 
mapping out background and context and exactly what 
required intervention only they had the power to provide. 

And by the time the draft made it to y’all, well, you were
good and ready to add three more pages, and by that time, 
we had eight, a litany of long brewed grief, the dark kind, 
the gritty kind, the kind recording each acidic moment,
a diuretic no one ever asks the doctor for. And though 
the document was sent by the three of us, I took the fall 
for us all because I was the easiest target: older, vocal, 
experienced, the only remaining female, documented 
with disabilities, a half-Lebanese writer, completely 
expendable. And please don’t misunderstand, guys—
I didn’t blame you in the least! It had nothing to do 

with our team or friendship, and everything to do with 
them, how they got back at me, surreptitiously setting 
in-person meetings, leaving me out of conversations, 
refusing to complete my paperwork, blocking, mocking 
until they got what they wanted and I finally had to leave. 
But hey, at least I had my morning glory, the easy sun 
through my big bedroom window, the pant of our crazy 
boxer who inevitably would want a walk. And so I took

her, bringing my hiking stick and car keys, driving the short 
distance it’s still safe for me to drive, walking off-trail just 
in case we ran into another animal. Because the last thing
I wanted was another fight for life, another excruciating 
case of resource guarding, snarling and bleeding over
something like food on the table, bills paid on time, things
like a god given right. And even now, I keep my vigilant dog 
on her retractable leash, writing my peaceful morning routine: 
candle lit, husband snoring in our old bed, our doggo waiting

for breakfast. And while I am still in the fight for my livelihood, 
waiting to see the surgeon yet again, waiting to find what’s
wrong with my limbs, why my hands shake, and I can’t feel 
my fingertips anymore, it somehow is all okay for now. 
Because they have to live with what they did, what they 
conspired to do, what they consciously took from all of us
and I will sit here silently writing my life, listening to the new 
thunderstorm roll in like a spiritual, typing our way for us 
to justice, and believe me, guys, they eventually will pay. 

Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, copyright April 11, 2024, all rights reserved