The Envelope of Sand

Once there was a talented young woman who was very good in advertising sales. She was hired by the publisher of an extremely successful chain of weekly newspapers. Upon hiring her, however, the publisher, who understood that the young woman’s husband could only take vacations at particular times of the year, agreed that the young woman need not abide by the “All advertising employees may not take vacations when there are special advertising supplements.” He and the young woman reviewed the special supplement schedule and realized that, in fact, there was at least one that might be affected – “Automotive” – for which she had no accounts anyway.

The young woman built an extremely loyal group of clients and was known for her expertise in servicing them efficiently and creatively, especially in copy writing. Her husband, who was a brilliant yacht sales broker, was also doing well. (He did, unfortunately, have a habit of lying, which made living with him a bit of a challenge for the young woman.)

At one point, the husband and his wife became quite friendly with a very wealthy couple who were boating customers. They enjoyed each other’s company so much, in fact, that the wealthy couple invited the less well-off couple to join them in St. Lucia for a week – fully paid. The husband’s employer was quite pleased; this could be excellent for the yacht business.

The newspaper publisher, however, was disturbed that the young woman wanted a week off at the time of a special automotive advertising supplement, and refused to honor their original agreement. The young woman was terribly disappointed in his lack of integrity. She knew that she could not quit her job, however, since she was concerned about her husband’s increasing lying and that he might lose his position if something couldn’t be done about it. So, she continued in the job with as much vigor as she could muster after she shrugged off the disappointment.

The following Sunday, the weekly free newspaper that circulated to a large number of homes featured a story on the front page about prostitution. It was not a bad story; it was, however, presented in such a tasteless way that the young woman – who had believed in ethical journalism – was horrified that she had sold space in the edition of the paper. She contacted the publisher, who she had thought shared her point of view, but his response was basically, “Oh, well, that’s what it takes to get people to read the paper and see the ads.”

This added to the young woman’s dismay over her treatment in regard to the vacation policy. In fact, she was so incensed, that she went to her local advertising manager and said she was very sorry and she could not continue to represent the newspaper chain. She went home and told her husband to go ahead and let their friends know they could join them in St. Lucia. She typed a letter of resignation, took it along, and sent it from the island in an envelope containing a fair measure of sand. She and her husband, along with their friends, then had a lovely, relaxing vacation.

Since the young woman was a local resident and saw many of her former clients in the months following, she heard of their dismay over her departure. She accepted a position with a new start-up newspaper that had a “fun” time competing with her former publisher, who lost at least a healthy portion of revenue.

The young woman then went to work for a large international advertising firm as an account executive. She did well, but it was a long commute and very demanding job. So, when she received a call from the newspaper chain publisher who needed an advertising manager for one of his publications, she decided to go speak with him, if for no other reason than possibly to mend some fences. They had a good talk, during which he admitted that she had given him quite a few sleepless nights when she worked for the competing newspaper, and that he had – possibly – been wrong in his handling of the “vacation” situation. They parted amicably and the young woman said she would “think over” his offer.

Ultimately, she decided that one can’t necessarily go home again, and there remained some major trust issues for her. So, she stayed with the advertising agency, which was a good career decision money-wise; she had finally given up trying to “reform” her lying husband and gotten a divorce. This meant that when an honest, loving man entered her life, she could marry again and have two lovely children – to whom she could tell a story about integrity in the workplace and an envelope filled with sand.