Not Quite 30-Love

#HotWater, #LinzCrisis

#HotWater, #LinzCrisis

A shower interrupted reading the hate emails and digital media manual. As the steaming water ran down my face, I considered drafting my resignation letter. A moment of silence for the great career that could have been – then it hit me, a moment’s silence. I turned off the water and dripped my way to the bedroom, grabbing my phone. I fired off a message on w******p to Jane. It seemed pretty strange communicating with my boss over this casual network. I didn’t want to call her and had noticed a comment in the manual about this being a cost-effective mechanism to reach team members. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt you, Jane, but I was wondering if a moment’s silence on all WTA courts at the start of play today, to commemorate students lost around the world in g*n violence, might be a form of atonement for my mistake.’

I dripped and waited, waited and dripped, and then the reply. ‘We are currently working on an idea along similar lines. I will draft the press release and get back to the team with details about how to handle everything. Don’t move without my say so.’

How dumb does she think I am? Pretty f*****g dumb. I messaged back. ‘Will await instructions.’

**

Dressed appropriately for the day ahead – in black. The black trousers, black shirt and sensible shoes mourned the senseless s*******r of innocents and the destruction of my career. I felt partially responsible for the death of these ten youngsters – social media agreed with me. The hate coming over the net was visceral. Sure, the timing of the post was a mistake, but it shouldn’t have been. Celebrating people graduating from any class should not be misconstrued for anything more than that. Had we lost all perspective in the desperate search for blame?

I waited for a car in the hotel lobby, with no idea who knew that I was the one who posted the caption. Eyes bored into me from every direction. I imagined being on the run Jason-Bourne style – every person, seen or unseen, a potential assassin.

In the corner of the lobby was a large flat-screen TV. It was tuned to what must have been the equivalent of Good Morning Linz. It had all the hallmarks of breakfast TV, including the male and female hosting duo – complete with their perfectly complementary hair, skin and smiles. The couch contained guests dressed in their best suits, looking grave and knowledgeable. The subtitles were in German, but there were no prizes for guessing today’s debate. Behind the coiffed analysts was the image of our players throwing their hats in the ring with the ‘School’s Out’ tag in English below. This was the equivalent of a modern-day lynching run by ‘social experts’. They debated back and forth, the female host getting heated on several occasions and putting her hand on the chest of her male counterpart, pushing him back in an attempt to make her point – I have no idea what that point was. Then the mood changed. The stakes escalated in a way that was difficult to understand without volume or language skills. A question was written on the screen behind them – an adjunct to my caption. The phrase clearly bothered the younger male guest. I grabbed my phone and took a picture of the screen: ‘WTA Soziale Medien Fehler oder Absicht?’ Someone would have to translate for me.

My new colleague Marine exited the lift and stood by me. ‘Have you got a car?’

‘Still waiting, they said it wouldn’t be long.’ Marine put her hand on my shoulder for a nanosecond and then withdrew it. She smiled at me. We met 23 hours ago. Today was her second day in the job as well. I had six months experience in various tennis jobs, she had none – she had ten years experience working in Formula One racing. She was average height and had shoulder length jet black ringlet curls with crystal blue eyes. She was French, living in London, and her accent reflected both locations.

‘I suppose you know about the i********: post?’

‘I do.’

‘Do you know it was my fault?’

‘I know you scheduled the post. I would hardly call the incident your fault.’

I could have hugged her. Instead I put my hands on my face, attempting to push the tears that were welling in my eyes back into my head.

‘Thank you.’ I managed.

‘You made a mistake. It will be okay.’ Then she whispered to me. ‘We did not shoot anyone.’

‘Jane’s pretty pissed at me. She has some plans in the works, but I’m not allowed to say anything.’

‘I assume we will do a tribute on court.’ Was my idea that obvious? I nodded.

‘I doubt I’ll have a job tomorrow.’

‘Katie, don’t let them push you out. Keep your head high and do your job. And for God’s sake, read the manuals. They are very useful.’

‘Brenda told me to schedule the post.’

‘Yes, she is a b***h. But she can’t hurt you if you’re smart. Be smart.’

Marine was smart, she spoke several languages and seemed to calm everyone in her vicinity.

‘Do you speak German?’

‘Enough to get by – why?’

I grabbed my phone and showed her the image of the TV screen.

‘Do you know what this means?’

Her face was similar to that of the young man on the TV couch. ‘It asks a question. It asks if the post was a mistake or a deliberate stunt.’

‘f**k. Oh, f**k. How could anyone think we would be that callous?’

‘It would be a new low – for any organisation. We should check Twitter for trending stories. Hopefully it’s just a German thing. They are obsessed with schadenfreude.’

We both entered our own social networks looking for trending WTA stories. Within seconds, the worst result imaginable uploaded, #WTAStuntFail. It was everywhere – the number 1 trending story on Twitter. Closely followed by #WTAVsTheWorld and the slightly less highbrow #WTASucks.

‘Do we contact Jane?’

‘She will know,’ said Marine.

The tournament desk official indicated that our car was ready. Marine and I rode the short trip to the tennis site in silence, both scrolling through the hate dripping out of our phones. My Google alerts were set to find anything related to professional tennis with keyword searches for WTA, ATP, Professional Tennis, Pilot Pen International and Nikolai Petrov. I should delete Petrov, he was not going to help me now.