The tank was placed in the office of the
book-keeper/office manager, a hard-as-nails type I'll call Jane, who referred
to her home, Staten Island, as the Mother Country. DGM's owner told Jane that feeding the fish
every day was part of her job. Jane demurred, saying that she had no intention
of feeding those f*****g fish. The owner, who had fresh red carnations
delivered to his office every Monday morning, laughed at Jane's cheekiness and went off to check his tie in the mirror.
Jane kept her word, refraining from sprinkling even one orange, brown or violet flake of fish food into the bubbling tank. Every two weeks or so, the fish went belly up. Whereupon the owner would laugh and send his chauffeur to a nearby tropical fish store to buy four more.
It was all about superstition. Mr Agency Owner had once worked in Hong Kong and had fallen under the influence of a group of Feng Shui practitioners. Long after returning from Asia, he continued to seek their advice, especially after moving into our phenomenally expensive new offices on Hudson Street. The Feng Shui masters offered many suggestions to fortify the agency's prospects, including the use of tiny little mirrors here and there to counteract the luck-deflecting potential of all the curvy hallways. On the need to keep red and black fish in the book keeper's office, they were unequivocal.
As Jane starved one foursome after another, the fortunes of the agency declined despite Feng Shui and the cheerful chauffeur's restocking efforts. One day the agency ran out of money and rented its glamorous office space, to an agency called Messner, Vetere, Berger, Carey, Schmetterer. The new occupants promptly shut off the noisy pump, emptied the tank and put all the gear out by the service elevator to be taken away during the night. Messner et al. did quite well there without the ministrations of Feng Shui masters.
Then again, they're no longer around anymore, either.
