It took a Decider article I read late last night to remind me that ten years ago yesterday, the television series Mad Men broadcast what is arguably the best single episode of its run, “The Suitcase.”
In it, Don Draper and Peggy Olson are working late in the office on a presentation for a client. The late hour is not unusual, but Olson is sacrificing a dinner with family and a new beau, and she’s torn about it: she wants to do this task, with Don and for Don, but she also wants and needs to be at that dinner. She has put off the persistent calls of her boyfriend, who wants her to stop what she’s doing and come on, all the while dealing with Don’s grumpiness at a project that’s not going well. The boyfriend’s annoyance doesn’t sit well with Olson, but she’s caught in this situation, as so many women are. If she doesn’t please the boyfriend, she’ll lose him; if she does please him, she’ll lose the work, and Draper’s respect.
That “respect” is something else that has burrowed its way under Olson’s skin. She has long since recognized Draper’s acumen as Creative Director at Sterling-Cooper, and has complimented him many times, but he has never returned the favor. As the evening progresses, they argue, and Olson lets him know point-blank how little appreciated she feels for the work she does–the long hours, the menial tasks she’s often given. As Draper defends himself, and reminds her that she gets paid for her work, the angrier Olson gets, and she does something I wish to heaven she would not do: she begins to cry. “But you never say ‘thank you’!” she says.
Draper responds with one of the most memorable lines in the history of the show: “That’s what the money is for!”
In a nutshell, we have encapsulated for us in this episode the entire relationship of bosses and workers in twentieth-century America. Too often, bosses think that the checks they sign every week pay for everything. Workers, in their turn, forget that bosses are workers, too. A boss at Ford or Apple or IBM might well forget that a kind word or an appreciative compliment often means as much as a paycheck, but there’s less excuse for a boss at a smaller company like Sterling-Cooper neglecting to praise someone who does consistently good work. By the same token, bosses are bound under the same consequences for success and failure that their fellow employees are. If Sterling-Cooper fails to impress a client, if a company fails to secure a needed contract, the head that will roll is Don Draper’s or some other boss’s, not those who work for him. Getting the business in the first place is Draper’s responsibility, a boss’s responsibility, and it wears on him. In a much-later episode of the series, Draper has cracked; his alcoholism has nearly cost him his position at the firm, and it takes the sharp rebuke of his friend and fellow alcoholic, Freddy Rumsen, to set him straight:
“Do the work, Don,” Rumsen says.
That is the task for all of us. That is the basic human purpose–to do the work, whatever it is. That is what Labor Day honors–the worthiness and value of work. Is there exploitation in work? Is there suffering? Certainly. The greatness of Mad Men lies in the fact that, every week, we see it all: the process of work and how it’s done; the pettiness of interoffice relationships; the cost of success–and failure–when it comes.
But we see something else, as well. When Sigmund Freud was asked what the two most important things in life were, he replied, “Loving and working.” Note that he puts “love” first, and “work” second. We work because we love, not the other way around. We may also show love through our work, as Glen Campbell’s song, “Wichita Lineman,” popular on the radio during Mad Men’s era, reveals, but love is the ground of all that we do. If we cannot show it, if others cannot see it, the work we do has little meaning. “The Suitcase” shows us this truth beautifully.
I mentioned that I wish Peggy Olson hadn’t cried in her complaints to Draper. Her tears are understandable, but not appropriate for the world she’s trying to enter. Yet, they do the trick. Don understands her frustration and acknowledges it, as they begin to drink and relax together, as colleagues. Olson abandons the idea of showing up at that dinner and, as she does so, she emerges from Draper’s shadow for the first time as her own person. She’s always been a cipher for Draper. Her career–the steps she takes, the work she does–was Draper’s career, too, the early years we never got to see on the show. All of the supporting characters are reflections of Draper in some way, but Olson is closest to Draper himself. Yet, now, she is herself. Her tears and her vulnerability allow him to respond in the same way. Late that night and early the next morning, he gets a phone call from the West Coast from the niece of Anna Draper. Anna was the wife of Don Draper, the commander in the Korean War whose identity Dick Whitman stole to survive, desert, and return to the States to live. Anna understood what Dick Whitman did, but loved him anyway. Now, as her niece informs him that Anna has died of cancer, Draper begins to cry and the sound awakens Olson, who’s been sleeping on the couch. Draper laments the loss of the only person in the world who’s ever truly understood him, but Olson puts her hand on his shoulder and reminds him that that isn’t true. They share that moment and then, in true Mad Men fashion, hours later, go back to work, as if nothing had happened, but knowing that something has, something that will enrich all their work to come.
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