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For the 20th time in as many minutes, Nicola’s eyes flicked to the clock at the bottom of the computer screen. It was 4:16 P.M., the end of the day approaching as slowly as a snail traveling through viscous sludge.
Based on her to-do list, most people might assume Nicola’s days would fly by, and most of the time, their assumptions would prove correct. At least 90 percent of the time, she sprinted through her contracted 7:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. shift—and then some. Rarely did she leave her standing desk for more than a couple of minutes to grab her lunch from the fridge or take a quick bathroom break. Of course, she may have popped by the kitchenette or peeped over her cubicle wall to chat with a coworker, but she tried to keep that to a minimum. She had work to do, and rarely was she able to cross one item off her checklist before another—or three—were added to it.
By the time she reached the end of her shift, she had just enough energy to collapse on her couch when she made it home.
“Work smarter, not harder,” her manager, Marcia, offered as a solution when in her yearly performance review Nicola expressed her desire to establish more of a work-life balance—or, you know, just not leave the office after 6:00 P.M. Monday through Friday.
The only problem with her solution was that the company’s definition of working smarter not harder meant that they got to work smarter by promoting fiscal responsibility and efficiency through staff cuts and merging jobs, while the employees worked harder to pick up the slack of a reduced workforce.
So yeah, Nicola didn’t quite take that advice to heart and had been walking an uneven teeter totter of work and life ever since.
But today? Today was going to be different, Nicola decided.
Tonight, she was going to leave right when the office closed and ignore the gaze of her other coworkers asking—no, judging—why she thought she could leave on time. She would go out to dinner with her friends and not show up late. She would treat herself to a hot bath full of bubbles and soothing tunes from her Calming Classical Music playlist. She would fall asleep in her bed and not on her couch, dammit! Self-care was her priority, not running the numbers on the latest marketing venture the company had cooked up (sight unseen, she could tell it was already a waste of capital).
Nicola blinked and checked the clock again. 4:17. Thirteen minutes to go. Who would’ve thought 4:30 P.M. could be her new Christmas morning?
With a drag of her cursor, Nicola clicked back into her Excel sheet to create a pie chart to why there wasn’t money in the budget for the additional $85,000 campaign that would offer little ROI. As she fixed a percentage error, a text box appeared on the bottom of her computer screen, blocking out the time. A slingshot glance at it sent her stomach dropping 20 stories, and her body locking up as if it had been dipped in quick-dry cement.
From: Walter Hylane
Subject: TONIGHT: Emergency Outing Meeting – MANDATORY
A message from the Senior Project Manager, also known as her boss, also known as the company’s top spur-of-the-moment meeting lover.
No, no, no. Not today. No.
Body leaden with fear-induced hesitance, Nicola slid her mouse to the box and hovered it over for at least 10 seconds before she gathered the nerve to open it.
Hello team,
After a brainstorming session, we have decided to revamp our MegaMousse campaign and need all hands on deck to make sure the changes are feasible. We are going to meet at 4:30 in the conference room for a rundown on how we will accomplish this by deadline, which will not be changed from next week. I know that this is last minute, but you will be rewarded for your hard work with a pizza party next Friday. Please let me know if you have any questions.
See you in 10,
Walt
Son of a bitch. How dare he? Didn’t he realize that there was a world beyond him and his self-importance? Probably not, as history proved that self-awareness was not a quality he had gained over his 42 years on this Earth.
Her limbs moving faster than her brain could turn the action into thought, Nicola clicked the REPLY button at the top of the email, and her fingers flew across the keyboard.
Walt,
Yeah, I have a question for you. Actually, I have several, but if we’re ranking things in order of importance, which you seem to have no problem doing for us when it comes to our lives, then “what the hell is wrong with you” is at the top of my list.
You know that the office closes at 4:30. You know that we’re inundated with work, and even though most of us will probably stay past that time, the illusion that we can actually leave at that time is just as important as the fact that we won’t. But rather than respect our time and our lives beyond this hellhole, you decided to take an extended lunch and sort your rainbow of Post-Its by color (yes, I saw you doing it on the way to the printer MULTIPLE DAYS IN A ROW, don’t try to deny it) instead of calling the meeting early.
Way to think of your team, boss!
Do you think that if we don’t meet tonight, the fabric of the universe is going to unravel? News alert: despite being an arrogant ass, you are not Dr. Strange and none of your choices are that consequential. Maybe you realized the campaign you proposed was a marketing dumpster fire, which, good for you for doing that before it was complete. We call that progress! But any work eked out by your overcaffeinated, overworked, overtired workforce tonight will not be any better than the work we could do during the work hours we advertise on every job posting as normal for employees (in case you “forgot,” those hours are 7:30 to 4:30).
It would be one thing if this campaign was going to end world hunger or global warming or any of the other issues we choose to ignore here in the name of being apolitical. But all we’re doing is selling barely tolerable chocolate mousse in the shape of a literal moose because capitalism.
It’s shitty, and pointless, and doesn’t matter.
None of this this does. We probably don’t even.
In the grand scheme of things, we’re nothing but a blip on the timeline of human history. Yes, by driving your giant SUV, you’re doing your part to hurry along our extinction—Congrats!—but other than that, none of your “ever important” marketing campaigns are going to be remembered a year from now, much less be noted in history. Sorry to burst your grandiose bubble but it’s true.
And since we don’t matter, I might as well enjoy my life for what it is and that’s not sitting in this office past 4:30. You can stick your stupid meeting and your stupid consolation prize of a pizza party that we all know will be a couple pizzas that are cheese or sausage and nothing more. Cheap ass.
Screw you,
You’re-done-taking-shit-employee, Nicola
As her fingers stopped their rapid-fire typing, Nicola’s chest heaved, and her teeth bit so hard into her lip, she’s surprised they didn’t bust through the skin yet. Over the ledge of her cubicle, she saw her coworker, Benny, eyeing her up with concern, brows only divided by the wrinkle of skin that formed between them. Nicola quickly looked away, and laced her fingers through her hair. Her stomach unfurled in what felt like relief.
It was short lived. With a heavy breath, she read her words over again, and it returned with even more intensity.
Well, shit.
Nicola scanned the page, realizing it was not as though any of what she said was wrong. All of it was 100 percent true. But, truth, particularly when it comes to the feelings of the employee, has no place in the workplace, and Nicola knew the second she’d send it to Walt, he’d call up HR, and have her called to the carpet. Along with loving surprise meetings, Walt was also a surprisingly huge fan of HR, a type of person Nicola didn’t know existed.
Nicola felt brazen telling this to her friends, but to her boss, it was far more dicey and dangerous.
If Nicola was a brave person, that wouldn’t matter. She’d slide over her cursor and hit the send button right now. Not completely cowardly, she did the former, her finger hovering over the mouse, and considered her options. She could send it and air out her resentments. Or she could keep her job, the job, that while draining emotionally and physically, she needed for rent, and food, and the funding to have whatever little life she had.
A catch-22: to live she needed to have a job, but that job made it difficult to live.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, Nicola dragged the cursor away from the send and over to the X on the other side of the screen. With the pressure of a fingertip, the window disappeared, zooming into her computer’s trash, the place Nicola now felt like she had taken up residence.
Leaning across her desk, Nicola grasped her phone, and entered into her friends’ group chat. The disappointed tears in her eyes blurred the screen, but she was able to type out her message nonetheless.
Sorry everyone, I’m going to be late.
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