An Important Decision

“You know what? I quit.”

No, of course, no one could hear me. I was alone in my office – shared, but pretty much my own – and it was only 9:46 in the morning, so we would have a meeting in less than fifteen minutes and I did not really want to see Mr. Roleiman’s face again on a Monday morning before I had my first cup of coffee and he told the staff all about how so-and-so did such a great job with sales (clap clap clap) and then the other person got a dozen clients to sign on for things that they could not afford (clap clap clap clap) and then he would look at the rest of us and not say a word about all the things we did because we were such a big disappointment to the company and he wanted us to know it without telling it (show without telling; he should have been a writer). So, I was done and I just had to wait for Allan to come back from the office bathroom on the third floor – the best one – and he would have to handle the new account on his own because I was fed up and it was a Monday after one of the best weekends I’d ever had after I found that secondhand shop with that rare science-fiction section that had titles I had never seen before and I made friends with the owner and he told me that there was a sale coming up in two weeks, but he would make me a deal right now if I took three copies off his hands. A little pricey, but they were worth it and I wondered what I was doing with myself in this place when no one really cares about what I give the office only what they can take and take and take and I studied literature just as a lark and wanted to work in publishing not business anyway. Why did I stop there, anyway? I was out going to the local farmer’s market to get those oranges that you could taste test from the small trays they had out for customers and things were in season like the mango that I was not too sure about after seeing flies land on it and people still sampling them without a care in their minds.

9:50.

I was going to leave this to Friday, but I don’t think this can wait anymore and the end of the week is a such an old story and the company would love it if I left it to the weekend so that they could just say that I made it easy for them to give me a space to search for another job and not worry about finding a replacement, which would not be hard after all the training I had to be in charge of for the new people coming in over the summer who thought that they had just scored a winning lottery ticket because of our name and willingness to have them work for free in so many of our offices with all those “fast-track internships” that I never had to do because I was one of the important ones that they could not just have working for free without drawing a paycheque at the time.

Allan?

What is keeping him up there, anyway? It’s not like he has the same olfactory issues that he complained about when we were in the cafeteria and Mr. Roleiman brought over some of his relatives who were on that stupid tour of our new building and wanted to meet everyone “who made the enterprise such a fine journey” (Star Trek much, you moron?) and we both were hit with the stench of what must have been the remains of the quiche and cold meats leftover from an earlier meeting where I was smart enough to avoid the samples and Allan just dug in until even he noted the taste and decided to skip out of having a final chat on the project before he got to the car and headed home for the inevitable sick day that became a long weekend and left me with all of the work to do to cover both of our asses.

9:55.

It looks like the others are already on their way to the conference room and I know that I won’t be allowed to have my coffee in there, but I don’t really care if I am done with this place. They can come after me and take away my Stanley but if they try I will smack them and give them a show that they can tell their grandchildren all about (showing not telling really does work). Mr. Roleiman will probably be the first one to tell me to put it down but I will keep my cortado close and let the others see what I intend to do as I sit there and listen to them do their usual BS about what we got up to in the previous week while I sip away and they get crazier and crazier about what I am doing and them not having a chance to stop me as I let the cup get empty and all they hear is my sucking away under those stupid fluorescent lights that always seem to be flickering even though we have had the bulbs replaced at the front and the back and don’t want to have anyone breaking out into seizures or being distracted while our oh-so-important boss tells us what’s what and we just have to sit there and take it at the beginning of another week.

So, yeah. I am going to quit.

I am so going to quit this place.

9:58.

I wonder if anyone thinks it strange that I’m sitting at the front for this one and that I have the mug on the table next to my phone and planner. Not like I care at all but I don’t want them to think that I am unprofessional while the making my escape from this and…

Gotta focus. The meeting’s about to begin.

And I’m so done.