“What if it’s me?” Emma asks over lunch on day seven. “Maybe the leadership team has it out for me after what happened with Richards.”
“It better not be you,” I say, pitchfork at the ready. If it is Emma, I’ll find that putrid rat bastard of an ex-boss she had and… well, I haven’t gotten that far, but it’ll be unpleasant.
Diana: The Musicalunpleasant.
“If they call you, I’m marching in there and demanding they cut me instead.”
Emma sighs, looking around the cafeteria where unease has turned everyone into zombies who shuffle awkwardly around each other. “I don’t think it works like that.”
“I know, but you’ve worked so hard for this.”
“So have you,” she says.
Honestly? I’m not sure I have. At least, not in the “I want this so much, it’s all I live for” kind of way that Emma does. I’ve worked, and I’ve done my best, but at the end of the day, this is just a job.
Not my passion, not my purpose. A paycheck.
One I’d like to keep, sure, but nothing more.
Five percent of the workforce, they said. Seven hundred people. Just numbers casually listed. Not lives irrevocably changed.
Every minute of the day has become a waiting game, every phone call a jump scare. Going home isn’t even a relief, because all I can think about is how much money I haven’t saved and how long it’s been since I’ve updated my résumé.
Oh god, I’ll have to write a cover letter.
That’s actually worse than being unemployed.
I haven’t slept a wink all week, and sleep is my third favorite thing to do after kissing and reciting my villain monologue in the shower. I’ve heard the horror stories of the job market—hundreds of applications sent without a response, the terrible group interviews, the awful salary conditions. And to top it all off, I’ll disappoint my mom.
When the phone call finally does come, bright and early on day eight, my stomach cannonballs up out of my throat. Doesn’t leave a note, just “see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya” as I listen to the instructions I’m given.
Come to room 1105. Don’t pack up. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going.
It’s enough to knock anyone on their ass.
My heart is pounding so fast, I might be dying. Is that toast I can smell? My left arm isn’t tingling, but maybe that’s an old wives’ tale?
What do I have to show for it? All my years of clocking in, doing what I was told, following the rules… and for what?
In the end, it only takes a single phone call at nine a.m. on a Tuesday to drop the curtain on my time here at Helix.
Standing, I shoot a quick text off to Emma, because come on, “tell no one” clearly excludes my best friend.
What are they gonna do? Fire me harder? Please.
In some ways, it’s a relief. For one, it’s not Emma. Getting rid of the smartest person here is a bad decision even Helix would never make. But also, just between us, I’ve never really liked working here.
Document Control isn’t my dream job or my calling. Not the way it is for Emma. It’s the financial glue holding my life together, but isn’t that what any job is?
The meeting is quick. Just me, the CIO, and HR in a room.
It takes five minutes. They say their spiel—“The company is in a difficult position; we wish there was another option; blah, blah, blah”—but all I can picture is every bill piling up, one on top of the other, until I’m run out of my apartment by collectors.
This was meant to be my safety job. The one you take for security. That’s what mom said.
How do they sleep at night, affecting people’s lives like this? It’s not like profits are down. As we speak, it’s just gone up by my whole salary.
Oddly it’s the CIO who looks contrite. Mr. Fletcher, someone who must have had a part in this decision, still manages to sound like he means it when he says, “We’re sorry to see you go.”
