Craig’s voice. Smarmy and apologetic.
I flatten against the wall, heart pounding.
“I don’t have time for this,” Patrick’s voice cuts through. “Just keep your bloody department under control. That was absolutely shocking.”
The word lands like a gut punch. My knees nearly buckle.
“Totally agree,” Craig says. “Massive misjudgment on my part. Was just trying to give one of the junior staff a chance, you know? Bit of encouragement, hand them the mic.”
“Encouragement’s all well and good,” Patrick snaps. “But don’t stick someone in front of a room if they’re clearly not prepared. Doesn’t matter who’s watching.”
Not prepared?
I built IRIS. Without my code, IRIS would be nothing but Craig’s meaningless buzzwords and a PowerPoint full of stock photos.
“I’ll put her on a performance improvement plan immediately,” Craig says. “We can’t have that sort of floundering.”
My breath stops cold.
A performance plan? For what, having shaky hands? I’m a software engineer, not a fucking TED Talk speaker.
Patrick exhales, the sound dripping with impatience. “Is this a pattern? Is she always this unprepared?”
This is where Craig should defend me. Where he says, “Actually, Georgie pulled sixteen-hour days for months. She missed her aunt’s birthday to fix a critical bug.”
“Oh, well,” Craig begins, and I can practically hear the double-decker bus revving its engine before it flattens me completely, “she’s got potential, sure. But needs a lot of hand-holding. Honestly, looked like she spent more time on her outfit than on the slides—”
“Careful,” Patrick cuts him off, his voice knife-edged. “I don’t give a damn what she wore. That’s irrelevant. What I care about is that she rambled incoherently, and wasted an entire room’s time. Whatever the underlying issue, it’s your job to address it.”
My teeth sink into my lip until it stings. It’s amazing how a handful of words can inflict such devastating damage.
“Understood, sir. At least Roy was able to jump in. I’ll work on getting Georgina up to the same standard.”
Sweet Roy, who messages me whenever he’s stuck on problems.
Patrick’s voice lowers. “Just give her whatever training or support she needs. I told you when you came in, I expect you to bring some backbone to this department.”
“Absolutely, sir,” Craig oozes.
There’s a pause, then Patrick’s voice cuts through again: “And Craig—don’t ever refer to one of our female employees as having ‘women’s problems’ again. For Christ’s sake.”
“Oh, right. Of course. I was just trying to be… considerate.”
I nearly blow my cover by snorting.
The door above clunks shut, and footsteps fade away into nothing, leaving me stuck to the wall, stuck in my humiliation and certain I can never walk back into that office again.
Some people don’t like it when you’re smart. Nottoosmart, anyway. They want you neatly contained in your designated box, where you smile prettily, nod enthusiastically, and feel grateful for whatever crumbs of “respect” they decide to toss your way.
I didn’t realize how good I had it until Ravi retired and Craig slithered in.
That first year at McLaren Hotels was rough. Emotionally, I was still a wreck after everything that happened at uni. But Ravi carefully coaxed me out of my shell, making me feel like my contributions mattered.
By the time he left, I was… okay. Confident-ish. Settled.
Now, eighteen months after joining McLaren Hotels, it’s like I’ve been rewound to the worst version of myself. The shaky, apologizing-for-existing me is back with a vengeance.
When Craig swooped in with a “whirlwind” of big ideas, most of them outdated by about five years, I naively thought I was being helpful by politely flagging obvious problems.
