She’s taken a corporate job. Systems manager. No more network setups, no more panicky calls when someone deletes an important email or can’t find their contacts. I bite back the angry words that want to tell her she’s kidding herself. Instead of all that, she’ll spend her time clearing duplicate entries and trying to get people to buy into software they don’t understand and that should make their lives easier, but only if they use them the way the developer intended, when most companies turn it into some weird Franken-system that’s doing too many things at once.
I’ve been that guy. I’ve seen the glazed looks and received the angry emails when we implement company procedures that log computers out if they’re inactive for too long. Everyone wants an exception made for them, but no one wants to take responsibility when someone from marketing decides to play a prank by changing a colleague’s screen saver and instead accidentally emails porn to the whole management committee.
She’d laugh, but it’s happened, and I was the one to catch the fallout for not predicting how dumb other people can truly be.
“I’m really sorry,” Ramona says, voice wobbly. We’ve gone down to the office’s shared kitchen to get a coffee. It seemed necessary to fortify ourselves for this conversation.
“I know,” I say, blowing over my mug. And I do. Because we’ve been great together. She was the first person I hired, and we have been a good fit. She’s patient with the customers and brings ideas I would never have thought of when we talk about how we can grow. But the new place is offering her fifteen grand more than I’m paying her, along with benefits I won’t be able to afford for another five years at least, and I can’t compete with that.
Still, I’m pretty much fucked. Next Friday is her last day, which means I get to take back her entire client roster over the next two weeks. Some of them I haven’t even spoken to since they signed their initial contract. They’re Ramona’s people, and I’m going to have to build a relationship with them all over again. And just as I was starting to consider hiring a third person for our little team. I may not be able to give Ramona a raise, but I was thinking about finding a way to bring on someone fresh out of school to handle the simplest accounts and do the admin work. We could have afforded that, with the extra business I’d have time to go out and find, once I’m not the one writing all the quotes and sending the invoices.
But now I need a new Ramona. And finding someone as great as she’s been is a tall order. I interviewed for three months before the day she walked into my home office and told me she was the answer to my problems.
“I’ll be okay,” I say. Because I have to be. Because the alternative is what? Closing up shop and seeing if Ramona’s new boss wants to hire me too?
“We can still get together. As friends. Hang out.” Her eyes are pleading, and somehow this feels more like a breakup than a resignation. She’s not just my only employee, she’s basically been my only friend for months.
“Of course,” I say, but we both know I’m lying. If I don’t have time for friends now, when will I make time to see her now that I have that much more to do at work?
“Brady.” She puts a hand over mine. “I’m worried about you. I can’t pass up this opportunity, but I need to know you’re going to be okay.”
Well, she should have thought of that before she quit, shouldn’t she? But I don’t get to say that. My work-life balance has never been her problem, and especially not now.
“I’ll be fine. People are always looking for work. I’ll have someone new hired before your last day.” Please, God, let me find someone fast. The anxiety is already knotting my stomach, and I’m going to need a mountain of meditation if I have a hope in hell of sleeping tonight.
There’s a message from Bill Immerchuk when I get back to my desk. His landlord at one of the new tutoring centres is available to do a walkthrough so we can discuss his setup. I want to tell them today isn’t a good day. That I’ve lost my best and only employee and need a few days to make a game plan, but Bill’s payments will take the sting out of the late nights and busy weekends I will to have to work until I can get someone else up and running.
The tutoring centre is big. Bigger than I envisioned when we’d talked about it. Bill is planning for a dozen work stations, as well as two multimedia rooms. I wonder how he’s going to drum up the business he’ll need to pay for the equipment and the square footage, but that’s not my problem. He needs a dozen computers, a raft of tablets, and a color printer. He wants smart boards and wall-mounted TV screens.
“It’s the parents,” he says to me with an easy smile. It’s about a thousand degrees outside—a million if you count the humidity—and he’s dressed like a summer version of Mr. Rogers. Khakis, golf shirt, some kind of light cardigan that would be sticking to my skin. “So many millennial parents these days, and they want the technology. We can’t just do paper handouts and worksheets anymore.”
“And when do you want to do the install?” I ask, making notes on my tablet. The stylus shakes in my hand as I write.
“The sooner the better,” he says. “School starts in six weeks, and the parents will start calling the week after that. So you work up the cost of the equipment, and we’ll get started as soon as you can have it delivered.”
My stomach rolls. As soon as possible. I can’t manage an install this big on my own.
“No problem.” I shake Bill’s hand with the firm grip my dad taught me. “I’ll get some costs over to you by tomorrow afternoon.” I sound like the confident kind of partner you want to be doing business with. I’m sure as hell not feeling it today.
The panic attack starts on the streetcar. I haven’t had one of these in a few months, and I’m almost relieved that my stress levels are somehow low enough that my body can still reach for this response when I need it. My vision goes blotchy, and my skin is too hot. My lungs fill with static, and I drop my phone as I try to flip through my apps to find the meditation one. I can barely get my earbuds in, my fingers shake so badly. I’m fucked, I’m fucked.
The soothing voice of the rescue meditation tells me to close my eyes. Behind my eyelids, sparks of red and blue and bright green burst like fireworks. It takes long minutes of breathing and visualization before my heart finally drops out of my throat and back down into my chest again. The vise that makes it hard to inhale relaxes. Goddamn lizard brain. Sometimes I wish we still had saber-tooth tigers so I didn’t feel so ridiculous when my nervous system goes on alert.
I’ve missed the stop for the office. I text Ramona and tell her I’ll be working at home for the rest of the afternoon. She probably thinks I’m pissed at her, when really I’m overwhelmed by my own choices. I would never go back to an office job again, but being the master of my own destiny means I have no one to blame for my erratic mental health but me.
Plus, I’m going to need a nap once the adrenaline finishes crashing. There’s nothing quite like forced self-care after a panic attack.
The nap helps. The mountain of emails in my inbox when I wake up does not. Requests for quotes, random offers from sketchy freelancers who want to help me optimize my website and SEO but somehow can’t even spell my company name right. Optimizing my website has suddenly fallen so far down my priority list it probably won’t dig itself out for a decade. Who needs an optimized website when you can’t keep up with the work you already have?
There are a few forwarded messages from Ramona that start with “Hi there! Unfortunately, next Friday is my last day. I’m cc’ing Brady, the company president. He’ll be taking care of you.”
My dad texts, asking how my weekend was and if I’ve still got time for lunch this week. I can’t decide if it’s worse to tell him I can’t or to ignore him, so I lie and say I need to check my calendar and will get back to him.
On social media, I get invited to a Stag and Stag for a couple I used to hang out with but haven’t seen in a year. I’ve already declined their wedding invite, so this invitation to a party that’s basically about giving them money is a giant fuck you, or they’ve spammed everyone on their Facebook accounts, which doesn’t leave me feeling all very special either. Even if I wanted to go for the sake of getting out and seeing people, it’s the Saturday two weeks from now, which is the day after Ramona’s last day. No doubt every single one of my clients’ systems will be suddenly overcome with gremlins, so I’d have to leave the party early anyway.
Minutes from throwing myself the deepest pity party I can—okay, I basically kicked off the festivities this morning when Ramona handed me her resignation letter, but at the rate I’m going, I’ll be at the “tequila for dinner” phase of things very shortly—I grab the only option that remains to me.
I pick up my phone and draft a text to Nash.
