It’s unclear whether I’m free to go for the day or whether Connor expects me to stick around, and I don’t really feel like poking the bear, so I decide to split the difference and pack up my old desk.
I steal an empty cardboard box and methodically fill it with all my work-adjacent belongings, which amount to a water bottle, four tubs of Tupperware, the maple syrup, a pen jar I’ve become weirdly attached to, and a stolen cactus.
Besides my friends, there’s not much I’ll miss about working in Product, in all honesty, but one thing I will miss is my desk. I’m on the non-glamorous side of the building, the one that stares directly into an adjacent office block that’s almost identical to ours, but given the choice, this is still the view I’d pick.
I love watching all the other people going about their days. There’s a meeting room visible from where I sit; as long as it’s not too sunny, I can sometimes read what they’re writing on the whiteboard.
Maybe if Taskio sends me packing they’ll take me in instead. I could add just as much value to their organization. Which is to say, none atall.
It’s amazing how pathetic it feels that I can pack the entire contents of my career into a single cardboard box. After six years the total sum of my contribution to this place will be forgotten in a blink.
Someday soon someone else will take over this desk and ask, idly, who used to sit here. And the person they’re talking to will squint into the distance and eventually say,you know, I have no idea.
It’s fine. I’ve survived enough rounds of redundancies to know it’s not even really personal—for the purposes of these layoffs I am just a number on a spreadsheet. But it’s weird, knowing that if I walked out of here today and never came back, I wouldn’t leave so much as a fingerprint’s worth of impact on this place.
It’s amid these cheerful thoughts that my phone starts ringing.
“Hello?”
“It’s your mother.”
As greetings go, this one is totally unnecessary. “Yeah, Mom, I know.”
“How do you know?” she says, accusingly. “It could have been your father.”
“I can tell the difference between your voices,” I assure her, switching the phone to my other ear. “You also told me you were going to call me back later.”
“Don’t be smart,” she tells me. “And don’t roll your eyes.”
She issues this command at the precise moment I roll them. She’s good.
“What’s up, Mom?”
“We’ve decided to do the engagement party this weekend. I’ll need you home tomorrow to help with the setup.”
I choke on an intake of breath. “Absolutely not.”
“It’s not a request,” she says, with the authority of one who has given birth to me. “Get one of the early flights.”
“You know I have a job, right? One they expect me to show up for every day?”
“Take a holiday,” she says breezily.
“Nowreallyisn’t a good time, Mom,” I tell her. “I just got…um, promoted. Sortof.”
She’s not buyingit.
“All the more reason why you should take a couple of days off.”
“What? No,” Isay.
I catch a colleague walking in my direction and pivot, leaning my shoulder against the wall, trying to make it seem like I’m on a business call. I nod as they pass. They nod back.
“You can’t just order me to fly home,” I argue when they’re out of earshot again. “I’m a grown woman.”
“Oh you are, are you? Then start acting like one. What could be more important than your sister’s wedding?”
“Seeing as it’snother wedding, it’s her engagement party, a lot of things.”
