When I saw the listing for the B&B during my research, I had bookmarked it without thinking because I’d liked the look of the place: the dock over the dark water, steam lifting off the spa in early morning photos. The place would provide stillness without promising miracles. It had appealed to me, like a sort of contained preview of the life I was considering. So, when the idea for a girls’ weekend came up, I knew exactly where we were going.
Alex raised her glass again. “To collective action.”
“To documentation,” Jamie added solemnly.
“To screenshots,” Morgan said.
“To that smug asshole never darkening our Slack again,” Cris said.
I lifted my glass last. “To no longer being the emergency contact, AKA the person everyone tags whenhescrews something up.”
We drank.
Someone hummed, softly at first, then louder.
Alex snapped her fingers and sang, bright and cheerful, “Per my last email?—”
I groaned and laughed at the same time. Jamie jumped in immediately, no hesitation. Morgan slapped the table to keep time and missed it completely. Cris leaned close enough that our shoulders touched.
“Is this really happening?” she asked.
“Yes, it is,” I said, helpless.
Alex belted the next line about “looping in leadership.” Jamie harmonized like she’d been waiting her whole life for this moment. Morgan clapped offbeat, determined. At the bar, heads turned, but no one asked us to stop. One man nodded like he, too, had been personally victimized by Outlook.
By the time we hit the chorus, we were all fully committed. “Micromanaging” rhymed with nothing, but that didn’t stop us. “Hostile work environment” got dragged out for emphasis.
Someone at the bar lifted their glass in solidarity. “Here, here!”
I was laughing before I could think to stop. It rolled through me, making my face hurt.
When it ended, we bowed from our seats like idiots. It was alarming how much lighter I felt afterward. The knot that had taken residence deep in my chest was beginning to loosen.
The bartender was already pouring another round, no questions asked, which suggested he had correctly identified the tone of the evening. Jamie accepted her fresh drink like she had just been handed a microphone and announced, “Drinking game, bitches.”
“Oh no.”
“Worst Ticket, Take a Sip,” Jamie announced. “Rules are simple. Worst customer, worst ticket, worst interaction. We vote. Mildly awful is one sip. Unhinged is two. If HR would like a word, then you finish your drink.”
It was not so much a game as it was group therapy with a side of liver damage, but I had already agreed to be here and was, apparently, in a mood to keep making questionable choices.
“Escalation clause,” Alex added. “If someone tops the previous story, the previous teller drinks too.”
I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms.
Morgan went first. Her story involved a client who insisted the system was broken because it would not accept their password. The password was their first name, all lowercase.
One sip.
Alex followed with a story about a man who refused to believe Alex was not the intern. He asked to speak to “the real engineer.” Alexwasthe real engineer. We all stared into our glasses like they might contain answers or poison.
Alex took her two sips like a woman who had been waiting years for them.
Jamie told a story that involved a printer, a cat, and a fire alarm. We made her finish her drink.
Cris laughed so hard she had to put her head on the table.
I stayed quiet, taking small sips.
