Nano Excerpt: Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen:
And a Merry Christmas to all!Christmas was Nora’s favorite time of year – the lights, the music, the good cheer, the shopping, the sales, the shiny decorations. She looked forward to it all year. As much as she loved it, she dreaded putting the lights on the Christmas tree. Growing up, that had always been her father’s job and it had always been a big production – he would spend an hour or so, untangling ten or so strands of multicolored light strands and laying each one carefully out in its own space on the carpet. Then he would ritually plug each strand into the wall socket. Another hour would be spent replacing missing or burnt out bulbs. Then another thirty minutes would be spent methodically wrapping each strand around the six foot tall store-bought Christmas tree; they had to be accurately places so there were no “empty pockets” and no overcrowding.Then Nora and her mother would place all of the ornaments on the tree – there were more ornaments than branches but her mother would always try to get everything on the same tree every year; sometimes she would miraculously succeed. Her father would sit in his chair, watching CNN or some financial news show, and occasionally offering insistent advice as to where something should go.Afterward, her father would wrap the tree in tinsel garland with the same meticulous care as the lights. Nora always thought there was too much tinsel on the tree and they seemed to buy more every year. She thought it detracted from the lights and the ornaments, which her favorite parts. Still somehow overcrowded and covered, the Christmas tree was always beautiful and Nora loved sitting in the dark with just the Christmas tree lights on. There was something peaceful and relaxing about watching sparkly multicolored lights.So, while Nora had a store-bought tree as well (she had tried a live tree once but after vacuuming pine needles in March, she quickly lost interest), she did not use tinsel garland; instead she used wide Christmas ribbon. However, she still had a lot of anxiety regarding the lights of which she only actually used three or four strands. She was always afraid she would get it wrong so she almost always asked Jake or Kayla to help her with that part – the offer of free food always brought results and volunteers, particularly since Nora had discovered she was just as talented with cooking as she was with eating.

This year, she decided to throw a small Christmas decorating get together on the first Saturday in December. It certainly turned out to be a small gathering. Jake made a short appearance but had work so it turned out to be Kayla, Lisa and Nora and once the decorations had exploded all over her apartment and the tree was announced officially decorated, the three of them sat down and played a board game. Nora loved playing board games with the two of them even when she wanted to strangle Lisa for taking forever to take her turn. At some point during the evening, Nora began to feel a migraine creeping on. She tried not to let on to Kayla and Lisa because they so rarely got together those days that she didn’t want to spoil the fun. Nora wished they took the time to do more board games get-togethers like they used to but they had done some growing up and some growing apart. The relationships between the three of them were most often in flux as arguments, distractions, and friendships changed the priorities of things. Yet somehow, they always seemed to come back together even if just for a board game.

By the next morning, the headache was becoming an increasing, pounding acute pain in her head with no relief from aromatherapy, caffeine, cold treatments, heat treatments, exercise, sleep, or medication; even the bones in her face seemed to be aching, and so by afternoon, Nora found herself once again in the Emergency Room of the nearby hospital, where everyone knew her name. The entire time she had been at The Company and The Outsourcing Company, she had been to the Emergency Room more times than probably all of the rest of her life – and she had been a somewhat clumsy child. Perhaps that should have been all the sign she should have needed that the job was slowly killing her.

From the Emergency Room, she called The Minion Supervisor and explained that she would probably not be in the next day as she was currently in the Emergency Room due to a migraine. The Emergency Room doctor left Nora suffering in a room with an open door that was adjacent to a frequently used door for an indeterminate amount of time. Time passes so slowly when even blinking is agony or the sound of your own breathing was deafeningly painful. Unlike her previous visits, she was not sent to Radiology for a CAT scan; nor was any blood drawn for testing. Nora was extremely frustrated to be sent home after five minutes with a doctor who basically shined a blinding pen light into her eyes, asked a few noteworthy questions, and had given her a prescription for pain medications she doubted would work and she had informed him had not worked for her in the past.

The following day, the migraine continued to bore into her brain, making her wish on more than one occasion that she owned a drill so she might drill a hole into her forehead and let whatever demons were in there out. She somehow doubted that she could convince Paul to bring her his because he would want to know why she wanted it. She was still unable on Tuesday to return to work but did manage to get an emergency appointment with her General Practitioner. How she even managed to drive herself to the doctor’s office was beyond her but somehow she had done it and survived – though with the way she felt, she was not entirely sure that was a good thing. However, the General Practitioner was a genius in Nora’s mind – at the very least, he tended to actually listen to what she had to say and ask important questions rather than just make assumptions based on one or two symptoms. He switched the Emergency Room-prescribed medications and things immediately started to feel a little better. It was as if someone had let a little air out of an overfilled balloon in her head.

By the next morning, Nora finally felt well-enough to return to work even if she didn’t feel like dealing with any of those people and couldn’t imagine any of them helping the remnants of her migraine. Since her credit union was located in the same building she worked in, she deposited the nice $300 Christmas bonus The Outsourcing Company had mailed her on her way into the office. In fact, with the pain receding, extra money in her savings account, and a two week vacation approaching, Nora was starting to get into the Christmas spirit. She honestly believed that nothing anyone did could ruin her holly-jolly mood, even Roberta.

Among her backlog of emails which had accrued over the last few days was an assignment from The Evil Director to prepare a workflow analysis of Department MD to present to management. Nora was not exactly sure what a workflow analysis was and she had certainly never seen one. Wanting to prepare this analysis correctly and write it in the correct format, Nora sent an email back to The Evil Director requesting a meeting so they could discuss the assignment. As The Evil Director was out of town until Thursday, Nora was not expecting an immediate response and forgot about it.

Friday, December 12th, was the day of the division Christmas party when The Evil Director would take everyone in her division out to lunch at some restaurant where they had reserved a private room and then everyone would be allowed to go home afterwards rather than return to work – a fact, that must have given The Minion Supervisor nightmares. If left up to The Minion Scrooge everyone would be working on the holidays and extra-long hours at that. In fact, he and The Evil Director had a tradition of not telling their employees they could go home early after the Department Vice President had called around to let everyone go the day before a big holiday like Thanksgiving, Mardi Gras, or Christmas. Once the Evil Director herself had actually left without telling anyone they already had permission to leave. They got away with it for years by claiming that it was the Vice President who would not let them allow people to leave but then the Vice President’s Office Manager let the cat out of the bag at an alcohol-filled after work party.

This year, The Company had lifted its dress code restriction on holiday jewelry and holiday clothes and it was almost as if Christmas had swallowed everyone’s wardrobes whole. Nora herself had been saving just for the day of the Christmas party a new tasteful, blue, silver, and red Christmas sweater bought on sale at J.C. Penney’s the year before. She had carefully planned out her Christmas inspirational wardrobe complete with Christmas Mickey Mouse socks.

It was a beautiful winter day for New Orleans. It was cool but not cold and the sun was out in full force; there was no grey haze clinging to the city to bring dreariness. In an unusually good mood, she hummed “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” as she walked the few blocks to work. And feeling as chipper as she was, after she dropped her purse and messenger bag at her desk, she decided to wander and mingle with the morning chatters as they lollygagged in the cubicle aisles. The office seemed to have a morning tradition of morning catching up on individual lives, politics, company rumors, etc. Nora was well-aware that The Minion Supervisor disliked this practice, but Nora thought it was good for morale. They weren’t robots after all. People who actually got along did work better together.

Nancy and Jeff were at Nancy’s desk looking at the menu for the Christmas party restaurant on the internet. It was the first Nora had seen it and she mentioned that fact. Jeff made some snide remark about how she could have looked it up from her own desk. Nora decided to take the opportunity to explain that she was not allowed to use the internet and that she was on probation for using it. In fact, after The Evil Director told her she could use the internet at lunch like everyone else, she had gotten written up again for using it then.

Nancy frowned, not liking one word of the story. It was easy to see how unhappy Nancy was here. She had claimed that she had been misled by the director in financial when she had been hired. So after taking all she could from the micromanaging, workaholic, slave-driving, overworking Director, she transferred over to our division to take Darrell’s job. What she didn’t realize was that The Minion Supervisor had been trained originally by the director she hated. He was just a little version her. Nancy had not made it a secret to Nora that she was looking for a less insane job somewhere, but she was running into the issues Nora – spend too long working on proprietary software and systems and you’ll have limited choices. Nancy kept herself personally distant from her co-workers, but Nora related to her anyway.

The three of them decided that breakfast would be nice so they headed to The Company’s deli for coffee and muffins though Nora usually went with Jill and Lucy and sometimes Katherine. The Company’s deli made the best muffins Nora had ever had. They were huge and tasty, even the sugar-free and low-fat versions. Nora’s favorite was the full-fat, sugar-laden Chocolate Chip Muffin. She was not alone. If she didn’t get to the deli early enough, they’d all be gone and there was nothing more frustrating than seeing the very last one sold to the person in front of her in the line that usually took five to ten minutes to shuffle through.

However, she was lucky this morning. Must have been the Christmas sweater. She got her golden brown Chocolate Chip muffin and a sugar-free mocha latte and chatted with Nancy and Jeff about work-place gossip as they returned the quarter mile back from the deli to their office. As Nora parted with the pair that sat on a different cubicle aisle, she could hear The Minion Supervisor mumbling something in his office and then slamming the phone down. She thought that was a bit odd but she really did not want to know what he was up to.

Nora had not even finished the motion of sitting in her chair at her desk when the phone rang. As she pulled the muffin from the deli bag, she answered, mindlessly reciting, ““The Company, Information Systems, This is Nora Andrews; how may I help you?”

“Hi, Nora,” Alma said from the other end of the phone line. “How are you doing this morning?” Alma had started about six weeks after the department had been outsourced. She was their on site Human Resources representative and from the moment she had arrived, she’s rubbed Nora the wrong way. The woman was another diva, like the department was not already overstocked, and she was a busy-body. Nora always got the feeling that her smile was not genuine and Nora never felt comfortable going to her for anything. In fact, Nora avoided her.

“I’m fine, and you?” Nora asked, curious as to why the woman was calling her. She had expressed an interest in purchasing some Tupperware, which Nora’s friend Tiffany, Joseph’s wife sold, as Christmas presents, so Nora thought maybe that was what the call was about.

“Oh, I’m doing good. I was wondering if you could come down to my office for a minute,” Alma requested.

“Well, I just sat down at my desk. I haven’t had a chance to read my e-mails or anything yet; can it wait like fifteen minutes or so?” Nora asked, wanting a chance to eat her muffin before having to go deal with whatever Alma wanted.

“Oh…well…sure, we can do that,” Alma replied.

Nora did not miss the strange tone in Alma’s voice. That fake smile obviously was not being projected. “Great! See you then,” Nora stated before hanging up the phone. Something was bothering her now though. There was something off and she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She didn’t even take a bite of her muffin, instead she wrapped her fingers around her paper coffee cup and called Alma’s number to let her know that she was on her way.

Gina was sitting alone at the Help Desk when Nora entered the office. Obviously her supervisor was late again or had wandered off to gossip with the records department again. Gina was on the phone with an irate user so to indicate she should go on in, Gina just pointed toward the room that had once been a conference room and had been turned into a crowded office for The Outsourcing Company’s Human Resources’ Representative, Alma.

Nora’s niggling anxiety exploded as she opened Alma’s door and sitting inside with Alma was The Evil Director. “Uh-oh,” Nora said under her breathe. The Evil Director gave her a polite smile. Nora tried to smile back but her face muscles had stopped working. She felt the blood draining from her body.

“Hi, Nora, why don’t you close that door and have a seat?” Alma gestured toward the empty chair next to The Evil Director. It was one of those orders that was disguised as a question.

Nora felt very hot and ill all of a sudden. What the hell was going on? This could not be good. She didn’t know what they could be upset about now. She had stayed off the internet, she had been completing outstanding projects left and right the last week or two, she had been using the proper sick leave paperwork format, she had been making unasked for changes to increase performance in some of her programs, and she had been on her best behavior in dealing with Roberta – mostly she’d just been staying far away from the feisty, unpredictable Columbian who was just as likely to bring in donuts in the morning as she was to come in ready for a fight. She even had quite a bit of vacation built up because she was going to visit her family in New Mexico for two weeks at the end of the month – for the longest time she barely had any vacation because she was always using it for her migraines, but she’d been doing better and had saved up quite a bit. But obviously something was wrong and all of those anxieties that she had before each annual review were spiraling out of control in her mind. Was it getting hot in there?

Over the next few minutes, it became quite clear to Nora what was happening. While trying to breathe and through the sound of the pounding of her chest, she heard that she was being terminated and she was being forced to sit through a list of perceived crimes against The Outsourcing Company that gave them the right to do this horrible thing to her. As The Evil Director read each one aloud, Nora tried to defend or explain but she was not allowed to. Their minds had been made up. The paperwork was all filled out – kind of like when a Meter Maid has already started writing the ticket.

“You were given the task of writing a workflow analysis of Department MD, but you didn’t start it and kept asking for help; this is something you should be able to do on your own after six years here,” The Evil Director commented.

“But I’ve never done one before, which is why I contacted you to discuss what needed to be done, maybe get an example of-“ Nora tried to explain. She was stunned that this was listed as one of the offenses since she had thought she was doing the right thing by going to her superiors to ask questions so as to get a better understanding of what was needed to be done.

The Evil Director just shook her head dismissively. “You should not be asking for that kind of help after all of this time.”

They all went pretty much that way. She was accused of screwing up Parser uploads into Production on two occasions even though it was not supposed to be her task and she had followed the directions given to her by Roberta and that consultant that The Evil Minion had hired last year. Her abuse of the internet was also brought up though they had no recent proof. In fact, Nora had not even been posting on her blog in her personal time. The basic accusation was that Nora could not be trusted to do her job and was now incapable of doing her job so they had to let her go.

And Nora sat there, disbelieving, wide-eyed, not able to look at them, trying not to cry – Goddammit! She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She did breakdown and ask that they give her another chance, but Alma told her there were no more chances for her.

Nora’s chest and stomach hurt and all the while, she kept thinking, “Ohmigod! I can’t believe this is happening to me. Ohmigod! What am I going to do? How am I going to pay my bills? I’m going to be bankrupt and homeless! My parents are going to be so disappointed. Ohmigod! How can they do this to me? OhmigodOhmigodOhmigod! What am I going to tell people? Isn’t there something that can fix this? Ohmigod! Mom and Dad are going to be so disappointed. I can’t believe this is happening to me. Why is this happening to me? What am I going to do?”

Alma made her sign the termination papers. She wondered what would happen if she refused to sign. Would that mean she would not be fired? As she sat there feeling as if she were in a surreal dream and any moment a big purple dragon would attack the building and everyone would go running in search of oatmeal cookies, Alma made a call to security to have them send someone to escort Nora out. The Evil Director leaned toward Nora and whispered, “I’m really sorry, Nora. This was a very hard thing to do.”

Nora blinked in disbelief. Bitch. If she really was sorry, then she would not being doing this horrible thing to Nora. “Oh, right,” Nora replied with obvious sarcasm. Later she would wish that she’d taken the opportunity to tell The Evil Director all of the unsaid unhappiness that had built up inside Nora during those six and a half years working for The Evil Director; later, she would wish she would have pointed out that The Evil Director was full of bullshit, that neither she nor The Minion Supervisor respected their employees, that being in management did not mean she had to say “yes” to all other management all of the time and “no” to her employees for everything, that standing up for her employees would earn her a lot more than pretend loyalty, and that she would like the twenty dollars that she had put in for The Evil Director’s Christmas present back, but for now, that was all she could manage to say.

Nora was escorted down to security. She kept her eyes on the floor as they walked through the familiar hallways. Holding her now-cold coffee in her hand, she felt as if the world was ending and each step was bringing her closer to the Nothing from Neverending Story. All she could do now was go through the motions – walk, stand, wait as The Minion Supervisor went though her desk and her belongings and boxed everything up. Later she would feel very smug about the fact that he had to box up two loads of crap from her small cubicle – everything from pictures to the computer voodoo doll to the knick- knacks vacationing co-workers had gifted to her to books on technical and business writing. Later she would feel very smug about the fact that he even packed the office supplies while Alma was telling her that she could not take any documentation, including the Employee handbook, and no desk supplies. Nora took what they brought her. If The Minion Supervisor didn’t know what he was not supposed to pack, then that was his fault, not hers. He was the one that sorted through her personal belongs. Weeks later she would be upset though to discover her uneaten muffin packed into a box of pens and pencils and other office supplies.
Nora quietly stood in Security, trying to stay out of everyone’s way and trying not to cry in front of the people she’d worked with. People came in and out, passing her, eyeing her like they were wondering why she was standing there. She felt humiliated. She just wanted to get her stuff and go home. After the first load of boxes arrived, she was allowed to leave to fetch her care but she had to be escorted to the door of the building by security. What did they think she was going to do if they let her go down the hall by herself?

As she walked back to her apartment complex, the same thoughts kept spinning through her mind, “Ohmigod! I can’t believe this is happening to me. Ohmigod! What am I going to do? How am I going to pay my bills? I’m going to be bankrupt and homeless! My parents are going to be so disappointed. Ohmigod! How can they do this to me? OhmigodOhmigodOhmigod! What am I going to tell people? Isn’t there something that can fix this? Ohmigod! Mom and Dad are going to be so disappointed. I can’t believe this is happening to me. Why is this happening to me? What am I going to do? I can’t believe I’ve let my parents down.”

She was devastated as she drove her Jeep over to the building. All she could think about was what had happened that day. The hints and clues over the last week or so. The fact that her life was ruined and she would never recover. She was in debt to her eyeballs. She was alone. She was a failure. As she loaded the two loads of boxes into the back of her Jeep, she tried to be cheerful to the security guard, but really, what are you supposed to say to a security guard who is there to make sure your fired ass is outside of the building.

As she was driving home, that’s when she decided to call her parents. She dialed their phone number on her cell phone – she didn’t have long distance on her home line. As soon as her dad answered, the repressed tears welled up and began to flow down her cheeks. “Dad, I just got fired.” Saying it out loud made it worse. Nora was sobbing by the time her mother got on the phone and she tried to explain what happened between sobs and gasps for air.

Nora was fairly surprised by their reaction. It was not at all the damning condemnation she expected. It was not like the time when she had kept insisting that Ms. Menedez was a terrible and mean teacher and her mother did not believe her until she actually met Ms. Menedez and then Nora was pulled out of the class.
No, Nora’s mom was extremely supportive and understanding and not only agreed with some of Nora’s paranoid conspiracy theories regarding her termination but actually came up with a few of her own. Her dad was very assuring and kept insisting that this would all work out, that she just needed to calm down and then they could work out a plan. No one accused her of anything; no one demanded to know what she had done to cause this; no one said she was a failure; no one claimed she had not tried hard enough to keep her job.

And yet, all Nora could feel was that she was a failure, that she had been betrayed, that she was humiliated and devastated, that she was angry and hurt. She was doubly pissed off that The Evil Director had managed to do it before the Christmas party – presumably to save money on one more employee’s plate and that she’d put in money for gifts for both The Minion Supervisor and The Evil Director. She was hurt that no one had warned her, and yet, somehow she’d suspected that something really bad was about to happen. Her paranoia sense had been tingling for a week. There had been closed door meetings and whispering. She had started to buy an extremely expensive fleece jacket the night before for her trip to New Mexico, but something told her to hold off a few days. Something had told her to sign up for that unemployment protection on her credit card. She had been working on cleaning up documentation for her programs just in case someone else ever had to look at it. Her subconscious had known and even it had kept the secret.

She sat in the car, clutching her cell phone, trying to breathe between sobs while her parents tried to calm her down from thousands of miles away. Her head was starting to ache from the crying, but she ignored that. She was a disappointing failure to her parents – she was in debt, she was unemployed, she had never lived up to her potential, she was fat, and she was a slob.

Finally, she got off of the phone and carried her boxes up the stairs and into the apartment. She was miserable. She couldn’t even look in the boxes to make sure everything was there, though she needed to. She put it off a bit as she pulled off that horrible, unlucky Christmas sweater and kicked off her shoes. She paced in her sock feet and her red turtleneck and tan pants, but there was not really room between the Christmas decorations, the furniture and the boxes.

She sat down on the futon and pulled her laptop onto her lap, ignoring the cats which were begging for her attention. As she sniffled, she typed an email to all of her friends that she had lost her job. There. It was out there. She didn’t have to tell the same story a hundred thousand times. Everyone would know and she wouldn’t have to see the disappointment on their faces when they found out.

Within ten minutes or so, emails from concerned and shocked friends were spilling into her email inbox. Digital love and support from both people she knew in person and people she had never met outside of email and instant messenger. While the show of support and encouragement was a relief, Nora’s mind couldn’t quite fathom it. Instead the loss of her job was sending her mind spiraling out of control as it couldn’t latch on to any one thing she could fix. A child of the “instant” generations where pudding took no more than fifteen minutes and pizza was delivered in less than thirty minutes and you could do all of your banking online with a few keystrokes. Nora was determined that this issue of unemployment be resolved just as instantly and since she couldn’t fathom a way for that to be possible, her brain was spinning in circles.

tags: NaNoWriMo, writing

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