Monday Madness

I poked my head into Kevin’s office on Monday morning and saw him sitting at his desk proffreading a few articles.

“Hey, I was wondering if you were available for lunch today,” I said cheerily.

“Yeah, I’d love to, I know a great place we can go to, do you like Italian?”

“I love Italian food, sounds great. I’ll see you around 12:30 then?”
“Sure, see you then.”

I waved and walked back to my office. Our whole conversation felt so forced and fake. It didn’t feel as easy as it used to be. I sighed and sat down at my desk and set to work on organizing the employee files and cataloging their evaluation scores. I noticed that Janna had one of the worst scores I’d ever seen since I’d been working for the paper and started reading her evaluations. She has been late everyday and leaves early, she takes personal phone calls for hours a day, and is suspected of stealing expensive office supplies. I decided that I would need to talk to her about her behavior before I could consider firing her (especially since it took three weeks just to fill the position and I’ve only recently stopped thinking about the terrible interviews I had to get through just to find her) but that it could wait until after lunch.

Kevin came by right at 12:30 and I grabbed my coat. We started walking and making small talk until he suddenly stopped.

“Uh, I think we’re going to have to rain check this lunch,” he said looking toward the front desk. I followed his gaze and saw Hannah talking to Janna with a picnic basket. My stomach bottomed out and rambled something out to Kevin about getting lunch tomorrow and quickly walked back to my office to hide my embarrassment and awkwardness. I heard Kevin and Hannah talking in the hallway.

“Why are you here Hannah? I thought we talked about taking some time apart…” Kevin lowered his voice at this last part but I could still hear it.

“I just thought I’d surprise you for lunch, let’s go to your office,” Hannah walked past my office with a spring in her step looking a lot happier than she did a our Holiday party and Kevin followed behind her looking confused and frustrated.

I decided to go to a Chinese place across the street with Dina and Suzy where we talked about George (He and his wife just got back from China to help plan their daughter's last-minute wedding) and the office gossip but I wasn’t really listening.

“Anyway, Carlos told me all about it, but there’s an even bigger rumor going around that Faith and Kevin are having an affair,” Suzy nonchalantly said while she ate her fried rice. Dina looked wide-eyed and then looked at me. I just stared at Suzy with my mouth agape.

“Why would that even be going around the office? Kevin and I barely see each other at work and the only time we ever see each other socially is at work parties,” I started panicking and Suzy and Dina shared looks.

Dina looked at me gently and put her hand on mine, “Sweetie, is it true?”

I didn’t really know how to answer her question and looked down, Suzy changed the subject to how fat some celebrity had gotten and the Balloon Boy Hoax. I munched on my sweet and sour chicken for the rest of the meal without saying anything or making eye contact.
When I got back to work I called Janna into my office.

“I just got your employee evaluation back. Your scores are very low and cite a lot of poor behavior.”

“Like what,” Janna was chewing gum and playing with her hair. I noticed that she had a facial piercing that wasn’t there when I hired her.

“Well, for example the evaluations indicate that you come to work late almost every day and leave nearly an hour early, too.”

“Oh, well, I mean that’s true,’ she smacked her gum and started to look bored. I sighed and asked the obvious question.

“So you don’t see an issue with coming in late and leaving early every day?”

“No.”

I paused and looked at her waiting for the punch line but got nothing but a doe-eyed expression, I cleared my throat, “You do realize we’ve been paying you for the hours you’ve been coming in late and leaving early, right?”

“Yeah, and if you could, like, keep doing that, I think it would be ideal…for me, you know.”

I looked at her and smiled, “Well, we can’t pay you for not working so that’s not going to pan out. But if you came to work on time and left on time, I would have no problem paying you for those hours. So are you willing to do that?"

“I think that’s, like, unreasonable and unfair.”

“Why?”

“Because I’d have to, like, get up early and stuff.”

I picked up my phone and started dialing a temp agency number, “What are you doing?” Janna gave me a dirty look. I put the phone down and put my hands on my desk, “Janna, you’re fired, you’re unwilling to do your job and I need a more reliable receptionist so I’m going to have to let you go.”

Janna looked at me shocked and prepared to fight, “But I’m such a good secretary! I talk on the phone, like, all the time!”

“Janna, you’ve been working here for two months and still don’t know how to make copies, send faxes, or even transfer a phone call. You’re also on the phone all the time because you’re taking personal calls over business calls. I can’t have you working for this paper anymore. You’ll need to remove any personal items from the front desk by the end of the week.”

She got up indignantly and walked out of my office, at the door she turned around and looked at me, “Can I at least put you down as a reference?”

“I wouldn’t count on that, Janna.”

After she left I sighed and picked up the phone again. I punched in the phone number for a temp agency we use frequently and arranged for someone to come in the next day until the position is filled. Who knows when that will be! I had stayed late at work and was exhausted but decided to check my e-mail before I left, I had an e-mail from Kevin:

From: Kevin
To: Faith
Subject: Dinner

Faith,
I want to apologize for missing lunch today. We need to talk and since lunch was interrupted, I’d like to invite you to dinner. I’ll meet you outside at 6:00?
Kevin

I looked at my watch it was almost 6:00pm. I grabbed my coat and purse, turned the lights off in my office, and closed the door.