READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 10: 9th entry
Season: Summer
Weather: Humid stillness all day. No wind. Hot. Overcast.
Day of the week: Monday
Date: 22nd January, 2024
With the sky threatening to rain and yet refusing to rain all day, I didn't dare hang my washing up outside. However, the air conditioner is not helping much due to the humidity and the clothes are not drying. In fact, they're already starting to smell. I may have to wash them again some fine other day. Sigh.
Today, I went into work to discover one of the bosses had come to join our morning huddle. If this was the surprise present he had promised, my team wanted none of it. However, we couldn't say anything. We could only sit there, as obedient as dolls, to see what he wanted to say.
Lo and behold, when after introducing himself to those of us who hadn't properly met him the week some of us got trapped in the building, that Anthony Duin, this particular boss, gave us a lengthy dressing down on our long and unhealthy hours of work, which while thanking us for our hard work and dedication, did not look good when auditing time came around and the auditors notice the consistently abnormal work hours of my department. Did you like the long sentence? His scolding was full of supernormally long sentences. In fact, we got nothing done all day. We had to sit and listen to him tell us off for our dedication until lunchtime.
I didn't much like this present.
During which, he decided to eat with us and continue his lecture while we grew very, very fidgety and somewhat impatient. Finally, finally, finally, after 2pm, he allowed us to air our concerns and explain why we worked such abnormally long hours and complain about the unreasonable demands of our direct line boss who wanted everything done yesterday when he gave an order and refused our leave more often than not.
"Miss Brown, have you been listening to anything we've talked about today?"
That sharp voice made me wake up with a jolt and a jump, making me and my chair topple over to the amusement of everyone also yawning in the conference room.
My stuttering reply had only made him lift an eyebrow.
"You've had your eyes closed most of the day, although I could hear you typing the minutes," he snatched the laptop from me to glance through today's impromptu meeting minutes and his other eyebrow joined the first in rising high. "How is that paying attention or showing me any respect?"
Everyone else in the room stopped slouching and yawning. They sat up straight, shooting me glances of pity and sympathy while I was being shot as a demonstrative sacrifice on their behalf.
"Tell me what I've been talking about for the past half hour," Anthony Duin snapped, gnashing his teeth. He obviously hadn't read the meeting minutes properly or he would know that I did not take meetings minutes in a halfhearted manner. Meeting minutes were serious things that could not and should not be taken lightly.
"Ah," I replied, trying to buy time to rewind my memory of the past half hour.
"You weren't listening, were you? Look at these meeting minutes, they're... almost verbatim?"
And while he was stunned by the detail of the meeting minutes that I had been typing now that he was looking at them properly, I closed my eyes to recite what he had been saying about half an hour ago, almost verbatim, half falling asleep while I did so. So my voice got kind of slow and slurred until my neighbour poked me back awake. With both my neighbours poking me every now and then to keep me awake, I only got part way through my half hour recitation for my neighbour to poke me rapidly, whispering for me to stop. I opened my eyes only to discover that Anthony Duin was... livid? Furious? I'm not entirely sure. It was certainly a very negative emotion.
"Boss Stony," my team leader hastily intervened, using the nickname Anthony Duin had permitted us to use for him, "please don't be angry. Jane's a very straight laced kind of girl. You asked her to recite half an hour's worth and so she did. She's just that type of person. She wasn't being sarcastic. All of us are running on fumes. None of us mean to show you any disrespect."
With that, Stony Anthony Duin silently stalked out of the office while I was still looking around in a daze wondering what had just happened. One of my colleagues explained to me what had just happened and as realisation dawned, I dropped my head to the table with a thunk. I thunked my forehead. The word 'thunk' is such an amusing one that I have to use it in a few more sentences.
Everyone jumped and it must have been loud enough that the Stony Boss, Anthony Duin, came rushing back in alarm. Upon seeing me with my head on the table and forcing me to sit upright with a reddened forehead that he rubbed while apologising, he demanded my colleagues send me home.
And that was that.
"I'll sort out the problem with your leaves and overworking," Anthony Duin promised us while I, protesting, was forced into my jacket and marched to my car with one of my colleagues on either side of me. "You are staying home tomorrow to rest," Anthony Duin pointed at me. "Don't worry about work. Go home and sleep properly."
Upon getting home, I got online and got back to work with my colleagues who both laughed and scolded me. No matter what Anthony Duin said, he was not one of our direct line bosses. We still needed to meet our deadlines, well or unwell, tired or not, or risk getting our pay and bonuses for the year docked.
At 10:30pm, I received a video call from Anthony Duin while I was in the middle of discussing some work with a colleague. With some trepidation, we accepted him into our meeting only to receive an earful.
"There will be an investigation into the unfair work practices your department have told me about," an angry Anthony Duin said while we cowered back and shrunk our necks to make ourselves smaller. Or at least, I did, pretending I was a quail. "In the meantime, Miss Brown, please stop working and go to bed. Now. You too, Mr Wade. Work is done for the day. Miss Brown, if I see you tomorrow, online or not, if I see your emails floating around, if I notice you are still working tomorrow when you have been given a day off, see whether I will take some drastic measures or not. You and your colleagues are not working slaves to be abused at the whims of higher up management, deadlines or not. Go. To . Bed."
So...
I'm going to bed. I guess?