“Then you’re dismissed,” Shannon had said curtly, without batting an eye.
A shocked hush rose up and there had been dead silence. Peggy had looked at Shannon as if she were waiting for the younger woman to grin and laugh, saying it was all a joke. Shannon’s features were sullen and stoical. She wasn’t joking; she was dead serious. This hit home to Jennifer when Shannon said, “Get your things and leave. I’ll have payroll process your final check.”
“But—” Peggy had said, her features suddenly growing white with the shock and confusion over what was happening.
“Does anybody want to join Peggy?” Shannon had asked the group. Jennifer couldn’t believe this was happening. She and the Controller were like different people; they were sullen, unemotional, their features not registering the sounds of Peggy’s cries as the older woman left the conference room in tears. “If not, I suggest you remain team players. This is all for the good of the company. Without the company, we are nobody. You are accountants because it is what you do. Right now the company needs you and your skills to help for the betterment of the company, and all of us. If the company succeeds, you succeed. That’s it in a nutshell, gang. If you want to remain a team player, you must trust each other and work together. The harder you work, the more you cooperate with each other to meet the company goals, the sooner you will be able to finish. That’s all we’re asking.”
So that was how Jennifer Faus came to work the first seventy-hour week in almost ten years. The first few days weren’t so bad. She assisted in the daily transactions and data entry and journal ledger entries; she ran reports for Shannon; she worked on preparing to close out the week’s business. But as the week wore on, Jennifer’s fatigue grew, and when Shannon gave her an icy glare Thursday afternoon after telling her she had to leave at five-thirty to make a six o’clock hair appointment, Jennifer realized there was something wrong. Something was just not right. She’d told Shannon she was going to be back—it was just a forty-minute appointment, if that, then she’d be right back to finish. In fact, she was getting into a routine, a certain rhythm to the new schedule, and she felt that by next week she’d have it down to where she’d be able to finish all the extra stuff before five p.m. just in time to go home at a normal hour. The look Shannon gave her told Jennifer that if she left the team to conduct personal business while the team was working towards its goals, she must not be serious about being a team player and, therefore, not a good worker. And if she wasn’t a good worker, she could find employment elsewhere.
So she stayed.
And now she was miserable and dog-tired.
Jennifer glanced at the time on the bottom right hand portion of her computer screen. On any normal Friday evening she’d be out having dinner with her husband, Jack. Then they’d stop by a bookstore and browse, maybe take in a movie and drinks at a pub in town, then come home. Not tonight. Even if she were to leave the office in the next fifteen minutes, she was too tired to do anything except plop her butt on the sofa and veg out in front of the TV. Jack had called an hour ago and Jennifer caught Shannon glance her way, disapproval in her eyes. Jennifer had told Jack that she was still at the office but she should be finished soon—sorry. When she got off the phone, Shannon had strolled by. “What are you doing?”
“Working on the spreadsheet,” Jennifer had said.
“It didn’t sound like you were,” Shannon said and left it at that. The subliminal message was obvious: take a personal phone call while you’re working again and you can find another job.
Jennifer inserted data into the spreadsheet she was working on, her mind elsewhere. Her co-workers continued their duties normally. Jennifer paused for a moment, listening to the sounds in the office. It was quiet except for the sounds of computer keyboards clacking and people on the phone. It was as if things had settled back to normal, as if her co-workers had resigned themselves to the fact that these long hours were now a normal part of the workday. There were no mutters of complaint, no idle chatter or slouching on the job. Jennifer’s mind had been wandering for the past two days while she went about her tasks like an automaton; many times she just pretended to work, since there really wasn’t much to her duties anyway. There was no justification in staying late, really. Yet she stayed at the office with the rest of her co-workers not out of a sense of loyalty to them, but because she needed this job or she would be unable to pay her rent and bills. It was as simple as that. And if things were going to continue this way at PeopleReady, then she supposed it was time to start looking for a new job.
Jennifer yawned as she continued working. She noticed Shannon glance at her and saw a faint smile of approval on the woman’s face. At least she was putting up a good front; as long as it kept Shannon happy, so be it.
She yawned again as she finished the current worksheet and clicked to another one. She felt tired, ready to drop off at any minute. Good thing her apartment was just a four block walk.
Jennifer picked up the pace in her duties, hoping to finish quickly, and as she did she grew more tired and a strange tune circled inside her head, one she couldn’t place immediately but that seemed oddly familiar. And as she tried to identify it and place where it was coming from—because she couldn’t really hear it, it just seemed to be something her subconscious started playing, probably a tune she’d heard once and then forgotten—she coasted along in her job as if everything was going to turn out okay.
THE ONLY THING Michelle Dowling was looking forward to when she exited her flight and made her way down to baggage claim at O’Hare International Airport was talking to Donald.
She tried calling the house the minute she exited the plane. It was picked up on the second ring. “Michelle!” Donald sounded excited and scared.
“Donald, you’re home!” Michelle said, hurrying down O’Hare to get to baggage claim. Her flight had been uncomfortable; she’d been stuck next to a fat businessman in coach who’d breathed through his mouth and, when he found out she was a consultant for Corporate Financial, kept wanting to talk to her about the latest business news as reported by The Wall Street Journal . “Did you get my message?”
“Yes, I did,” Donald said. She thought she heard another voice in the background, one she didn’t recognize, and there was a short pause on the line and then Donald came back. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine! Why? Who’s over there?”
“Tell me the truth, honey.” Donald sounded serious; even grim. The sudden seriousness of it made her pause in her journey through the massive airport and she stopped near a McDonald’s restaurant, ignoring other people as they passed by. “When you met Jay O’Rourke in El Paso did you feel you could trust him?”