Chapter Eleven #2
Ah, the dashboard. I spent the rest of my time back home pulling reports to learn my way around it, and I’m pleased to say I mostly got the hang of it after three frustrating days of tearing my hair out and cursing the skies above me.
When Connor said I wouldn’t be able to do the job, I was offended on principle, but I have to begrudgingly (and privately—never to him) admit that he had a point. I have no idea how to do any of this and it’s really hard.
Which brings me to the other thing I spent most of the last week doing: staying up late into the night hanging out with my good friend Brian the Dinosaur.
I caught him untold butterflies in his little net. He and I also went on a long walk across a field, picked flowers, and built a charming log cabin where—I presume—he’ll live out the rest of his days in peaceful solitude.
Since this is more of a secret project, I have no one to brag to about the fact that I graduated the game and have moved on to the next age bracket, where I now gamely assist Stegosaurus Julie on a—frankly insane—quest to find her lost turtle.
I didn’t set out intending to lose hours on a kids’ coding game, but as it turns out, it’s pretty fun.
Whoever invented Brian the Dinosaur is an absolute genius. And probably a millionaire.
“Important question for you, Annie,” Martin says, once Connor and Ben have joined their call.
“Um, OK.”
“Would you rather…” He raises his brows meaningfully. “Smell like rotten egg for a year, OR have to carry an egg in your hand every day for a year without breaking it?”
“Such a good one,” John says. “It took me ages to decide.”
“Is this…something you discuss often?”
“It’s would-you-rather,” Martin says. “The best game ever.”
Not sure I’d call it a game, exactly, but sure.
“I guess I’d have to say carry the egg for a year?”
“Lies,” Martin says. “I don’t believe you. Think how annoying that would be. And if you drop it…you get fined a million bucks.”
“Who is fining me?”
“Are you sure, Annie?” John asks anxiously. “I chose smell like egg, in the end. It just seemed easier.”
“You would be holding an egg,” Martin stresses, pretending an egg is cupped in his hand. “For three hundred and sixty-five days, everywhere you go. Even when you sleep. You seriously think you wouldn’t drop that thing?”
I let out a laugh, which alerts Connor’s attention, and sends the three of us hastily logging on to our screens.
—
It takes me no time at all to identify how I will become indispensable to my new teammates. From now on, my role, as I see it anyway, will be getting everyone in this company to leave them the hell alone.
Formally speaking, the objective of Data Strategy is to improve data quality across the business and introduce a standard set of metrics that (in theory) will make our reporting more consistent.
In practice, however, Data Strategy seems to operate like a little team of internal handymen.
People from every department come to them with a range of different questions at all hours of the day, interrupting whatever they’re supposed to be doing and crashing into the DatStrat inbox with subject lines that all riff on some variation of: URGENT request for [insert request that is definitely, definitely not and has never been urgent here].
If someone needs something from Data Strategy they’re supposed to raise a support ticket. The DatStrat inbox exists so Data Strategy can follow up on official ticket requests. This is an outbound-only situation. There should be no inbound messages.
And yet.
Every time I open this inbox, it’s overflowing. And I’m chagrined to learn that many of the worst offenders are from my old department.
“John,” I say, waving my hand above his screen to capture his attention. All I can see from behind the monitor are curls.
He reminds me of a gopher, the way his head pops up over the screen. “What’s up?”
“What’s the deal with that email Brandon just sent you, to the DatStrat inbox?”
“Oh, sorry,” he says. “I’ll get to it.”
“No, I mean—what’s his deal?” I amend. “Are you working with him on something specific, or is he just being a freeloader?”
“The second one,” Marty confirms, inserting himself into the conversation. “He’s always bugging us.”
“Not anymore he’s not,” I tell them. “Let me reply to him, John, OK?”
“Sure,” he says.
I roll up my sleeves and start typing. No one bullies John on my watch.
Brandon,
Just jumping in here. While I appreciate this is time sensitive for you, this particular ask falls outside the remit of the Data Strategy team.
Given John’s existing workload, he’s not the best person to handle this efficiently, and in future I’d appreciate it if you used the established ticketing system rather than approaching him directly.
The report you’re looking for can be pulled from the dashboard, and if you’d like any assistance with this you’re welcome to attend a future learning session we’ll be hosting soon.
I’ll be sure to send you a calendar invite.
All best,
Annie
To think I thought of Brandon as a good guy back in Product!
My eyes have been well and truly opened.
Luckily, there are few things more satisfying in this life than shaming someone in passive-aggressive corporate speak.
I feel a surge of satisfaction when Brandon replies minutes later with a surly message of defeat.
“Did you just—” John says, reading the email, his mouth open in shock.
Martin reads over John’s shoulder, then punches the air. “Hell yeah!”
“What’s happening?” Ben asks from the top of the table, his attention caught.
“Annie just bitch-slapped Brandon over email,” Martin says.
“Thanks, Annie,” John says, looking bashful.
Truth be known, I have a blast. I underestimated just how much fun it would be to act as their human shield, denying lazy product managers their pointless requests, settling a few of my own scores in the process.
“She strikes again,” Martin says, obsessed with reading every reply. “That one was brutal.”
I preen. It was, if I do say so myself.
The only person who doesn’t seem to get any relief by my taking control of the inbox is Connor, who I quickly learn gets many, many requests that bypass it and go straight to him.
I watch him answer query after query, pulling data, building spreadsheets, writing mysterious pieces of code.
He wears it all lightly, but now and then I get the impression that it’s intensely stressful.
He has a to-do list as long as his arm, which isn’t even scratching the surface of all the things he’s covering for his boss while she’s off on mat leave.
As my seatmate, it is impossible not to be aware of him, and I study him with the intensity of a cultural anthropologist.
I notice things about him that I’ve never paid attention to in anyone before: the set of his shoulders, the way his hair curls around his ears. The freckle on the back of his neck.
His arms, too, are very nice, as are the backs of his hands, which I get to watch typing away on his keyboard all day long.
CONNOR: You’d be a TERRIBLE spy
ANNIE: Excuse me?
CONNOR: You know when you’re staring at me you turn your head all the way to the side?
ANNIE: I do not
CONNOR: You do, you’re doing it now
ANNIE: I’m not even looking at you
CONNOR: Yeah NOW you’re not. But you were
ANNIE: I wasn’t
CONNOR: It’s like those people wearing dark sunglasses who think no one can tell what they’re looking at
CONNOR: Which never works, by the way
CONNOR: You can always tell
ANNIE: How
CONNOR: It’s what your nose is pointing at
I try not to laugh when it’s clear that I should, in fact, be working, but I can’t help the little snort that escapes when I read that. I don’t need to look at Connor to know he’s smiling too: I can feel it.
ANNIE: Creep
CONNOR: Says the person staring
I refocus on the task in front of me, determined to ignore Connor’s presence, which is of course, impossible. I wonder if he’s looking at me as much as I’m looking at him. I find the thought strangely thrilling.
—
“What was the name of that boy you went to prom with?” Mom says, without preamble, when she telephones me later that week while I’m making dinner. My roommate is out, somewhere. In her absence I made the salmon.
“I didn’t have a date to prom.”
“Well then, who’s that floppy-haired boy in all the pictures? I have an album full of the two of you on our doorstep.”
I am at pains to correct her. “He wasn’t my date. We went as friends.”
“What’s the difference?”
“And his name was Thomas,” I tell her.
“That was it,” she says, satisfied to have this mystery solved. “Are you still in touch with him?”
“Other than through social media? No.”
“Well, I think it’s high time you reached out,” she suggests, like this is something important she’s been thinking about for a while. “He works at The King’s Glen, you know.”
“I did not know that. How do you know that?”
“I saw him when I stopped by there the other day.”
“And you thought, what? There’s my daughter’s prom date from twelve years ago, I wonder how he is?”
“What I thought was that you could give him a call and see if they can squeeze in one more wedding this year.”
Oh, here we go.
“Has Shannon asked you to do this?”
“She doesn’t need to ask. I’m her mother,” she says. “And it can’t hurt to make a few inquiries.”
“Maybe hold off for a bit?” I say, annoyed by her eagerness.
Her tone suggests she finds this absurd. “What would be the point in that?”
“Because she might not want you to? Maybe she doesn’t even want to get married at The King’s Glen. She said they hadn’t settled on a venue.”
“Oh, tosh,” she says. “She’s only saying that because she’s worried they won’t have any free dates.”
I hesitate. “Are you sure? I didn’t exactly get the sense she’s in any hurry. Maybe—she’s having second thoughts?”
Mom sighs deeply, exhausted at the prospect of raking over this subject with me again.