Out of Office

Barbie

To: EtCarter@

Hello Carter,

As per my last email, you egotistical canker sore, the test files will be sent to you and your team by EOW. Not end of yesterday. End of week.

Not only can we not defy what is universally known as the physics of time, but we cannot rush our testing phase, as we are not bots who can automatically produce results from thin air just because you demand them. QC actually prides our quality workmanship.

So why don’t you stop micromanaging me and focus on your dumpster fire of a team while I focus on mine?

Unkind regards,

B.H.

It is seven-twelve in the morning, and my eyes are bleary as hell while dealing with the eighteen emails sent to me last night from none other than the coworker from hell.

My cup of coffee has yet to be brewed. My cat still needs to be let out of the room.

I’m sitting at my desk, barely half awake, while I hit select all and delete the response I’ve crafted that would land me a one-way ticket to a conversation with an HR representative.

With a disdainful sigh, I rake my fingers through my messy hair and start typing a more eloquent and HR-approved email when a notification pings.

E. Carter: Got a sec?

“Absolutely not, jackass,” I mutter, barely midway through an eye-roll, when another pop-up occurs in the bottom right corner, accompanied by a ringtone that has haunted my dreams far too many times now. “Dammit.”

I swear to God, he needs to just schedule daily meetings at seven a.m. once and for all so we can cut the bullshit by at least one percent.

Pulling my headset over my head, I answer the call and glower at the screen. “Hi, Carter.”

“Hello, Barb.”

“Barbie.” My gritted teeth punctuate the last syllable.

Not that he’ll see them. The best thing about working at Green Checks Insurance is that cameras aren’t mandatory during calls—the second-best thing.

Working remotely will always be the best thing about this place.

“I am responding to your emails right now—”

“Glad to hear, Bee,” his smooth voice cuts in. How he’s managed to survive decades of not being shanked in the throat with a carabiner is one of life’s greatest mysteries. “I’m calling you to discuss your feedback on an SOP—”

“Which one, Carter?” I interject, my voice sugary sweet. “I’ve provided plenty of feedback on numerous SOPs.”

A taut silence fills the air and brings a half-smile to my lips.

“You know which one I’m talking about.” His voice is lower, growlier. “You shouldn’t have sent in an update form to Help Desk without reaching out to me first. Those guides belong to me—”

“And they’re out of date.” Because of your ineptitude with maintaining their upkeep, you hostile jackass. “My team is getting dinged—”

“If your team is having issues,” he says smoothly, “my team and I are more than happy to give you a refresher course—”

“It’s not necessary,” I interrupt. “We like to adhere to the SOPs because they are, after all, the standard. Let’s not go against company policy.”

“I agree.”

Do you? “Your team keeps giving us guidelines that aren’t mentioned in the standard operating procedures,” I remind him sweetly, “and I do not want our reports to keep getting rejected without anything concrete to back us up.” Because you guys conveniently forgot that the so-called special instructions were given during a project overview call.

“My team prides itself on keeping it standard.” Does yours?

“Regardless,” he says, and I resist the urge to turn in my two weeks’ notice while I glare daggers at his profile picture.

Like every generic middle-aged dudebro’s online userpic, it’s a grainy photo of him nowhere in a close shot with sunglasses on and his arms posed awkwardly as if he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

“These are my guides. I can send in the requests myself. While I appreciate the offer, let’s not overstep—”

“I concur. So stop rejecting my team’s reports because you don’t agree with the standard procedures you signed off on,” I say, because asking are you not overstepping right now, Carter? would only sidetrack this bullshit, as this man is incapable of ever admitting that he’s wrong.

“I do agree with my procedures.” His words, blunt as ever, cause my spine to straighten because ha, as if. “My only concern is how your team is interpreting them—”

“We are only following your documented steps. If you don’t like it, then might I suggest you review your SOPs more frequently and see what calibration needs to be done?

Just to ensure that everything goes more smoothly in the long run, of course.

” My voice practically oozes with a note so saccharine that it’s sickening.

“Now, I must respond to your emails and prepare for my next meeting. Goodbye.”

Then I exit the call, lean back in my seat, and glare up at the ceiling. How is it possible for one person to ruin your day before it’s even eight in the morning?

“Have you ever considered,” my younger sister chimes in, and my head swivels in her direction just in time to witness her stretching her arms over her head, “taking a day off? I’m just saying. Your mental health would thank you.”

My lips press together as I unplug my headset and set it down.

Unlike Bell, I do not call out sick when I’m not feeling it.

Not feeling it does not pay for basic necessities and rent.

We cannot keep mooching off of our older sister, Betty, and her fiancé’s generosity.

Not with how cramped it is with the four of us under one roof.

I was only supposed to stay with them for a few weeks, not two years.

“Well—”

A notification pings from my laptop, and I twist in my seat to glower at the screen again.

E. Carter: I’ve reached out to Help Desk and told them to remove your annuity SOP suggestions from their July release slate as they are unnecessary.

“You’re fucking unnecessary,” I hiss, and my sister snorts.

E. Carter: Next time, reach out to me first so we do not have to give Ally a runaround when she has other SOPs to create. Let’s not waste people’s time if we can avoid it.

My jaw becomes impossibly tight as I push my seat back and let out a frustrated huff. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to do so if you had checked your emails, Carter.

Launching to my feet, I grab the laundry basket and spare my sister an even tighter smile. “I’ll be right back. I need to get the laundry started and some caffeine in me before my next meeting. Can you feed—”

“I’ll handle Pie,” she breathes out, and she’s already scrambling out of her bed. “No worries.”

With one less thing to deal with, I drag the laundry out the door and level a polite smile in Betty and Vincent’s direction, wishing I didn’t feel super guilty when Betty shuts her wedding planning book.

Wordlessly, I head toward the balcony where the laundry unit is. Despite the rough start to this morning, at least the clear blue sky promises nothing but sunshine and, hopefully, a brighter day. I knock on wood just in case I jinxed myself.

Once the washing machine’s started and I’ve fixed myself a mug full of instant coffee that would have disappointed my Vietnamese mother and swiped a stale donut left on the counter, I’m back at my desk, prepping last-minute for the status update meeting with my manager and making notes of everything my QC team has been up to since last week’s call.

Chewing on my donut, I’m barely jotting down the hiccups my team’s facing due to my canker sore of a coworker I refuse to think of in the few minutes of solace left when the ringtone goes off and a pop-up appears in the bottom corner.

I hop on the call two seconds in and, already, I’m the last one to arrive. There are only three of us, but still.

A grimace forms around the edges of my lips when I hear my manager laughing along with Carter’s deep and hearty chuckle—the only thing warm about him in what I’m quite sure is that cold-blooded reptilian body of his.

Knowing how bro-y Carter is and having gone through this at least five hundred times now, I hit mute, lean back in my seat, and glaze over as he continues to talk sports with our manager.

This is only supposed to be a thirty-minute call where we’re supposed to give Ed a recap of everything our own teams have been up to so he can report back to his boss that we’ve been productive.

Chatting about last night’s game is not productive. Then I groan when I hear Carter recommend some hiking trail for Ed and his wife to check out if they’re ever in the area. He’s so weekend warrior, it hurts.

Since it’ll take a while, I scroll through my phone and check my application progress, making sure everything crucial has been submitted and perking up slightly when I see an unread response from an old college advisor.

Then I woodenly stare at my notes for today’s update and wonder why Ed doesn’t just ask us to send them in via email. I still need to meet up with my team and fix the hiccups spilling over from yesterday, so my team and his don’t passive-aggressively fight for three hours on end via emails.

Seventy-two emails.

With everybody CC’d to the chain.

All because the QA team didn’t like the fact that we pointed out a typo. That’s been repeated two hundred times from the random legal documents we pulled to analyze and audit. My team did their job. It’s not my fault that his team didn’t do theirs.

“All right, my B&E team,” Ed says cheerfully. “What do we have going on in QC, Barbie?” Before I can set my mug down, his tongue clicks a beat. “Besides the fact that you’ve now been with us for two years.”

I almost choke on my coffee as I unmute my mic. Two years? I’ve had countless emails, software, and financial reports opened across two monitors and a laptop screen for two years while I fought for my life with the idiot who does nothing but waste my time?

E. Carter: Barb, we do not need cover sheets for Client UR-230.

That sneaky bastard.