Changes around the office

Tonya tells me over the Twitch stream that she will be leaving this evening. She and Lewis have both agreed to visit their dad's house for the weekend. Tonya doesn't sound thrilled about it, especially with her Twitch channel newly set up, and I can only imagine what Lewis thinks about it. As far as I know this is the first time they are actually spending more than an afternoon there. I get worried that Victoria's board meeting will probably be finished soon, so I congratulate her on her inaugural stream, and promise talk to her on Sunday after she gets back. Then I close the webpage and get back to my thoughts.

Whatever happens next, I need to get my resumé ready. I pull it up and look it over. I am underwhelmed. I had decided to take this job instead of getting more education, hoping it was going to propel me into something bigger without incurring debt. But with the harsh performance review she gave me last quarter, and her treating me like an errand-running whipping boy, I feel like I made a serious miscalculation. When I interviewed with Victoria, I was dazzled, as much by her beauty and personal accomplishments as by the excitement of a growing startup company. Now, years later, I feel like the most notable skills I have developed here would fast-track me into the barista arts. That, or a job where you have to dodge psychic bullets every day, if such a job exists. I get a glimpse of my boss returning, so I close the resume and look busy. I can work on it later tonight.

Victoria is acting... unusual. This isn't Warpath Vikki. Her eyes aren't slashing through the air like a saber, more like her eyes are casting from thing to thing as if she is seeing them all in a new context. She is re-evaluating everything around her. I don't like that... Fresh eyes could realize I've been up to some bad things. She looks in my direction. Her eyes sweep over me like I am little more than another object in the room to be registered, then moves on.{if pill_intellectual=true}{if victoria_clumsy>40)She drops the keys at the door. She grabs them quickly, almost falling over as she does.{endif} She struggles to unlock the door for several seconds, eventually realizing the key is upside down. She flips it, then enters quickly. I make uncomfortable eye contact with her just before the door closes. Is all the ****-laced cum I'm feeding her going to her brain?{else} She unlocks the door and enters the office, closing and locking it behind her. Is she that unnerved by something?{endif} This is too weird.{if victoria_confroom = true} I mean, I didn’t even try to sabotage her for this meeting... what is going on?{endif}

An hour later she comes out to tell me to cancel or reschedule several appointments over the next couple weeks. Then she disappears back into the office. Time to earn my paycheck, I suppose. When I open the shared scheduler, I see she has reserved several blocks as “personal time” for herself next week, overlapping with a few of her lunch breaks. I ignore it for the moment and get busy shuffling appointments. I examine the openings in her schedule and start making phone calls. Just as I am finishing up, I finally realize that all of the lunch meetings with Alex D. from AmorFik have been removed. Uh...did the Wayfield and AmorFik partnership end? Or does someone else now have the responsibility of being the point of contact? If so, was it taken away from Victoria? This feels like a big deal. It might account for her strange behavior...

“Warren, enter my office, please.”

I gulp, steady myself, then do as she requested. She still looks tired. I wonder if that has something to do with her behavior, or maybe something going wrong at the meeting...

“There is more gala prep to do. There is an auction item that needs to be picked up from a donor and delivered to the event storage this weekend. It is a little too big for a car. Do you have access to a truck?" She looks at me, expecting a prompt reply.

"A van perhaps... I'll have to check if it is available or not... I guess this means that I am still on the hook to keep volunteering then?"

She gives me a cold smile. "Figure something out." She writes down the information and pushes it to me. "And do a better job than you did on the tissue paper. I had to repack a lot of bags this morning."

Sure you did... My anger ball heats up, but I save it for later. I decide to go along with her request until I have a better sense of what is going on around here. She dismisses me so I return to my desk and text Mindy about the van. She replies that it is ok as long as it is after she gets groceries in the morning, so I plan on a long gym session.

The rest of the workday is not too terrible, though I am paranoid about Victoria's new attitude. As Victoria exits her office, locking it to leave for the day, she looks at the coffee station. "This table needs to look presentable. Clean it before you leave." Then she struts away. I look the station and don't see what she is complaining about. Nothing looks messy or dirty, but maybe she just wants everything perfect. More likely, she is just satisfying herself that she is a good boss by ordering me around. I give the machine a fresh wiping, turn the mugs so all the handles face the exact same direction, sort the sugar packets and pack them so they are all standing perfectly upright and facing the same direction with the same orientation. Is this what she fucking wants?

Then I look down at the mini fridge. I wipe it down, then open it to clean inside it as well. {if creamer_dumped = false}While doing so, I look at my special creamer... If I am thinking of getting rid of it, now is the time, right? But what if I don’t want to?{endif}