The Fifteen Minute Novel is an attempt to take a single prompt and use the last sentence written each day as a start for the next day. This year I had several prompts circling around a similar story, so I have combined them. However, the story starts the same way each day, with the last line from the day before and a timer set for fifteen minutes. The hope is to end up with a complete, if very rough draft by the end of the year. Some stories are better than others, but I always learn a whole lot about my own writing when I do this so for me it is not only a nice way to work out a story, but it is a tool for helping my writing get better. And so, we continue this story for 2024 with…
Day 18: She took a deep breath.
She took a deep breath. “I can see that.”
“Good,” Sean replied. “I also noticed that you have accumulated quite a lot of vacation time as well as sick leave.”
“There never seemed to be a good time to take it,” she told him.
“Indeed the last time you took a day off was nearly two years ago,” Sean continued.
“Root canal,” Sophie remembered. She flushed. “Sorry, I guess you didn’t need to know that.”
“Not exactly a vacation,” Elizabeth said.
“Exactly,” Sean added, and we would like you to take one, a vacation that is, not a root canal. A paid one and one that doesn’t use up your leave time in case you were saving it up for something.”
“I don’t understand,” Sophie said. “You want me to take a day off?”
“Actually, we want you to take thirty days off,” Sean said. “Paid leave that won’t count towards your vacation time. You’ve done more than enough overtime to justify the pay.”
“Thirty days,” Sophie repeated.
“Yes,” Sean replied. “We have realized that you are perfectly competent in doing your work and much of the work that is technically others. We would like to see how the office functions without you, not only so that extra work isn’t parceled out to you, but to see how your work, which you won’t be doing since you are away, is divided out among your coworkers.”
“There should always be a way for an employee to take some time off when needed so there needs to be a system in place to keep things functioning,” Elizabeth explained. “We want to see how they deal with your absence as there isn’t an official policy in place for your division or the company as a whole actually since each division operates a little differently than the others.”
“That makes sense, I suppose,” Sophie said. “So, when am I supposed to take my vacation?”
“We would like you to work this week and then take off starting next Monday,” Sean said. “That should theoretically be plenty of notice for your supervisor and allow you time to pass off active projects to those who will be taking over them while you are gone.”
“Okay,” Sophie said. She blinked at the rapidity of it.
“And one more thing,” Sean said. “We would like you to keep the evaluation to yourself. We want to see how they function without you taking up slack, but we don’t want them to know that is what we are looking for.”
“So they will behave normally instead of working extra because they know they are being observed?” Sophie asked.
“Exactly,” Sean said.
“Can you do that?” Elizabeth asked.
“I can,” She replied. Considering how little she actually spoke to her coworkers it would be relatively easy not to tell them much of anything. “But what do I tell them about taking a month off?”
“We will be telling your supervisor that you have too much saved leave and the company wants you to use some of it to clear it off the books. He shouldn’t need details,” Sean said. “And as you started well before he was hired, or before anyone in your department was hired, and never take a vacation it should pass.”
Sophie nodded. “I can do that.”
Ten til Midnight 