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 60: “My title changed as well.”
“My title changed as well.” Sophie looked at the sheet. To give her the raise she was promoted a level. ‘My title is the same as Mr. Evers now,’ she realized. Unter the supervisor category, instead of Donald Evers, Elizabeth Walker was listed.
“I guess that is why he doesn’t know the details.” Sophie let her eyes scan down the page and found the breakdown of her bonus and the justification. Ther in black and white, Sophie saw the number of projects she took from coding sections that weren’t her responsibility. They were broken out by section and not name but Sophie didn’t need to see the names to know who was who. Oddly enough Ryan, Evers and Carrie all gave her more or less the same number of projects.
‘Only a one or two project difference between them,’ she thought. Kristen gave significantly more. “I guess that’s why she was the most upset.”
There was something disquieting about seeing the information broken out in cold hard numbers. She thought of the number of projects each of them was given in the normal course of the week. It should have been about the same number. “But with their projects my work load was more than doubled,” she realized. Seeing the numbers was staggering. Deciding it was best not to think about it, Sophie folded the pages and slipped them back into the envelope. Still not liking seeing the envelope, Sophie opened the drawer in the coffee table and slipped the letter inside.
Part of her was proud that she was given double the work load and still managed to get everything done on time, even if she had to stay late. The rest of her was reeling at how badly she allowed her co-workers to take advantage of her.
“Not anymore.” Sophie said. “Even if Evers threatens to give me a bad review.” Sophie blinked. ‘He wouldn’t be doing my reviews. Not if he is no longer my supervisor.” As they were coming up on the quarterly review, Sophie wondered how that would go over. ‘Or if he will even realize it before then.’
It was something she didn’t want to bother thinking about. “I’d much rather work on my pretty dress,” she decided.
The next day, Sophie went into work. She found she was oddly curious to see how things would go in the office. She suspected there would be a shake up for a while before a new routine was found. Now that she wasn’t too worried about losing her job because of Mr. Evers and his bad review, she found a great deal of amusement in seeing how things developed. ‘Probably not my proudest moment,’ she decided.
Ten til Midnight 