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 68: She could do what she wanted.
She could do what she wanted. That was what Sophie wanted from her work environment. To do her job and at the end of the day be able to let it go so she could have a life that didn’t revolve around work. ‘I certainly don’t want to be angry about work all the time.’
Realizing thee was little she could do at the moment, Sophie unlocked her files and logged back into her computer. As she opened her first file, she heard steps approaching. She looked up to see Kristen standing there with several files in hand.
“I can’t take any of your work at this time,” Sophie snapped.
Kristen blinked and pulled back slightly looking almost as though Sophie slapped her. The look didn’t last. “Weren’t you just told you had to be more of a team player?”
“And aren’t you on probation because you can’t manage to do your own work?” Sophie shot back. “I have plenty of my own work to do.”
Kristen huffed. “I’ll be letting your supervisor know about this.” She turned and stalked off back to her desk. Sophie took a deep breath. She felt a temper headache starting to build. She took a fey ibuprophen from the small container in her purse to head it off and washed it down with the last swig of cold coffee from her travel mug.
Sophie hated the confrontation and hated that she let her temper show at work. ‘I hate losing my time in the evenings more,’ she reminded herself. Sophie took out her ear buds and fitted them into her ears. Instead of a podcast or something high energy, Sophie pulled up something soft and classical. Often she used classical music when she couldn’t get to sleep and hoped it would have some soothing effects on her temper now.
She let the music play as she got to work. She heard movement outside of her cubicle and assumed it was the others either coming and going from their evaluations or going about their day. If there was gossip, then she didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t care if they were talking about her. She didn’t care what was going on. At the moment she just wanted to do her work and be left alone.
The rest of the morning passed quickly. She heard the others go to lunch and once they picked up their food from the trucks they disappeared int Mr. Evers’ office. It was a day Sophie planned to go to the food trucks herself but she found she wasn’t hungry and ended up working through lunch. Shortly after the others returned to their desks from their gathered lunch, Sophie saw an e-mail arrive. She clicked on it. The e-mail was from Mr. Evers. Her evaluation was attached to the e-mail as was a copy of a probationary letter.
Sophie took a deep breath and read through the probationary letter first. As expected it dealt with her tardy work on the month she was gone and her refusal to be a team player by taking on the work of others. Given her time in Evers’ office, Sophie wasn’t all that surprised.
Ten til Midnight 