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 173: Sophie nodded and looked at her notes. “They seem to have added a few elements.”
Sophie nodded and looked at her notes. “They seem to have added a few elements.” Sophie read out the additions. “Are they going to be routine categories I should build into their base database or should I add those elements to the others category?”
Elizabeth looked at the list. “I think these three will be regular features for them moving forward and these two are one time purchases,” Elizabeth said. “They’ve added a new division. Why don’t you add the categories for those three and then we can place the others in the others category.”
Sophie nodded and made a note on the page. She had deliberately left the Henderson files for the end as she hadn’t been certain about the changes and was pleased to have clarification. “With that I can finish my files for the week,” Sophie told her supervisor.
“And no other questions?”
“None that come to mind.”
“All right then, I’ll let you get back to work so you can finish for the day. Have a good weekend.”
Elizabeth left her and Sophie glanced towards the scratch pad where she made the notations about the job offers. She shrugged. Elizabeth had told her that she wanted to know if she was considering other jobs. ‘I guess that counts ass informing her.’ It somehow made her feel less guilty about thinking about leaving. She knew that if she did leave then Elizabeth would have to take up the slack or quickly find someone else to do so. Giving her a heads up felt right.
‘I just hope it doesn’t end up burning me,’ she thought as she shifted to the Henderson files. Sophie knew there was always the possibility that with everything else going on they could just make a more or less clean sweep of her department and let her go. ‘They’d still have Carrie in a different department, but everyone else would be gone.’
Sophie wasn’t entirely certain how that would play out with the law suit. Would it help or would they then point out Carrie was still here and take issue with that. Sophie shrugged and mentally marked it as out of her control. She could do nothing about it now, she could only finish her work and make certain there was no definite reason anyone could mark on her permanent file as to why she was fired if they did let her go.
‘It certainly won’t be because I didn’t do my work.’ she thought. She wondered if it was better or worse to be fired for being adjacent to drama but again decided there was little that she could do about the possibility.
She dove into the Henderson files making up for the lost time and cleared the last of them just as the work day ended. As others started to leave, she logged out and locked up her files for the weekend. She gathered her things and left her office. As she was working right up until the end she was just a hair later than the others and both Linda and Petra, along with most of accounts and HR had left. Sophie had the elevator to herself as she rode down. Once she reached the door, security stopped her before she could officially swipe out.
Sophie blinked at the security guard as he walked over. “You might want to give it a moment miss,” he said politely. “There is some hullabaloo outside and I don’t think adding more people to it would be a good idea. The authorities have been notified.”
“Oh,” Sophie said. She stepped back from the door and walked over to a few other people milling around in the lobby. She stood with them. There was a ripple of scandalous curiosity ass well a annoyance at being kept in the office late on a Friday. Sophie looked around for Linda and Petra thinking that if anyone knew what was going on it would be one of them.
Ten til Midnight 