Morning all and Happy Monday. Lets jump into the bright new week with a fresh writing prompt. Timers set for fifteen minutes and off we go…
I like starting stories where something clearly ends. I think I might start this story a little earlier to show the build up and crack as this was more telling than showing, but it is a good inspiration for a story start I think.
Monday, August 10th: I didn’t mean it.
“I didn’t mean it,” he called. She kept walking. She heard it before. The comments he made when he thought she wasn’t listening. The jokes he made when she was listening. She told herself it didn’t matter. He didn’t have to respect her work. He didn’t have to like it or even understand it.
It didn’t matter.
Except that it did.
Today he had a bad day. She knew it in the way he looked. Someone at work didn’t give him the respect that he thought he deserved. As she walked to her car she snorted softly to herself and shook her head. Gavin started at the company thinking he knew it all. That he was the smartest, the best and would soon be offered a much higher place in the company.
It was a good company and to be fair Gavin did have a good education. He just had no experience and was hired on a very junior, entry level position. She read through his paperwork when he was bragging about getting the job. He showed it to her to impress her and prove that he was on his way up, that someone finally recognized his potential as future CEO material.
She read over the pages and complemented him in the right spots, but she could see from just a courser glance that it was entry level and that CEO status would be something that would take years, maybe decades to accomplish. He was on a good path, it just wasn’t a short one.
It wasn’t a fact he realized so she didn’t point it out. She didn’t want to dent his happiness. When weeks and then months moved past and he wasn’t magically prompted, something she knew wouldn’t happen until at the very least the annual review, he grew upset.
He still gave his best at work but whenever she saw him he was complaining about his genius not being recognized, of other people looking past him instead of realizing he deserved better.
There was a common theme of being overlooked.
She stopped listening to the details much because they didn’t really sound like valid complaints. He wa an entry level employee in his first year at the company, why would anyone put him in charge of a multi-million dollar project? That would make no sense.
Curious after hearing about so much disrespect, she asked a friend who also worked for the company. After a few conversations she learned that Gavin simply thought far more highly of himself than anyone else at the company did. He was described as adequate to the position he held.
There was no fast track.
She was content to listen and the him blow off steam thinking that at some point his reality and his expectations might have a meeting of the minds.
Instead anytime he felt overlooked, he decided that belittling her work was the best way to vent. He made the snide comments to his friends who snickered. At first she justified it. He was blowing off steam and she hadn’t gone to the fancy expensive and exclusive schools they went to. She went to public school and then a state university on scholarship. Then he would joke with her. Barbs that were described as jokes. If she made comments about them then she was too sensitive.
She didn’t like being thought of as too sensitive. And she knew that part of the reason that she became his target was because she didn’t complain about work. She enjoyed her job and while she would never really hang out with her coworkers after hours, they were all on good terms and enjoyed a good working relationship.
Tonight was just one joke too many. She wasn’t certain why this one was the joke too far, but she could almost feel something snap. Listening to his laugh, his friends laughs, she felt something snap and knew it was time to walk away.
Ten til Midnight 