The Boss, Part 1

 Sarah wore dark red lipstick, a black pencil skirt and her hair in a pinned bun. 

Jason wore his hair in an uncombed mess, donned the same plaid shit from the day before, and his pants were wrinkled. He smiled at Sarah. She smiled but turned back to her computer screens quickly. He thought she didn't want to talk, but then, without looking at him, she asked him about his dog. 

"His name is Francis," he said, turning back to his monitors, not deigning to face her if she wouldn't face him. 

"Aww," she said, a little too sing-songy, like she didn't really mean it. He finished taking his notes about some customer who's credit card processor was back up and running. Why do I still work here?

"Dude you gotta see this," said Leslie. Her hair was spiked. She was his lesbian best friend. 

She showed him a video where a cat chased another cat until one of them fell down a flight of stairs. Leslie laughed like it was her first time seeing the video. 

His boss met him at his desk at 3 P.M. and glanced at his wrinkled pants with almost-imperceptible judgment. Bill's hair was thin but parted neatly on one side. His hair was a little too long though, and Jason always hated that the side burns reached inside his ears. 

"Ready?" he said, not looking at Jason. 

"Yep."

They walked into a meeting room with a sliding, opaque screen door for their scheduled weekly meeting.

Jason got a sense that Bill wasn't in a good mood by his silence and stern expression. 

Bill brushed his hair over his ear with a finger before looking at Jason, "What have you got for me today?"

Jason talked about his "busy week" careful to use buzzwords like "putting the customer first", "meeting deadlines", and "team coordination". Jason was surprised he didn't affirm any of his statements with a grunt or nod or make any commentary. He would only comment to ask if Jason had completed this or that task to completion, and he met Jason's responses with a hint of distrust. 

"I'm also trying to place more outbound calls where customers haven't gotten back with me so that I can get their systems back up and running more quickly," Jason concluded. "And I think that's everything for now."

Bill tapped his pen on the desk a few times and leaned back in his chair. "Ok I have something for you too."

"Ok," said Jason, feeling his chest tighten. 

"Your peers have noticed you coming in late still. We've discussed this before so I wanted to get a sense of where we're at."

"Oh," said Jason. He paused to show he took this accusation seriously. "Yes, sometimes I've been arriving at 8:15. Before I was arriving at 8:30 though."

"But 8:15 isn't 8, is it?" It wasn't a question. 

Jason felt his heart beat faster. "Yeah but it's not having any impact on my performance. I'm going above and beyond for these customers and I'm one of the top performers here."

"Look I don't really care if you see the reason for this or not. But I’ve told you what I expect of you and you're still not doing it." His voice hardened and he leaned in a bit. "It's really that simple." 

Jason's heart was beating very hard now and he was annoyed that his emotion was seeping through. His face felt hot. 

Bosses like groveling. "You're right. 8:15 isn't 8. I'm really sorry and I'll start getting here on time."

It was like Bill didn't hear him. He started talking as if he’d rehearsed it, and his words flowed smoothly and confidently. "I'm glad to hear you're acknowledging it, but this has been brought up repeatedly now. It's becoming a matter of trust with me, your peers, and your customers. You say you're going to arrive at one time but then you consistently get here at another. So unfortunately we're going to have to put you on a performance improvement plan. This means you will need to send me a report of your start time, end time, and all the time in between. After three months, we will evaluate your performance and get a sense of where we're at. I'll send you an email with a point of contact if you have any additional questions."

Jason stared at him and kept telling himself to breathe. 

"Sound good?" said Bill. Jason felt like Bill was hiding a smile. 

"I've never been micromanaged like this," Jason dared to say. 

"I'm sorry you feel the need to be micromanaged." Bill motioned toward the office door with an outstretched palm. Jason thought of Pontius Pilate offering Jesus to the crowd with a "Ecce Homo". I'm being dramatic.

When he got to his desk, he just stood there, holding the back of his swivel-chair and staring at his monitors. Leslie looked at him and mouthed "are you ok". Jason shook his head and they went down the elevator to a break room where Jason vented to her about the whole thing. 

"Holy shit," she said when he'd finished. 

"Yeah, it's just so crazy cuz Bill and I used to have such a good relationship."

"Yeah I know." She paused and looked at the ground. 

"What?” asked Jason. 

"It's just. Well, I didn't want you to find out this way. But while you were in your meeting Sarah came over to my desk and told me she told Bill about how you've been arriving late all the time and how you’re on you’re phone a lot.”

"What the fuck? She’s constantly on her phone.”

"Yeah, and she said that Bill said, 'thank you for bringing this to my attention'."

"Wow." Jason picked up an EXPO marker and snapped the cap off and back on repeatedly. "And Sarah always acts so nice to me."

"Yeah," said Leslie. "You're not her first victim either. She’s done this to Camille and Victor too."

"Y'all should've told me about her," said Jason. 

"People have to learn about this stuff the hard way," said Leslie. Her tone was kind. "It's the only way to learn how to play the corporate game."

"What did she do to Camille and Victor?"

"She started rumors about them. She would tell Camille that Victor had said that Camille wasn't a very hard worker. She was kind of a dumbass though because Camille and Victor were best friends and realized Sarah was trying to pin them against each other pretty quickly. If you've noticed, Camille and Victor never talk to her when she's in their cubicle."

“Damn I’ve seen Camille give her dirty looks sometimes. She can't hide her emotions."

They both laughed at that. 

"You need to lay low and get here early and be extra subservient to Bill," said Leslie. "It's the only way to survive this shit. Bosses don’t care about your performance or how well you’re doing or how much you do for your customers. All they really care about is how you make them look to their boss. Look at how many lazy motherfuckers rise to the top.”

"Yeah yeah, you're right. Shit, now I'm a lot less naive." He put the marker back in its holder and flicked the eraser casually. "Let's head back upstairs before Sarah tells Bill how long I've been away from my desk."

Leslie laughed. "Good idea."