Page 3 of Small Sacrifices

Just the thought nauseates Reid. The writer of the article, naturally, is asking how much of this was intentional and how much of it was incompetence. They're a good writer, Reid will give them that. Very engaging. But this is ridiculous. Clearly, Governor Mackenzie was lied to. With chemical manufacturers like this one, it's an old story.

More than anything, Reid wants to dive into the subject and only surface at lunchtime. That's not his job, though. Not that his current task fits his job description much better, but he gets the feeling that he'll just have to get used to it.

Officially, Reid is supposed to be doingcommunity management,as Mr. Wright calls it. That means monitoring social media accounts and email inboxes, answering DMs and deleting any comments that get too hateful. Not the horny posts about how hot people think the governor is, weirdly. His onboarding presentation was very specific on that. Apparently, those are good engagement.

But he hasn't gotten to that part yet. Maybe they don't trust people with those passwords right off the bat? Either way, it's resulted in Reid doing the most egregious busy work in his first two weeks. Now isn't any better.

Reid's been tasked with figuring out why constituents voted for Governor Mackenzie two years ago. On the surface, it doesn't sound so bad. But they should already have this data—he's pretty sure they do. Worse, he's supposed to look "beyond the obvious reasons."Nonsense.

People voted for Mackenzie because he ran on a platform of queer rights, liberal immigration policies, housing equality, and renewable energy—not because they're cat people. They saw him, with his Japanese wife and their two mixed children, and knew that his statements on diversity weren't just empty words. It's all the same reasons, presumably, why they voted for a Black woman as his lieutenant governor. Catrice Coleman is just as liberal as Governor Mackenzie is.

Still, he dutifully finishes his report on how a disproportionate number of Mackenzie voterstwo years agowere cat owners, and about how surprisingly many of these liberal voters had some sort of Catholic upbringing, and a million other things that are related to the actual reasons, but on the whole deeply unimportant.

Minutes after Reid has sent it off via email, he gets a message back:Come see me in forty minutes.It should be a reprieve. That's forty minutes without a task assigned to him. If he were anyone else, he could lean back and relax. Instead, Reid takes the time to overthink every single word in that message.See me.It sounds like Mr. Wright is mad at him.

That's how Reid ends up trying not to fidget in the dim light of Mr. Wright's personal office as the man spreads out his report on the gleaming mahogany desk in front of him.

"What is this?" Mr. Wright asks, his tone neutral.

He's a large man, imposing, even when seated. As he tilts his bald head, his umber skin gleams like it's freshly polished. Reid thinks that would fit in well with how carefully Mr. Wright presents himself. All his suits fit him so well that they would lookexpensive even if they didn't have that fancy bit of hand stitching around the lapels. And now he's looking up at Reid from under his well-manicured eyebrows like it should be obvious what he did wrong.

"It's my report, sir," Reid says.

"It ain't just one report, though, is it? Why?"

"Convenience for the reader, sir. I copied all the important graphs into a separate document so that even someone in a hurry could glean the information they needed." Reid swallows. His heart is racing, so he tries to keep his breathing even.Don't betray nervousness.He can't let someone like Mr. Wright smell weakness this early on. That's something his dad always tells him.

"And just how much time did you waste on that?"

Reid suppresses a sigh.Really?Mr. Wright isn't even that old—maybe in his forties. He should be tech-savvy.

"Under five minutes, sir. I really just copied them."

"Really? Alright." Mr. Wright pauses, then scrutinizes the report again. "And what about these colors in the text? It looks like my toddler got a hold of it."

"These are my own interpretations of the numbers. I highlighted them to make sure they wouldn't be confused with the data I gathered," Reid says. If Mr. Wright's definition of creativity and play is changing the colors of the text in a Word document, he pities his child already.

"I didn't ask you for interpretations, Mr. Maxwell."

"No, but you said you were hiring independent thinkers." Reid's frustration simmers beneath the surface. "Data without context isn't helpful, so I tried to frame it in a way that would be useful for campaign strategy."

That’s pushing it, but this task was a waste of resources—government resources, no less. He isn’t part of the re-electioncampaign; he works for the government. If tax dollars are being spent on this nonsense, at least let it have some purpose.

Against Reid's expectations, this coaxes a smile out of Mr. Wright. "That's all well and good, Mr. Maxwell. You're not wrong about that. But have you considered that you could have just asked to be allowed to do this? You're still very new here."

Well… no, Reid hadn't considered asking. With everything he'd heard about Mr. Wright, it had seemed like a lost cause from the start. "I apologize."

Mr. Wright huffs. "Don't. Just do better next time. You have an idea, you come ask me. That's a yes on independent thinking and a no on independent action, got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"And stop calling mesir.This is not the principal's office, for God's sake."

"...yes?" It makes Reid cringe how much it sounds like a question, but he's got the feeling that if he says something like "Yes, Mr. Wright," that won’t be better. If anything, it sounds even more like something out of a classroom.

Thankfully, Mr. Wright seems amused rather than annoyed. He leans forward, elbows on his desk, and softens his tone. "Look, this place is tough. I know it's tough, but it has to be. A lot's riding on this."

His gaze sharpens, and Reid nods in understanding before he continues. "What you need to do is figure out if you belong here and act accordingly. You're smart, and you work hard. This report is thorough. But you're not alone here, and I can't have you acting like you are. I'm your supervisor. If you want to try something different, come ask me. Don't just go off on your own, alright?"

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