Page 7 of The Librarian of Souls
I would rather cut my head off at this point than give up coffee.
This armoury site is proving to be the biggest pain in my ass. I’ve gotten more complaints from this site manager than I ever have in the past. If it isn’t him, it’s someone in the main office coming to complain about PTO or interoffice politics that I don’t think I’m really qualified to handle. Every morning when Patrick has called me this week, I swear he’s been half drunk. The jug of sangria is right there, off to the side of his phone. I want to throttle him, but the more work he piles onto my plate, the more I just smile and nod.
There is something wrong with me. Obviously. When it comes to pleasing people, nothing will stop me. It has never mattered what I’ve got on my schedule or what I have prioritised. If Patrick asks me to do something, I tell him it will be done immediately. When I first started at Concord Construction, it was easy requests. Can you update the copy on the website? Joanna, can you put together this presentation bid today? Would you mind staying late to rework the budget you requested? Joanna, Joanna, Joanna.
A part of me has always known that it isn’t the requests that are bad but the timeline for them. They are needed right now, by the end of the day.If I don’t have it on my desk for my meeting at 8 AM, you can kiss any sort of pay rise or security goodbye.The voice in my head keeps telling me if I work just that extra bit harder, prove how valuable I am, Patrick will see it and tell me what good work I have been doing.
He never does, though.
I cried in the bathroom for 15 minutes this morning. It’s Tuesday, the work week has really only just started, but after spending all of my weekend working on three different contract bids on new refurbishments in the Docklands, I couldn’t keep the tears in. It’s not the first time I have cracked like this under pressure, but I wasn’t ready to be yelled at by Patrick so early in the day.
The new legal assistant was just trying to do their job and had submitted the form as they were supposed to. Except, it was missing one of the accreditations we needed to attach to it. The business relies on numerous certifications and credits when applying for jobs with the city. It is an easy mistake that we should have caught, would have caught if a second pair of eyes had reviewed the submission portal.
An angry call from Patrick demanding to know why we have been fined ten grand was the snapping point at 9:30 this morning.
Thank god for Lance, honestly. That man pulls me up when I need him most. His calm presence stopped the flood of tears when he found me coming out of the bathroom, still sniffling. He magically smoothed things over with legal and Patrick in the short time I was panicking. Apparently, all we needed to do was call the accreditation office and ask for Debbie Forts, and she’d get us sorted. I can do that.
I did that. And lo and behold, problem sorted. She reduced our fine to a measly two grand, sending over the receipt and proof of refund before I had even ended the call. Patrick is still going to be angry about the two thousand dollars, but I can sort that out with accounts and there won’t be any real shortfall.
If I ever have a free moment again, I need to buy Lance a drink or ten.
“Hey, Jo.” Andrea from marketing’s head pops around my door. “Did you have a chance to go over the budget proposal I sent you?”
Shit.
“No, I’ll do it before I head home today so I can discuss any issues with Patrick in the call tomorrow so we can get approved before the end of the week.”
“Thanks, you’re a star.”
She’s gone before I can say anything else, and I slump into my desk chair. This is too much. I rub my eyes until all the little fuzzy bits appear and I think I’ve removed all my eyelashes. My fingers travel up to my nest of greasy hair I’ve piled on top of my head. I need a shot, a shower, and a short coma to feel like a person again. I look at my phone, only a few more hours until everyone will go home and there will be no more distractions.
A knock on my door makes me jump.
“Thought you could use this.”
Lance places a mug on the corner of my desk and swirls of black coffee catch my attention. Not my usual way of taking the drink, but the gesture is kind and warms something in me after the day I have had. He remains at my door for a moment, and I wait for him to ask me for something. When he doesn’t, the anxious urge to fill the silence overcomes me and I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.
“Do you want a raise?” I joke, but already making a mental note to ask Patrick about it. He deserves it.
“A raise, more vacation days, corner office,” he laughs, his eyes crinkling up at the side to show his age more than usual. As he looks around my office, Patrick’s old office, I catch him making assessments as if he is sizing the room up to be his own. This doesn’t look like a space I have been in for almost three years. The only bit of me in this box is a half-alive houseplant that I found on the side of the road one morning.
Lance looks tired. Where there usually aren’t any signs of stress, there are now. The bags under his eyes are the biggest giveaway that something is keeping him up at night. Are things with Toni getting worse? Maybe he really does need that raise if they are trying to rinse him. I know he said he was working on it, but I hope he knows to take care of himself too.
“You doing alright?”
I smile a little, about to ask him the same thing.
I’m not sure if I should give Lance the real answer. We aren’tfriends, having only spoken to each other in the office, about safe for work things. But there is a camaraderie between us. When I was fresh out of college, and completely new to working a full-time office job, Lance had been a mentor to me. My desk was shoved next to his for nearly six years, and he seemed to understand that I needed guidance. I think he liked having a young person around as well, to keep him from really acting his age.
He certainly doesn’t want or need to know that I am on the verge of PMS insanity.
“I’m alright, just exhausted.”
“I hear you, but at least things should calm down again since all the new people have settled in.”
If only he knew.
All I do is nod a little, my eyes flicking to the coffee mug placed precariously on the stack of employee files on my desk. I really need to organise those. It isn’t safe to keep them out like this. Knowing me, I’ll just end up knocking that mug over and ruining them all.
