Alarm

“What’s going on, Matt?”

“Can you get on the conference bridge?” he asked. “Those servers for the acquiring software have gone haywire.”

Fabulous.

I was on the phone for the next three hours. The server techs managed to restart the systems eventually, but they weren’t in good shape and were bound to fail again. In the meantime, we’d incurred a lot of fines from our customers who couldn’t use the system.

As soon as the call ended, Kevin and his Chia-head face appeared at my desk.

“Those servers have been over capacity for months,” he said.

“I’m aware of that,” I replied.

“Well, why haven’t you done anything about it?”

I looked up at him, stunned. These were the very servers I’d warned him about, but he had disregardd my recommendations and axed the project anyway.

“You cancelled the project,” I reminded him. “This was all part of the upgrade we had in the pipeline since June, but you said the funding was going elsewhere.”

“Don’t you try to put this on me,” he said, pointing his finger at my face. “You were in charge of that project. If you couldn’t be bothered to make the risks known, that’s on your head, not mine!”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“I gave you all the data on those servers,” I said. “I told you there was risk.”

“You most certainly did not,” he said, “and now your lack of foresight has cost this company more than the upgrade would have!”

He leaned back with his arms crossed over his chest, smirking.

I tightened my hand around my pen enough that it nearly broke. I gritted my teeth together as my head began to pound. Slowly and deliberately, I stood up and put my hands on my hips.

I had officially had enough.

“My lack of foresight?” My hands were starting to shake as my heart beat wildly in my chest.

“You were the project manager.” Kevin continued to stare me down. “You should have made the risks obvious.”

“I did,” I stated. “You are the one who wouldn’t listen. You wouldn’t even look at the data.”

“You didn’t provide me with any data,” he sneered.

I lost it. I dropped back down into my chair, stabbed at the keyboard to pull u

p my sent emails, and opened seven documented requests sent directly to Kevin, explaining the exact risks of not upgrading.

“There you go,” I said as I shoved my chair back away from the computer. “And at this point, here I go.”

I grabbed my security badge out of my purse and handed it to him.

“What’s this for?” he asked.

“I quit,” I said. “I’ll send you my formal resignation by email before the end of the day.”

My heart continued to pound as I gathered my things and walked away from Kevin and his accusations. I could barely believe what I had just done. It went against everything ingrained in me. I had no backup job. I had no other means of supporting myself, and I was in deep shit.

But I didn’t stop.

As soon as I got to my car, I locked the doors and called Nate’s recruiter to let him know I was available immediately. Then I called Mare, told her what I had done, and started to cry.