Twin Brothers

“We think, that is your supervisor Jolene and myself, we have decided that your services are no longer needed here at Mangan Financial.” She said. I wondered if they still gave out pink slips like they used to. Looking on Dolores’s desk I didn’t see anything pink. “You had been warned about filing your evening reports and when Jolene tried to help you were insubordinate.”

“Jolene herself doesn’t know how to file the evening reports. If she did I wouldn’t be doing them wrong. She’s the one who trained me, for Pete’s sake.?

? I said, rolling my eyes.

Dolores continued rambling on about handbook regulations, proper procedures and COBRA benefits. I wondered what would happen if I were to suddenly start to twitch and grumble obscenities at her. My Turret’s Syndrome that had been pleasantly lying dormant for several years had reared its ugly head under the stress and strain of being fired.

How great would that be? To just start shouting F-this, F-that, and a whole slew of terms even sailors would blush just hearing. I had to choke back the giggles that wanted to race up my throat. I needed to stay in control.

“Now, Natasha, I’ll just need you to sign this paperwork and…”

“Sign what?” I broke out of my trance.

“This is just a standard form stating you understand why you are being terminated and …”

“I’m not signing anything.”

Dolores looked at me as if those symptoms of Turret’s had actually occurred.

“I’m afraid you have to sign this.” She said. There was no more playing Miss Nice Morris. Delores glared at me and plucked a pen from her smiley face coffee mug full of pens. Setting it on the document to be signed she slid it in front of me.

“No. I don’t. I don’t work for you anymore. I’m not signing anything.” I sat back in the chair, folding my arms across my chest and glared right back at her. I saw the panic in her face. Poor Dolores was one of those people who followed everything to the letter. Rules were not meant to be broken. There was a proper procedure for everything. And when one rule wasn’t followed it led to trouble and Dolores was not about to get into trouble over the likes of me. At least that is what she thought.

Finally, after several seconds of not saying anything her eyes fell to her candy dish. I saw her take a breath as if she was about to speak but thought it was probably no use. Her eyes flashed at mine as I smirked at her.

Yes, it was childish. I was a grown woman in my mid-twenties and could have handled this with grace and class. But after two years at Mangan Financial watching one woman more incompetent than the next get away with mucking up the works, I had had enough. Besides, I was fired. It wasn’t like there was something I could say or do that would make them change their mind.

If showing up on time every day, putting in eight solid hours and doing the job I was assigned wasn’t good enough, then there was no hope for me. That was the part that really burned.

I had seen women in my office show up drunk after lunch. There were a couple of girls who never arrived on time, ever. They were late every day. Not just five or ten minutes but we’re talking they would come in to work half an hour late and think nothing of it. There would be no calling to the boss’s office for them.

My supervisor, Jolene would shut her office door and sleep at her desk.

The office manager would shop for Birkenstocks four or five times a week when she had nothing to do. As if wearing Birkenstocks wasn’t offensive enough.

And the swapping of partners that went on in the place was enough to make the Bunny Ranch in Nevada look like a convent.

It was a well-known fact that Mark Reynolds in sales was dipping his pen in about four wells of company ink and what was worse was that they all knew about each other.

But yet I get fired for not filing my evening report correctly. What a world I live in.

When I finally emerged from Delores Morris’s office with half a paycheck and my pockets full of Tootsie-Rolls I was greeted by Ron O’Malley. Ron was a retired police officer turned security guard who I not only had lunch with in the lunchroom on more than one occasion but I even had a beer with when everyone at Mangan Financial bailed on him on his birthday.

“Hey, Ron. Sorry they’re making such a big thing out of me.” I said smiling at him as he stood from the chair he had been sitting in that was near the door. He didn’t smile. They had gotten to him. It was like a scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He didn’t show a shred of emotion. I felt like I was all alone on a raft.

He escorted me to my desk and handed me a banker’s box in order to collect my personals.

“Good thing I stole all those reams of paper and boxes of pens last week.” I said to O’Malley with a smile and a wink. He just folded his arms and gave me a dirty look.

Mangan Financial’s Human Resource Department had waited until everyone was gone to lunch to get me out of there without incident. I thought that was kind of humorous since I was only about five foot four and wearing heels and a skirt. It wasn’t like this was Walmart and there was a sale on flat screen televisions or something. I was a professional. An Administrative Assistant to be exact.

So, while I packed my coffee cup and my pictures and my little personal effects in the box with O’Malley breathing down my neck I couldn’t help my hands shaking a little. I was so mad, yet, as I said I knew it was coming.

There was a sting in my eyes. Quickly I bit my tongue until I thought I’d sever the tip in order to keep any tears behind my eyes until I was a safe distance from this place.

I grabbed a file that was filled with all kinds of notes and positive emails from clients I dealt with and contact information for other offices and dropped it in the box.

“That stays.” O’Malley said.