"I can't believe they rostered us."
Chrissie tried to ignore her coworker. Her entire attention straining to focus on the streams of columns, the numbers forced into the little cells. Contained and controlled. Forced to try and give up some meaning.
There were no formulas in the sheets. It was an export from another company. Which meant that most of the results were floating point numbers - and rounded. Which meant the results couldn't be relied on, and had to be reforged by the depths of her mind.
"I mean, it's actually snowing! It never snows here. Snowing. At Christmas. In Australia... And we're at work, looking at stupid accounts, and it isn't even an emergency or anything!" Lisa continued to complain.
Chrissie was entirely grateful for the simplicity of GST. Unfortunately, it wasn't the only tax that applied, and the ones that did... They changed over which state the product was manufactured in, or worse, which it was shipped out to. Often both. Stupid numbers that were made stupidly complex, just because someone wanted to hide how much they could get.
The average person was still burnt by it.
She delicately adjusted the numbers in the spreadsheet, making sure they accurately reflected the correct tax rates. It was a painstaking process, requiring precision and attention to detail. One wrong calculation, and the entire report could be thrown off. Most of the numbers were right, but...
Every number could shift the others, and the nature of floating point numbers meant that the accuracy didn't shift with time, it shifted with similarity to certain squares of two. It was frustrating, and hard to spot unless you knew what you were looking for.
"This stuff isn't even due until March!" Lisa said with frustration, "It's snowing! I can remember it snowing just once. I was going for my Ls, and terrified, and that was a mess, but... Once! It's snowing and I'm in here with -"
"Seven fifty four!" Chrissie snapped.
Lisa nodded tiredly, "Yeah. Complex and frustrating, because spreadsheet programs just don't wise up and use fixed point decimals. Especially with an adjustable precision! This thing just sucks."
Chrissie sighed and looked over at the window, at the rain drops rolling down it, and the tiny white powder trying to gather at the bottom but melting away just a little bit too quickly.
She didn't really care about the numbers. She wanted to escape into it, because her head was full of a lot of things. Thoughts that she couldn't safely share with Lisa, or anybody really.
Part of it was why she was in the office. Her Christmas was ruined. Working on the day had come as a relief, her boss had almost rejected her volunteering. If she was at home... She might well have curled up in tears on the couch, whilst a takeaway pizza lay on the table and went cold.
Unfortunately, part of it was still waiting for her at home. And tomorrow. And the day after. She couldn't actually escape it. Being at work instead of on holiday was an attempt to escape, but it was waiting. Today would end, and it would still come crashing in on her.
The bed lying so very empty.
Her blanket feeling so very big.
Random things like the BBQ outside that she would never think of using. All of it were reminders. Conversations and memories of a past that led towards a future that would never be hers.
So instead she was looking at the numbers, and cursing CSV for its inherent inaccuracies. The company probably did use it to sneak a cent here and there, but it was just the format being a difficult one. Floating point numbers belonged nowhere near financial applications, but still somehow was the standard for most spreadsheets.
"I didn't actually have Christmas plans." Lisa admitted, "Kinda hate Christmas, to be honest. Last year I spent it with the fiancé. The one I caught up my ex-best friend's duff on Boxing Day. Screw Christmas."
There was a topic of conversation that pissed Chrissie off. Even ignoring her own sensitivity, she had boiled over on Lisa's behalf every single time it came up. "Bastard."
Lisa scoffed. "They all are! The right lot of them! I should go lesbian."
"That's not something to kid about." Chrissie sighed.
Her coworker blinked, "Oh. That's right. You're bi, aren't you?"
"Yup. Not a lesbian." Chrissie pointed out the difference for the n'th time. Why was it that everyone always thought the two were the same?
Lisa pushed back her chair so that she could face her more deliberately. Looking rather serious, brow furrowed. "So how was it that... You realised? That you were bi, I mean."
Chrissie really just wanted to work. Unfortunately, this was always one of those serious conversations that your whole day should stop for. Everyone deserved to hear it, because... Well... Anyone could need to hear it.
She swivelled her chair around to face her coworker, "Some people always know. Wasn't that way for me, though. I only dated guys, right the way through university."
"Wow. So... What was it? What changed your mind?" Lisa cocked her head.
Chrissie shook her head, "My mind never got changed. I just realised that love and sex can actually feel exactly like it seems to in the books. I fell in love for the first time. And that, was a woman."
"So... You lean more towards girls, then?"
Chrissie shook her head, "Nope. The other way. I just managed to date a lot of jerks, first."
Lisa fiddled with a couple strands of her hair, "So... Dating anyone, now, then?"
"Nope." Chrissie turned back to her computer.
Her coworker flinched, "Oh shit. Totally spaced. I am... So sorry, Chrissie. Really."
"Fucker can burn." She muttered angrily.
Her angry typing filled the room for a while, as if Lisa wasn't even daring to breathe. Not that she could really blame her for that. Chrissie hadn't sworn in front of anyone for a very long time. She didn't ever swear.
The numbers didn't come as easily to Chrissie, though. That burst of anger had pushed something of her mind to the side, and now she was just distracted from it all.
She might have been typing a little harder than was strictly necessary. It wasn't the keyboard's fault that her past was a piece of crap that she wished she could forget and didn't have its claws in her.
Lisa shocked the hell out of her, by putting her hands on Chrissie's shoulders. She jerked and stared at her coworker who had silently crossed the room, and was now trying to gently massage her shoulders.
"You need it." Lisa shrugged.
Chrissie's shoulders dropped and so did her head. "I'm sorry. It's... A sore point. Like your Boxing Day. I'm not the only one hurting."
Lisa's chin landed softly on the top of Chrissie's head, "Yeah. It does feel like crap. World's seriously unfair. So if escaping into this helps you -"
"It isn't." Chrissie leaned back into her coworker, "I mean, I hoped it would. But it isn't. Not right now. I'm all... Fired up."
"Not something I've seen much of before." Lisa said with a little mirth. "Kinda makes me scared to see full pissed off Chrissie, to be honest. She must be a real fire."
"Flamethrower behind these teeth." Chrissie blushed.
Lisa gave her a small squeeze, "So... We both agree life sucks. Anything we can do in a cold office, with snow outside, to cheer ourselves up?"
"We are not building a snowman."
Her coworker gave a little tune, "I wanna build a snowman..."
