I had been working at Sanderson Industries for going on 10 years now. It was largely great place to work there, since I started a decade ago the leadership here had a solid philosophy of letting employees do the work that needs to be done, not micro-manage and things fell into place quickly and efficiently at SI. We rarely had any sort of mishap when we released new software and when we did, it was usually fixable quickly.
Our customers loved us, from customer support all the way to a pretty high approval of our CEO. That said, things recently started to change a bit. New managers were hired who loved to be micro-managing, pompous assholes. Chief among which was Katherine. She's only been at SI for 4 years but she has climbed the corporate ladder quickly, and even though she was originally hired as my direct supervisor, she had now found herself as our COO whereas my position, and my pay for that matter, had remained pretty much constant.
In fact shortly after she took over as COO those of us lower on the totem pole stopped receiving cost of living adjustments or raises really of any kind and it was extremely heavy on morale. The managers and those above them kept getting bonuses, raises, and all sorts of gifts from clients and the rest of us got absolutely nothing.
This had become a repeat pattern, year after year since Katherine took over as COO and it was really tiresome. That said, my job was pretty good, paid all my bills, low pressure and allowed me to work from home even though I lived near the office so I couldn't complain too much. That was until I came in on a Monday morning and found out that my job was going to get a lot harder.
Leadership, citing 'budget cuts', had decided to lay off 20% of our workforce. I was fortunately not included in the layoff, but 5 of the 7 members of my team were, leaving us with just 2 people, and a ton of work to do in order to meet our quarterly goals by just the end of next week.
The work we had piling up was certainly more that 2 weeks worth of work for 2 people but there wasn't much to be done about it, and when I questioned my boss about it, I found out he'd been laid off too. Our whole department was under the direction of Katherine from the on.
Katherine had been my boss before and it was the only two years I had considered quitting at SI. She's a classic micro-manager, she often took credit for the best ideas from her direct reports and she was quite passive aggressive, often openly disparaging people who were thinking out loud or brainstorming for having "shitty" ideas.
It was because of Katherine's shitty behavior that our team got so close, it was heartbreaking to have to work without them. James told a lot of corny dad-jokes but kept us working and amused pretty well. Kelly engaged us with random trivia and music, while it didn't help us work much, it broke up the monotony of the day and made time go by faster. Emily was a very quiet woman but diligent worker and had a knack for coming into a conversation with a completely uncharacteristic joke that would have the rest of us rolling. Ben was a notorious womanizer but it worked for him because he was a very good looking man and he was kind and sweet underneath it all and Sam had been there longer than anyone, he could almost certainly solve almost any issue we ran into and if he couldn't nobody could usually. Amy and myself were both hired on the same day but we hadn't really had any time to get to know each other outside of a couple of after work outings, but were now the only ones left.
She once called me "the old one" which is how I found out that was my nickname.
I didn't care for it originally because I wasn't quite forty yet, but my salt and pepper beard and grey temples lent to that image, even I couldn't deny it. The nickname grew on me and I eventually embraced being called 'old'.
I missed working with each of them and I knew I had to start putting out resumes soon or I would slowly go insane without them, but first I just needed to make it through the day so I could clear my head.
I almost made it too, but once it rolled around to about 3:45pm Katherine sent out a company wide email with the information that we would be returning to the office full time starting tomorrow and it was mandatory for all local employees, which suddenly made it clear why I was left with a job and others weren't, I was conveniently close to the office.
I couldn't help but sigh to myself as I read the email and began fiddling around in the closet looking for my more formal work clothes than the t-shirt and sweatpants that I was used to. The box had quite a bit of dust on it, but I eventually located it and began washing some clothes.
I made it back to my desk at around 4:10pm and noticed I had a few missed messages from Katherine.
3:55pm: "Hey, so I'm just catching up here, can I get the list of documents you and Amy are submitting by the end of the week?"
3:57pm: "Are you there?"
4:00pm: "It is a requirement that you are reachable during the work day"
4:10pm: "I suppose you don't need to be employed here either if you can't be bothered to respond"
I quickly let her know that I was just on break which seemed to have staved her off enough, probably because she knew she couldn't legally complain about it, otherwise she would have. I continued working until 5:00pm and got ready for what was surely to be a fun day to come tomorrow.
"this fucking blows" I said to myself as I grabbed a beer from the fridge and drank it slowly while watching TV.
I managed to fall asleep watching TV and woke up with just enough time to lay restless in bed, unable to sleep from the cocktail of napping earlier and anxiety about tomorrow. Sometime around 2:00am I managed to fall asleep, it felt like only a few minutes as my alarm went off at 7:00am.
By the time I dragged myself into the office it was 7:55am and Katherine was sitting next to my desk, looking at her phone.
"Just in time" she said looking up from her phone as I sat down
"5 minutes early even" I said back casually trying not to let her work me up. "What do you need?"
"I need the documents you and Amy were working on" she rolled her eyes like I was somehow an asshole who didn't work in my off hours.
"Yeah, I've got them on my laptop, so once the workday starts I can get them to you" I said plugging in my workstation.
"So I have to wait 5 minutes for you to get me what I asked for?" she sounded annoyed but I didn't much care.
"You have to wait until the workday starts yes" I shot back not wanting to deal with any games of hers today.
"Fine, I'll just make a note to come back and check on this in 5." she walked away
Katherine was an exceedingly attractive woman. So much so in fact that there were near daily rumors about how she slept her way to the top, or was fucking some board member or the CEO. She was in her late thirties, had long brunette hair, green eyes and a very curvy body. I'd guess somewhere in the 40DD range breasts and she loved to show them off. Low-cut tops with a blazer over it was practically her whole wardrobe it seemed.
Truthfully, she didn't have to sleep her way to the top with all the backstabbing, idea stealing and other bullshit she had pulled over the years. Several excellent coworkers of mine had been fired for 'not finishing their projects' because she had set an impossible deadline and gotten rid of them only to keep the work and present it as her own. She tried to pull it on me several times but each time I was able to sneak around it and get enough of the work done to present on time and then finish after.
It wasn't a glamorous way to work and it was very stressful most of the time but it kept me employed. I was sure that I'd have to pick it back up again as Katherine was back in charge.
I got the documents prepped and lo and behold Katherine came back and sat next to my desk exactly five minutes later. She didn't say anything just stuck out her hand as I rested a stack of papers in it.
"We need to talk about your work dress" she said not looking at me, but at the papers
"Business Professional" I replied flatly
"No tie" she replied calmly
"Ties are recommendations and not required" I shrugged "company policy right?"
She looked completely unamused but again, unable to refute my claim as she walked away speaking over her shoulder "may as well be a fucking Hawaiian shirt without one"
I rolled my eyes once I was confident she couldn't see and got back to work. The day went by relatively well with Katherine only checking in every 30 minutes to make sure Amy and I were going to be done by the end of next week, we weren't and repeatedly told her that, but she would only reply "lets see what it looks like closer to the deadline" and refuse to hear anything else.
I got home around 5:30pm and sank down onto my couch thoroughly dreading the next day.
It felt like I had only just blinked and my alarm was going off and I was trudging back to work. The monotony of adult life had its claws into me this week and there was nothing I could do about it.
As I was getting ready, I had a great idea and chuckled to myself before heading into work. When I arrived, Katherine's eyes went wide and she turned bright red in anger as she laid eyes on my bright blue Hawaiian shirt.
"My office, now" she said through gritted teeth as she pointed, walking behind me toward her office.
"You look upset" I said to her as neutrally as I could manage
"You're fucking right I'm upset, you can't disrespect me like this" she shouted at me, loud, but certainly not as loud as I had heard before.
"You approved it, you said a Hawaiian shirt was equivalent to Business Professional without a tie" I smirked
"Oh you wipe that grin off your face! You know thats not what I meant. Go change" she fumed
"Sorry I didn't bring a change of clothes, I can go home and change though" I said finally taking a seat
"Just take it off then I dont care" she huffed "better someone sees you shirtless and fires you on the spot than sees you like this"
