Chapter 0209
For the next few days, I buried myself in my work. With the amount of work piled onto all of us, it wasn’t difficult. In the mornings, I came in early, around 6am. At night, I wouldn’t leave until 9 or 10pm.
The schedule was exhausting, and even after only a few days, burnout was clawing at my insides, dragging me down, down. I was barely sleeping. Neither was I eating enough, constantly sitting at my work station or talking on the phone.
I came to work before sunrise and stayed long after sunset.
How the higher ups wanted this to be the normal state of progress, I wasn’t sure. Nothing about this was sustainable. Especially not with most everyone else feeling the same effects as me.
My co–workers move like zombies in the hallways. The planned layoffs had been pushed back, but not because of any increase in productivity. Rather, people were leaving the company in droves.
Even I had received several phone calls from headhunters the past few days. They’d heard that the company was in a tailspin, and were hoping to pick off the best employees. They managed to snag quite a few.
Logan and I haven’t really talked, aside from our typical work–related encounters. During those
encounters, he seemed as worn down as I was. Of anyone, he was most likely to see the writing on the wall.
These new efficiency standards were killing the company. All for his grandfather’s grudge. Yet Logan was still unable or unwilling to call him out. At least, perhaps, in a way that his grandfather would listen to.
In any spare moment, Maria’s words haunted my thoughts. Was I changing away from the person I was, with the beliefs I have always held because of Logan?
–
I wanted to be true to myself, no matter who I was dating or married to or whatever Logan and I were to each other. I couldn’t let him sway me just because he was someone I cared about, and who I wanted to care about me.
As things were, we didn’t have a lot of time to sort out our problems. There simply wasn’t a minute to catch our breath, let alone have a heart to heart discussion.
Maria meanwhile had all but given up. She stopped putting in overtime, leaving at exactly 6pm every day. Others had followed her lead.
When I had asked her if she’d even consider staying, worried as I was about her being laid off, she said, “1 work to live, not live to work.”
-4–continued pushing myself. Yet, as the days rolled on, started to notice that my clients started to notice
my exhaustion.
A curtesy call to one of our major clients ended with them asking me, “Are you okay, Ms. Whitaker? You aren’t as… quick as usual. Have you been getting enough sleep?”
Thank you for your concern,” I say quickly. “And I apologize…”
“You don’t have to apologize. We know you are reliable We are simply worried about you personally, and …” The client seemed hesitant to continue.
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Chapter 0209
+25 BONUS
“If there are issues, I would ask to hear them. We want to resolve any friction between us,” I said, “to preserve the healthy relationship between our two companies.”
“It’s just that… well, there’s been rumors going around about what’s going on over at your company. I don’t like to spread gossip, but if you’re hemorrhaging employees, there must be a reason.” The client sighed. We value our employees here. We can’t support a company that doesn’t uphold our values.”
My heart sank. If the client knew the truth, they would pull their accounts from us for sure.
I begin, “We remain diligent to giving our clients the best possible experience while providing them with quality products-”
“Hazel. We’ve known each other a long time, so I feel like I can say this to you. That is a company line that means nothing. And that you are feeding me the company line proves the rumors are true.”
