Page 18 of My Boss

“Will you honor me with your presence at your desk today?” He says it slowly, in a composed voice.

“Of course. I’m sorry. I lingered too long in the bathroom. I’m just about to finish,” I spit out the words, looking around the storeroom for something that could simulate the sound of letting the water run in the sink. And there’s nothing. Just boxes.

A low murmur echoes through the handset.

“Then when you’re done…” He suspends his voice, as if, damn it, he knows perfectly well that I’m not in the fucking bathroom, “there’s an e-mail waiting for you with guidelines forex-postanalysis for Origame. They care about timelines. The deadline is tomorrow, by nine o’clock,” he declares, and hangs up.

Exquisite. Another evening at work is looming.

Maria, don’t whine. You’ve been saved. Get your ass in gear and get up there!

“Sorry, Karol. I have to go back.” I put the phone in my pocket with a determined movement, trying to make a disappointed face.

“You’ve got to be kidding me to leave me like this.” He stares at me as if I have grown another head.

I look with feigned sympathy at his knee-length pants and stinky pecker and I dream of nothing but getting away from here as soon as possible.

“I can’t help it. You heard it yourself. The boss is looking for me.”

“I hate that bastard. Because of him, we hardly see each other at all.” He pulls up his pants, obviously annoyed. “Not only does he make you toil after hours, but he also calls you during your break.”

“Karol, it’s just after nine, no break yet. And I was late for work today, so all in all, it’s not surprising that Engler called me,” I explain, and then I move closer to him, kiss his cheek and whisper into his ear, “Thank you for yesterday’s gift. Dinner tomorrow?” I try to smile.

He looks at me strangely. Maybe he smelled his dick in my breath?

“Yyyy, sure. I’ll drop by your place after six. Is that okay?”

“You got it.”

As I make my way up the staircase, I’m bothered again by the question that has troubled me ever since the first time I slept with Karol: why the hell am I still seeing him if we’re so bad in bed?

In response, I immediately get dozens of arguments that I know well and can’t deny: because Karol is funny, cute, nice, sweet and easy-going. He can make me laugh. With him, I feel at ease, I have time for myself. And the fact that yesterday hearranged the transport of the wing armchair for me, and didn’t even tell me about it, proves what a good, kind and humble man he is.

I feel remorseful for leaving him in such a state today. I’ll somehow rehabilitate myself. I promise. Maybe at the next meeting, we’ll shower first, I’ll wash him thoroughly, and then I’ll finish what I interrupted?

Just the thought that I would have to kneel before him again makes me weak. I will get over it. I’ll take it easy. I’ll get over it somehow.

I HATE MY BOSS! He is a total fucktard! After I proved to him my ‘outstanding’ talent for numbers, I thought he would forgive me. But, gee, no. Not only does having algebraic abilities provide as much pleasure as a toothless guy munching on nuts, but instead of making my life at work easier, he makes it even more difficult.

Because Jan… fucking Jan, who apparently suffers from some kind of number-crunching neurosis, is now bombarding me with so many calculations, statistics, reports and analyses that I wonder if he even has anything left to delegate to other employees. Not only that, but he has started taking me to customer meetings, which has resulted in going on field trips with him during normal business hours and tons of paperwork I have to catch up on after hours.

Because of him, I practically don’t see my friends at all, I don’t have time to finish my wing chair, not to mention watching some random series on Netflix in the evening over wine with Karol.

My poor Karol. Now, like never before, I should be spending more time with him because the good softie has been sitting alone at home nonstop for a month, using up his unused vacation. And that’s because the day after we met for an ill-fated blowjob, he got fired. And it was because of me. It turned out that someone saw us enter the storeroom, tipped off security, who then checked the monitoring and authorizations,and forwarded the case to the head of the marketing and sales department. The next day, Karol was fired. And it’s a good thing that they terminated his employment contract by mutual agreement because no matter how you look at it, he broke the rules and our company’s board is very strict about compliance.

People are pigs, after all. Who was bothered by the fact that we went into the damn storeroom? After all, I’m an employee of the company, not some Joe Shmoe off the street. Nothing was lost, we were only there for fifteen minutes… Lucky for me, no one got on my case. I didn’t even get a warning. I guess they figured that if a person who was authorized got canned, it would be enough of a warning to the rest of the employees.

I glance out the window of the office building. The setting sun reflects off the windows of the neighboring building. I eagerly pack my cell phone and sandwich container into my bag. How wonderful that it’s still light outside, and after leaving work at eight, I don’t feel like it’s the middle of the night. And today I leave at six! Engler let me leave early, so I decide to devote Friday evening to finishing the restoration of the armchair, which I’ll then take photos of and upload to my website: ‘Maria Gabara—Furniture Restoration’. I have had it for about ten years. Every year I pay to maintain the domain because I’m still holding out hope that someday the day will come when I’ll be able to do only creative work. Not go to the office, not look at numbers, tables, reports, statements, and analyses, but own my studio and give a new and better life to dilapidated, abandoned junk. Such is my dream.

And dreams are there to come true. I believe that one day I’ll do it. But first, I need to put aside a lot more money to rent and equip the studio, promote it and bear the cost of buying and transporting used furniture. I have calculated everything down to the last penny. There is only one problem. Big cash equals working in a corporation. Corporate work equals lack of time.Lack of time equals putting renovation on the back burner. A vicious circle—a hellish merry-go-round. True, the discretionary bonus from Engler got me a little closer to my goal, but it’s still a small percentage of the budget I need.

I have a plan—I want to move to the R&D Department. I’ll have less work. The salary will be a bit lower, but I’ll finally take up renovations and start selling furniture again, as I did when I was still working at my previous job (it’s a pity they paid next to nothing, but at least I had more time).

As for R&D, I’ve heard rumors that one of the ladies will be retiring in two months. I have already spoken (informally) to the head of the department. I caught her at the reception desk of our building as she was leaving at 4:30 p.m.! I already like her. She was interested in my candidacy and promised not to mention my desire to change positions to Jan until I talked to him myself. For now, I have to grin and bear it, do my job, patiently endure the bossobot’s demands and put cash aside in a savings account. I’ll be fine, I’ll manage. And I don’t give a crap that my parents think I’m a loser because I feed on the hope that I’ll be able to make a living from refinishing furniture. Which my mother gives me further proof of on Saturday.

“Maria, I am at a loss for words for you, child.” She takes a plate out of the dishwasher and puts it back in the cabinet. “I thought that after so many years, you would have managed to get this wood whittling out of your head.”

“I don’t whittle, I just carry out restorations.”

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