Focus [COMPLETED]

2

"Aria.. so.. hey..."

She glanced up from her laptop to see her supervisor Wilma standing at her cubicle with a fake smile.

"So.. I presented your draft to the board and they weren't too keen on it.."

"What does that mean?"

She had a pink sticky note on her finger and turned it around to show her some bullet points she wrote down.

"These are some ideas they had for you to write about instead of the state of our public school systems. Very tech and software based... it's what the Times is writing about and we have to keep our readers interested," she told her, sticking the Post-It onto her laptop, blocking her view of the article she was in the middle of writing.

Aria looked from her supervisor, to the list on her screen, back to her supervisor.

"What the fuck, Wilma? I spent weeks on that draft. I spent time going to all those schools, interviewing all those superintendents. What do you mean they rejected it?"

Wilma heaved a sympathetic sigh. "Yeah... it's just not the direction they want to go in for your column."

Aria ripped the Post-It off her screen and stood up.

"Then I'll talk to them," she said, knowing nobody would go to bat for her ideas more than herself.. and especially not Wilma.

She reached for her wrist. "You really don't wanna do that, Aria. They're in the middle of their budget meeting right now, and you don't wanna attract any of that attention your way not following the rules."

"Fuck the rules. And fuck this shit," she said, looking at some of the bullet points listed. "I don't know shit about UX Design... how the fuck can I write about it??"

"I'm not really comfortable with your tone right now, Aria.." Wilma said, cowering slightly.

And Aria fought the urge to reach out and begin strangling the stupid old bitch.

Instead, she took a deep breath.

"If you don't like the material that I write, send me to another supervisor because clearly you don't know how to fucking back your writers, Wilma. So take this shit," she stuck the pink sticky note to her chest, "and give it to someone else. And if you can't find someone who'll write it, then shove it up your ass because I'm not writing it."

Wilma raised a brow, pretty much used to outbursts like this daily, but lately, Aria had been doing it far too often as many of her ideas continuously got rejected.

And she mostly blamed Wilma for it, because she knew she went into those board meetings and barely advocated for her ideas.

"I'm gonna give you twenty minutes to calm down, and then I'm expecting an apology and plan moving forward at my desk before the hour is up."

Aria scoffed, watching her walk away calmly as she felt her anger boiling over.

She had worked on that article for weeks.

She watched Wilma disappear behind the door to her office.

"Ugghhhh!" She screamed, getting the attention of some of her coworkers nearby.

There were at least 50 of those outbursts per hour at their work stations, so it didn't surprise anybody.

Nina, a girl that worked opposite to Aria, scooted her chair over.

"I'm certain she goes into those meetings and doesn't say a peep, and comes back with all these demands like she's in there doing something," Nina shook her head as she ate a granola bar. "Fuck her."