Flyover City! A Novel (with Superheroes)

10. One on One

Rejoice, All Ye Faithful! All you Buddhists, and Hindus, and tanzanite-crystal sucking new-agers. Your belief in karma has now been validated!

All. Over. My. Face.

Yesterday was a banner day for ol' Joel Wyatt. Not only did I get to engage in an excruciatingly-painful one-on-"one", not only did I spend my entire day at work (trying) to avoid Gwen, completely wracked with guilt over a certain aforementioned situation in my personal life... but when I left work, fully prepared for my treacherous ride home on the icy Denver streets, I discovered that my scooter - "an extension of my soul", I believe I called it before - had been stolen from the front of the building. In broad-fucking-daylight!

I admit it, okay? I fucked up... but did I really deserve this?

Don't answer that. Just... don't.

***

My Meeting: On the 5th floor of the Vaig Communications Customer Care Center, centered in the middle of a labyrinth of cubicles, is an official-looking glass walled conference room. It was designed back in the 70s, for high powered get togethers between upper management-types. But that was before the go-go, dot-com-booming mid-nineties, when hundreds of doe-eyed, entry level customer service agents came and took over the building. The only thing that ever happens in there now is end of the year performance reviews, or the occasional job interview.

But if it's not the end of the year, and the people inside already work here, that means the person on the ass-end of the long table, nodding repentantly, with their hands in their lap, is being "coached" in a dreaded One-on-One. It's really just a systematic dressing down, the poor sap serving as an example to the people in the surrounding cubes. When they finally ship the remainder of our positions off to India, I imagine they'll just fill the whole thing up with water and get some nice betas.

Not to be a downer or anything. I personally find the whole scenario patently hilarious.

Tim glances up from his iphone when I walk in. I head over to grab a seat, but he stands, extending his hand to shake mine. Like I haven't talked to him 30 times today already. But no, we're in the un-hidden temple, now, there are certain rituals that must be observed. "Hi, Joel. Go ahead and grab a seat."

Good idea.

"God, this dumb-ass thing." He says for my benefit, shutting off his iphone. "Runs my whole life. But I guess if we didn't have 'em, we wouldn't have a job, huh?"

"Ha ha. Totally." Great. Today, it's Tim the Good Cop. Tim-your-buddy.

"That's right, man. So, it's like I hate this thing... but at the same time, I respect it. You get what I'm sayin'? Look, I'm not gonna bullshit you. Why are we here today? You know what? Don't answer that. Why do you come here, to work, every day?"

"'Cause it's my job." Duh.

"Right. And you need a paycheck."

"Well, it helps, yeah."

"But you could get a job anywhere, you know? Diggin' holes, or driving a bus, or baking cakes. Why do you work here?"

Because I've made a long line of mistakes and bad choices in my life? "Because... I guess I prefer working inside, in the air conditioning. Close to downtown." I'm not an idiot. It's perfectly clear where he's driving this conversation. If I can reach his conclusions for him without sounding too sarcastic about it, I can get out of here that much quicker.

"Right. Right! So maybe you don't like everything about your job, but you should at least respect it. Because of the things you do like about it."