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Crap!
He’s still looking over here. I quickly return my attention to my food. I take a bite of this fish taco and chew so fast, my tastebuds don’t register the flavor.”
“You looked at him, didn’t you?” Zahara asks.
“He’s like right there. Everybody in here is looking at him.”
“Um—not ya girl.”
“Well, your back is toward him, so the urge to look isn’t hitting you as hard as it has me.”
I glance over to where he’s standing. This time, he’s not there. I give the café a full sweep. Mr. DePaul is gone like a feather in the wind. Thank goodness! Perhaps the color can come back to Zahara’s face now. This man got these people up in here shook.
“He’s gone now, Zahara.”
“Whew! I can breathe,” she says. “Lord knows I need my job.”
“We all do, but you shouldn’t let someone get to you like that.”
“Like what?”
“Frazzled and disturbed to the point that you try to avoid making eye contact, fearing you’d lose your job somehow.”
“Everybody around here does that. You’re just not used to it yet, but you’ll fall in line. And Mr. DePaul is not just someone. He’s the man. His name carries weight around here. I heard people he’s fired have a hard time finding a job anywhere else. But anyway, lunch is almost over. Oh, and that reminds me…make sure you pay attention to your time when you’re on your lunch break. We have to log out of our computers when we leave and log back in when we return. If you’re over one minute, you’re considered late. Five of those and you’re out on your tail.”
“Wow. I didn’t think we were going to be micromanaged up in here.”
“It’s not really micromanaging. No one is standing over you to make sure you do your job. Greta won’t sweat you like that, either. As long as your work is getting done on time, she’s cool.”
“That’s good to know. Thanks for all the information. Hopefully now I have what it takes to survive around here.”
Zahara gathers her trash and stands up. I follow suit and then, just like that, I’m back sitting in the conference room, preemptively pouring some coffee to get me through the second half of the day. While waiting for Shanice to return, I sip and think about everything Zahara has told me about work-life here. If I keep my head down and do my job, I’ll be okay, she says. I make a mental note of that. It still baffles me how people are so scared of Mr. DePaul. Does he have a larger-than-life presence? Yes. Is he rude? Absolutely. Condescending? No doubt. But all of this isn’t necessarily surprising when you consider who he is. He’s the quintessential CEO of a multi-million-dollar company. If he wasn’t cocky, I’d think something was wrong with him.
Anyway, to be on the safe side of things, I’m going to take Zahara’s advice to keep my head down and avoid Mr. DePaul at all costs. Little does she know, it was my plan all along.
