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For a brief moment, I thought about not answering.
I could let the message go to voicemail, but I had a sneaking suspicion that would only make this situation worse. And I didn’t want that. I was already in hot water over how some of this business trip had gone already, and I could hear the lecture I would be getting when I got back to the office.
But, I would deal with that when the time came. I still had the hope that I would be able to pull off all the design work by the deadline, and with how pleased the clients would be with what I had done, I would wind up going home to a congratulations after all.
That was a lot better for me than the lecture I sensed I’d be getting. But, I had also been planning on doing that before I had gotten to work late, again.
I answered the phone on the last ring.
“Hello?”
“You were late again,” Leroy said. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing down there, but you know I sent you in my stead because I felt you were going to represent the company well. What the hell is going on?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I haven’t been feeling well, and I overslept.”
“You overslept,” he said.
The heaviness in his tone caused me to stiffen. I sensed my promotion was slipping away, and I wanted to break down and cry. I had put a lot of work into this, and while I knew it was my own fault for being late, that didn’t mean that I should lose my promotion over it. I had already put in a lot of work here.
I had spent weeks doing this project, and I hadn’t been home at all during that time. I thought for sure I was going to have the chance to run back to New York every so often to at least touch base with what was going on there, and so far, I hadn’t. And with all that was going on in my head, having my boss yell at me wasn’t the answer I was looking for.
“Yes,” I replied. “I got to work about half an hour late today, but I’m working now, and I’m telling you that I’m on track to get this done by the projected deadline.”
“But you’re not being very professional about it,” he told me. “I know you want this promotion, and you told me when you left that you were going to do me proud. But so far, you’ve been late to work twice, and you had to delay your arrival into Seattle because of the plane. I don’t know when you thought I would be taking this as a joke, but if I knew you were going to have so many problems doing this, I would have gone down there myself.”
“Yes sir,” I said.
I wanted to point out that the plane situation wasn’t my fault, but that would only be deflecting. It might not be my fault that the plane was needing repair that day, but the two times I had been late to work for oversleeping were definitely my fault, and there wasn’t anything I could say that would fix that. I could promise that I wasn’t going to let it happen again, but I had already done that.
And here I was, late again. I could plead with him to go easy on me, but he also hadn’t said for sure that he was going to take away the promotion. There was still time for me to redeem myself.
“I know you are good at what you do,” Leroy said, “But I don’t know why you feel that this is a vacation and not a business trip. There was only one reason why I wanted you to be the one to go down there, and to hear that you’re not taking this seriously makes me sick. I want great things for you, Laurel, but how can I give them to you if you’re not going to take this seriously?”
“I’m taking it seriously,” I said. “I’m sorry that I’ve slipped a bit, but I can assure you I’m on track, and you’re not going to hear anymore complaints.”
“I better not,” he said. “You’ve got a lot to lose with this, Laurel, and I’m telling you that only once.”
“Yes sir,” I said.
I felt my promotion moving out of reach, and I wanted to beg him not to take it away from me, but I knew the best thing to do now was to move forward and make sure that I didn’t let anything like this happen again. I couldn’t. If I wanted that promotion and all the perks that came with it, I had to prove to my boss that I was in control over this entire situation, and I wasn’t messing around by any means.
Leroy was a man who was shown through my actions a lot more than my words, I knew that, and I wasn’t going to push my luck with him anymore than I already had. I couldn’t. That would be foolish. I might as well throw my promotion down the drain at that point.
“I’ll expect an update from you in a few days,” he said. “And make sure it’s a good one.”
“I will,” I said.
I hung up the phone and sighed. All I wanted to do was crawl into my bed and cover up with a blanket and cry. Or sleep. Or both. I was exhausted in all this, and even staying up as late as I had the night before with Greyson was enough to make me feel it today. I knew it wasn’t his fault, and I hoped he wasn’t also disappointed in me over the fact I’d overslept again.
He was still asleep – or mostly asleep – when I left for work that morning, but I had a feeling he was aware of my being late. He hadn’t messaged me yet today, and I hadn’t, either. I didn’t want to reach out to him until I was sure I had a lot of the work done for the day. I would tell him that I was a bit late, but it wasn’t any big deal.
The last thing I wanted was for him to feel like he was responsible for this in one way or another. I knew it wasn’t his fault, and I wasn’t going to let him take the blame for it, either. I couldn’t. I was the one who was making my own decisions, and that put me at fault for this. No one else.
But, after having my ass reamed by my boss, I wanted to talk to someone I knew was going to be on my side, so I called Naomi. I knew she would be sympathetic toward me and what was going on. She always was. If there was any girl in my group who knew how to handle the girl code, it was her.
She was on my side no matter what, and even if she told me that she didn’t agree with what I was doing, I knew she was going to still take my side over what my boss was doing at the end of the day, and I would feel better. Right now, I didn’t care who I had to talk to in order to feel better. I just knew that I had to talk to someone.
So, I called.
