Chapter 2: Natalie
I left the door to my office open. Monday mornings were absolute chaos at IY Games. With the amount of people employed here, there were surely multiple metaphorical fires happening. As I sat down and opened my email, I found one of my own.
From: Julie Anderson
Re: Acquisition Statements.
Natalie,
We’re going to need to merge the financial statements sooner than anticipated. I need you to start immediately. Please reply with any questions.
Julie Anderson
Chief Financial Officer
I had no questions on what needed to be done. But Julie didn’t realize the amount of overtime she had just assigned me. Which was acceptable, because I was the manager. This was just a one of those moments I wished I wasn’t on salary.
“Knock, knock!” Donovan said as he popped his head into my office.
Donovan had been hired in the accounting department at the same time I was. He was quite possibly my only friend at this office. No matter how humorless I was being, always pushed past my stuffy attitude.
“Hey,” I said, rubbing my temples.
“How’s the Ice Queen today?” He helped himself to a chair that sat alongside the edge of my desk.
I was not a cool manager, by any means. I had no trouble discipling my employees when they deserved it. If any other person in this office had called me Ice Queen it would not have ended well. However, Donovan had earned the privilege of giving me a nickname.
I wasn’t sure how he had done it. He would make sure to greet me every day. No matter how much I didn’t want to talk, he would force me into conversation. Before I knew it, I realized I enjoyed talking to him. Donovan just had a way with people.
“I just found out all of the acquisition statements need to be done sooner than expected.”
He smirked. “I’m glad I’m not you.”
“Don’t be too glad. A piece of this is yours to work on.”
“No thank you.”
“You can’t just tell me no when I give you work.” I rolled my eyes at his satirical disobedience. “Do you think I can do all these statements by myself?”
“Well I mean, you probably could.”
I shrugged. He was right. “I have other things to do. Managerial things.”
“I have other things to do, too. Non-managerial things.”
“Yes. What I’m about to assign you.”
He disregarded my statement. “The people we got from the acquisition start today.”
“Is that so?”
“Mhm. We got a couple staff accountants, a finance guy, and a new VP of Marketing. And some other people, but they aren’t on our floor, so I didn’t bother to remember.”
I wasn’t very interested. I had been employed at IY Games for two years and barely talked to veteran employees. It wasn’t as if new people would suddenly catch my interest.
“So,” he continued, “I’m going to go train the fresh meat.”
“I suppose you won’t get what I’m about to distribute, then.”
He winked at me. “Damn right.”
“Oh, I wasn’t finished. It won’t take you all week to train those new accountants. You get a pass for now, meaning you’ll get the remnants of what needs to be done.”
“Good enough for me.”
“Get to work, Donovan.”
He laughed at me. “Cold as always, Ice Queen.”
I waved as he strolled towards the new accountants. On one side of the coin, I was glad they were here to pick up the extra work the company had. Almost all departments had been a wreck since we heard about the acquisition. But they were most likely going to screw something up, which meant I was going to have to fix it.
My head began to throb at the impending doom coming my way. I knew the job of the manager was to clean up other people’s messes, but people were so sloppy. Most were careless mistakes, too. If it was always honest errors I was fixing I would be okay with it. Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t.
I clicked on the attachment with Julie’s email and downloaded the extensive amount of data. The sheer size of the file made my stomach drop. I looked at the download icon. Three minutes remaining.
The first step would be comparing each company’s accounts and deciding which could be merged or eliminated. The work wasn’t hard per se, just extremely tedious. If I handed this out to three people, we would most likely get it done in a day.
My mind began to wander to other places. You’re just not adventurous. Nathan’s stoic face told me. The scene from last night played on loop through my head.
“Stupid jerk,” I muttered to myself.
The only emotion I wanted to feel towards him was anger. Emotions weren’t something I was good at. Along with anger, I also had this annoying feeling attached with it. I thought it might be sadness.
No, that couldn’t be it. Bitter was probably a better word. There was no way he was making me experience sorrow.
I thought I was plenty fun. My hobbies weren’t spontaneous, but they were interesting. My time was spent reading a great deal of non-fiction. I also watched every documentary I could get my hands on. Because of my hobbies, I was a game show champion. I had never applied, but I got better scores than the people on TV.
My stomach tightened. If my time was spent tallying game show scores, maybe my hobbies were boring.
When I had purchased my ice cream last night, I had also bought a bag of chocolate chip cookies. I pulled them out of my purse and began eating them from the bag. A dangerous move—I wouldn’t be able to keep track of the amount I ate.
I realized three minutes had long since passed, and I opened the file. There was even more data than I thought. I shoved the cookies away from me and began to work.
An hour had passed, and the task had definitely begun to strain me. What irritated me the most was that I normally enjoyed working. I was frustrated that I disliked an assignment given to me.
I frowned. Most of my frustration might not have been from these financial statements.
“So…much,” I muttered to myself.
“Hey.” Dave from the marketing department stood in my doorway. “You busy?”
“Not really,” I gritted through my teeth.
The architect of this building was an absolute idiot. They didn’t design it so marketing had a hallway to get directly to their department. Every few minutes, someone from marketing walked by my office door. I normally kept it shut to block the noise, but Monday mornings and Friday afternoons were exceptions.
I normally told Dave I was busy. A few weeks ago, he had taken it upon himself to strike up a conversation with me. Ever since then, he had talked to me daily.
It was different than when Donovan struck up a conversation with me. His intention was so I could have someone to talk to. I couldn’t figure out Dave’s angle. Donovan was convinced he was in love with me, but I strongly disagreed.
Today, these financial statements were driving me up a wall, and I was willing to do anything to get away from them. Even if it meant a conversation with Dave.
“Great,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“So, what’s on the agenda today?”
My brain throbbed as I tried to form an answer someone without an accounting degree would understand. As if that wasn’t frustrating enough, I flashbacked to Nathan. There was one big stack of irritation: getting dumped, the financial statements, and I had forgotten to grab coffee.
“Just acquisition things…” I lied.
“Ah, us too! A huge shuffle in the department going on. The new VP is having us start a huge project.”
“Sounds like a lot of work.”
“It is.”
“Yep,” I responded.
“Oh, can I have one of these?” Dave grabbed a cookie out of its tray.
I wasn’t sure why he asked if he was going to take it at the same time. As much as I wanted to get away from my thoughts and my ever-growing workload, I regretted my decision to talk to Dave. Logical Natalie hadn’t fully returned, and I was about to punch him for taking my cookie.
“Well…if you need to get back to it,” I said, hoping he would leave.
“Well, I actually have time to—” He was interrupted by the ringing of my office phone.
“Sorry,” I mouthed, picking up the phone from its cradle.
He nodded in acknowledgement and waved goodbye. Whoever was on the other side of this phone was my savior.
“This is Natalie Lane.” I rested the phone in the crook of my shoulder.
“Natalie, it’s Julie. Did you get my email on the financial statements?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and prepared myself for Julie’s onslaught. With everything I was doing, I had forgotten to reply. “I did. I’m sorry, I opened the file and forgot to respond.”
“That’s okay. What’s its progress?” she’d said it was okay, but her tone implied otherwise.
She was asking me about progress an hour after I got to work. I pinched my nose harder, digging my nails into the bridge. “It’s going well.” If I told enough people it was fine, maybe I could convince myself.
“When do you expect it to be finished?”
“This is a huge acquisition. We can get the statements done, but it won’t be overnight.”
The sound of tapping fingernails came through the receiver. I knew it was nothing personal; this acquisition had had Julie stressed since the moment she heard of it. Top management was getting shuffled around or replaced, so the need to exceed expectations was high.
“It’s top priority,” I offered.
“I know it is. Just get everyone to work as fast as possible, okay?”
“Will do,” I said. “I’ll have those to you as soon as possible.”
“Great. Honestly, Natalie, I don’t know what I would do without you.”
I didn’t know what she would do without me either. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an appropriate answer. “I’m always here to help.”
I wished her goodbye and sat the phone back in its cradle. I ran my hands through my shoulder-length hair, and many strands fell out with the movement. It would be best to tell the staff directly rather than email them a pile of work, demanding it was made a priority. And I would finally be able to grab some coffee.
I would assign the hardest part to Stephanie. A year out of college and she was the most competent employee in the department. She reminded me of a soft-spoken version of myself. I saw her cower a bit as I approached her cubicle. Honestly, I couldn’t figure out why she was afraid of me. I’d never yelled at her or had to discipline her.
“Hello, Stephanie.”
“H-hello, Ms. Lane.”
She had always addressed me as Ms. Lane, no matter how many times I told her to call me by my first name. I debated whether or not to start with small talk so she would be less terrified. But these financial statements were a time sensitive issue.
“The financial statements need to be finished sooner than planned. I’m going to email you a portion of it.”
“Yes, Ms. Lane.”
I couldn’t help but notice her disappointed face. This would keep her late, and it was possible she had something planned after work. Any other coworker would have asked. I wanted to, but she wouldn’t have told me.
“I know it’s unfortunate, Stephanie, but the acquisition will make things hectic for a while,” I said, attempting to console her. It wasn’t something I was good at, but at least I was putting in effort.
She didn’t look at me. In fact, she was looking at something else, very intently. I turned my head to see what she was so focused on. A man walked towards us with a flirtatious smile plastered on his face. He was presumably new, as I had never seen him before.
Stephanie was ogling him because of how he looked. He was the perfect height—about 6’2.” Normally, men’s dress shirts are a bit baggy, and it was hard to get an idea of their body type. He had chosen a slim cut so he could make it clear there were muscles underneath. The angles of his face were sharp and symmetrical, with a perfect cupid bow above his lip.
I wasn’t blind; I could tell when someone was attractive. However, it wasn’t something that distracted me in the workplace. Being attracted to a coworker was just asking for trouble. If things went south, you still had to see them forty hours a week.
I couldn’t help but shoot him a glare. It was obvious that I was having a conversation with Stephanie, and he chose to distract her. He could flirt with her when it wasn’t company time.
When I glared at him, he covered his hand with his mouth in an attempt to hide what I presumed was a smirk. He must have gotten the message, because he didn’t say anything as he passed us.
“Stephanie.” I frowned at her. She was staring at his ass as he walked away.