The Breaks by Ellen Barker

Author:Ellen Barker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press

Chapter 11

At work I make slow progress. After the initial enthusiasm, the group members begin to reveal their humanity, meaning the annoying qualities that are the flip side of the insight and cooperation they also exude. Sometimes cookies or cupcakes shift the mood, and sometimes they don’t. Lack of treats definitely shifts the mood in the wrong direction, and I realize I’ve sentenced myself to baking the night before every meeting, or rather, getting Stephanie to bake. Small price, I murmur as I light the oven once again. It was easier to order pizza in the corporate world, where everyone knows the company was paying, but here they know I made these myself, and they are forced to refuse them or cut me some slack, and no one is turning down free desserts at two in the afternoon. I exploit this shamelessly, leaving some cupcakes unfrosted when I hear the word “diabetes” and leaving nuts out of half the cookies when I hear about allergies. We coalesce into a team, and I begin to appreciate it when they call me out for assuming something I have no knowledge about. Sometimes when I am talking, I hear a little sniff or notice a hand moving across the table as if it is clearing space. I stop talking and smile at the sniffer or the wiper, my eyes open in question and pen ready to write. The project moves along, and Marjorie seems happy with our progress.

What I don’t feel, though, is part of the social fabric of the group. I stew about it on the drive home and alternately blame myself and them. I accuse myself of being standoffish or them of being clannish. I know I don’t offer up much of my own personal life, but I think they offer up too much of theirs. It’s a job, I tell myself, not a family. I just need to get along and be accepted enough to do the best job I can. I need to give and take and be myself and let each of them be whoever they are. Eventually I realize that there are subsets and intrigues and jealousies among the others, and I feel less like an oddball.

One morning I get a call from the software vendor representative, not the current one but the one from my previous job at Magetech. He reminds me that the annual user conference is in three weeks and that I had signed up to be a presenter. He wants to know what my topic is.

“Oooohhh,” I say, stalling. I have not kept up with Magetech since it was sold. I don’t even know if they kept the system we designed. My brain scrambles for a topic, something about start-ups and initial planning, which is what I did there. But there can be no ending to that story since I am not there anymore. I’ll need to think about this and figure out how to shine a light on some early-stage nuance that will enlighten other start-up efforts.

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