Skill Set

It was Sharon’s thirteenth anniversary

at CommSolutions, Inc.

(Not that anyone noticed.)

But she took herself out to lunch

at the Panera a few blocks away

and allowed herself one of those

oversized cookies for dessert.

To celebrate.

She had walked into her beige cubicle

the first day,

an enthusiastic, motivated 23-year-old.

An artist at heart,

doing this as a mere “day job”

until she started getting published.

Would probably have to put in her notice

when she got her big advance

and had to schedule a book tour.

But she also wanted to do her best

and be the kind of person her manager

considered “indispensible.”

She vowed that she wouldn’t take shit

from anyone,

nor would she stand for it

when Doug talked to her like that.

Thirteen years on,

Doug continued to talk to her like that

because he was a VP,

and she wasn’t even a manager,

even though she was certainly indispensible.

But she had learned to keep a poker face

at meetings when people used words like

“innovative” and “state of the art” and “circle back.”

She learned to smile and say, “Sure, no problem,”

when it certainly was a problem.

She learned that quality mattered less than quantity and speed.

She learned to congratulate people she didn’t like

for promotions and weddings and babies.

She learned to sign birthday cards

for coworkers in the other suite she had never formally met

and couldn’t identify in a police lineup.

She learned not to feel so bad for her lost literary dreams

because at least she had a 401k and three weeks of vacation.

She learned to avoid the girls in the kitchenette

and take her lunch outside,

eating a turkey sandwich in the sunshine,

under a blue, cloudless sky,

listening to birdsong

and cars rushing down the highway.