Silent power - scene IV

The next day, I proceeded wearily out of the house in my PJs, bathrobe and slippers to retrieve the paper. No I wasn’t feeling too peppy after a night of drinking and dancing and little sleep. When I got inside, and opened up the paper, I found my next instructions. Horoscope: It’s extremely tempting to overexert your influence – perhaps by interrupting, talking too loud or overtaking a situation that is not exactly your business. Instead chose silent power. Hmm. Silent power, I thought. Silent power. Uggh. I quickly ran to the toilet with the dry heaves. Maybe it’s a good day for silence, I thought. After a long hot shower, some strong black tea, and no breakfast I managed to get myself to work not much later than usual. I saw Terry and brought her a coffee that I had picked up on-route. “Whose idea was the dancing anyway?” I joked. “Whose idea were the shots?” she asked. Uggh. I see Brad approaching and avoiding him is almost impossible. “Hi, how are you?” he asked. Uggh. “Late night?” he wondered. “Mmmm. Hmmm.” I muttered. “Wanna try lunch or are you walking again?” “O.K.” I replied. Though I had momentarily forgotten all about the silent power thing, I wasn’t feeling too talkative anyway and I heard Terry filling him in on our wild night as I slowly made my way to my cube. Later in the morning my boss asked me to come to his office for a discussion about a nasty co-worker. She was so nasty she had tried to sabotage my reputation with colleagues, had my computer password changed to try to prove I was trying to break into the secure network, and I had even caught her snooping through my desk. “It’s all public information” was her guilty reply. “What’s your take on Mitchell,” he asked, using her last name. Though I thought she was a cancer for the entire office all I said was “I’d rather not comment, but she could certainly be more of a team player.” Later Terry told me she heard the boss on the phone saying (I am not kidding) “That Alex knows when to keep her mouth shut. She’d rather not focus on the negative.” When Terry asked me about it later she said, “Why didn’t you say anything about that bitch? You hate her.” No response. “Oh no don’t tell me it was the horoscope thing. What did it say today?” As I hear her rustling in her adjacent cube for the newspaper. “Silent power?” Terry stated incredulously. “And here I thought you were just hung over. “That too.” I said. Later that morning, Jim, our department head popped his head in and immediately started laying in to me. “Why isn’t that project wrapped up yet? I was supposed to be done nine months ago. I had Purchasing coming up my drain. They want that money spent. The books cleared. How about it Alex?” After the tirade I said, “I’m not offering any excuses (though there were plenty of people who hadn’t given me their final reports to compile). I’ll take care of it by the end of the week.” I decided I would put this project to bed one way or the other. I was tired of being dependent on others to fulfill my deadlines. I would proceed with some creative writing. “O.K. Alex that sounds good,” Jim said, a little humbled. He immediately ran into the big boss and said, “She said she’d take care of it by next week.” “I’m sure she will,” said the boss. “She knows when to keep her mouth shut and when to put her nose to the grindstone.” After this drama and about an hour of creative writing to get the project report done. I heard Brad’s voice. “Ready?” he asked. I smiled and followed him to the door. He definitely looked nice from the backside but I resolved to stick to my silent power over lunch. And I listened and listened over lunch to details about his family, childhood, and hobbies. I interjected a question here or there but mostly stayed quiet or silent if you will. He seemed to enjoy himself immensely and I surprised myself by finding most of the talk quite interesting – even with my pounding headache. Later Terry, the office busy body, ran into Brad in the break room and asked him about our lunch. “She’s great,” he gushed. Oh God. I started to get nervous butterflies when she told me that. Relationships were one of my greatest fears. In fact, I’d only had one boyfriend a long time ago and that ended badly. Yikes.