012 POV 1398 at work - gets fired then keeps job

I've always hated offices. I'm always loathed to enter them because it's where authority resides and ever since my first day of school I learned I hate dictators. Patrick's office I dislike with a passion. I've only ever been in here once before, the day he hired me. The day he sat me down and made sure to make me feel like a worthless piece of shit, the day he said that he was doing me a huge favour by giving me a job. 'Taking a chance,' he called it then and he reminds me of it now.

"I gave you a chance, I did everything right by you, but you've let me down. I hate to say it, but I warned you, you didn't listen, and now you're fired." Patrick barks across the unfeasibly large desk that divides us. It's got to be compensation for something. A work space this large in an office this small wreaks of inadequacy in the manly department. Some men compensate with cars or motorbikes, this man sought to bolster his mid-life lag with an immense and highly polished--

"Hello? Are you there? Did you hear what I said?"

I look up from the table but can't quite bring myself to look him in the eyes.

"I heard." I say with all the gusto of a dying mouse. 

"And?" Patrick prompts.

"And..." I begin weakly without knowing what I want to say. For some odd reason a recent tutorial from my night studies business class springs to mind. The subject was on Honesty in Business. Which seemed oxymoron-moronic at first, but I soon learned that...

"To put it bluntly, humans have highly tuned bullshit detectors. If there's one thing we can smell a mile away it's a big fat steaming lie. It's an evolutionary thing. Lying is something humans do all the time and have been for millennia. Consequently we've become highly attuned at detecting inauthenticity."

I let that wet sentence hang in the air, drying for a moment. Patrick isn't quite sure how to process it. His brow literally furrows as he asks, "What's that got to do with the price of eggs?"

"I'm saying..." I continue, discovering my point as speak, "That I could lie to you, I could try and tell you that it wasn't my fault I was late today, that I'm just as much of a victim here as you are. That arrangements were made and subsequently broken by third parties, but that would be an insult to your intelligence Patrick, that would be to assume you're a fool, and you obviously aren't."

I take a breath, refocusing, then continue, "It was entirely my fault that I was late today, and you're right, I let you down. You took a chance on me," I cringe inside but keep a straight face, "And for that I am grateful. For what it's worth, I'm sorry for the stress I caused you."

I take my restaurant keys off the zip line attached to my trousers and I have to really stretch and lean to place them in the middle of the dessert sized table between us. 

"I'll get the last of the stuff out of my locker then you won't see me again."

With that I get up and walk toward the door with the appearance of having every intention of leaving. I don't. This is all a bluff. There's no way in hell I'm going to just walk out that easily. Without a job I can't pay rent, I can't eat. Without a job I stand zero percent chance of ever proving to a judge that I'm a reliable worker and therefore a reliable parent. To walk out without a fight would be to walk away from my child and that's not going to happen. Not again.

The basis of all business scenarios is negotiation. Tactical lying can improve your position. But If you're going to lie, it has to seem like you mean it. If the person you're engaging in business catches the faintest whiff of insincerity your lie will crumble. 

"Hold on a second now." Patrick says.

I stop in the doorway, my back to him.

"Until now you've been reliable and a good addition to the team. You just chose a hell of the time of the year to skip a shift."

I turn around now, facing him. He's enjoying this. This sense of power. He knows my options are few and far between. Especially given that it's Christmas. 

"I tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna dock your wages twenty-five percent for a month. If you don't put a foot wrong we can talk about putting you back to full wages at the end of the month."

My income's already below minimum wage. A twenty-five percent reduction means I'll barely be able to exist. I'll literally be working hand to mouth. I suppose I can eat at work, so that saves money on meals, but I had hoped to treat Lucy well while she was with me. I wanted to take her into Broadway and see a show, go for lunch, go to the zoo, go to the cinema. All these things require money. Something I have very little of and it looks like I'll soon have even less of. 

"So, what do you say?" Patrick asks. 

I hate him. I hate Patrick so much in this moment. The true test of a person's character is how well they treat someone they have no reason to treat well. According to that rule, Patrick's true character is shining through right now. 

What I really want to say is, stuff your job, your shitty restaurant and your illegal twenty-five percent pay haircut. I deserve much better than this. I've worked like an ox for you over the last year and a bit. When I started here the restaurant ran at fifty percent capacity at best. Now we're booked out Friday, Saturday and Sunday with week-nights running around eighty percent full. It's my menus and my cooking that has led to such a significant increase in your profit margin since I began. You should be begging me to stay and offering me a raise, not threatening to fire me unless I take this bullshit plea-deal. 

But instead, I haven't the strength to speak and manage only a faint nod.

Patrick smiles, pleased with himself on so many levels. He's secured himself a wage cut, maintained a successful chef who is great for business, and managed to frame it as though he's the altruistic one doing me the favor.

"That's settled then. I'll see you in the morning for breakfast shift."

That catches me off guard. Breakfast shift starts at six am, but I usually come in around an hour earlier to get prep-done. 

"I'm picking my daughter up from the airport at five forty seven tomorrow morning."

Patrick fails to see my obvious scheduling and timing concern. 

"If you get all your prep done tonight you'll have thirteen minutes to get here from the airport. Should be doable at that hour of the morning, traffic will be lite."

"But I wanted to spend the day with my daughter, that's why I swapped the shift with Julio."

Patrick cuts me a look that reads: I just threw you a bone, are you really going to throw it away? "No more shift swaps. You work what you're given or our deal is off."

I hang my head, wondering if things could get any worse. 

"Look, bring the kid here, she can hang out in the staff room until your shift is done, then you've got the whole afternoon to be with her."

That's hardly going to play well with Lucy, but at the moment it's either that or unemployment. 

Patrick slides my keys across the desk to me then gets up, puts his winter coat and hat on ready to leave.  

"Be sure to lock up when you're done." He says as he walks past me. 

He leaves me standing there, in the office, alone with this impossibly, unfeasibly, unnecessarily large desk. 

I wait until I hear the front door click closed behind him and I'm sure he's out of earshot before I draw a deep breath, then scream at the top of my lungs.