Jamison’s hands were poised over the keyboard. He licked his lips in anticipation. This was it. The moment he had been waiting for. He would tell them what he thought of them. Call them out on every misdeed. They were all bastards.

Well, maybe not all of them, but enough. Enough to make it hard for people like him. Everywhere he worked these fuckers would invariably show up.

He didn’t believe in being nasty, in being a control freak or invasive, but they did. Sometimes people would try and take the hand out of you, that was a given. Those people had to be put back in their box. Another given. But for the rest of the time, he didn’t understand why you couldn’t just be civil.

First there had been Jennifer, the petty tyrant. Jamison couldn’t do right for wrong. Don’t you have something to do? That’s not your job. Really Jamison, I expected better of you. In my office now! And when Jamison had been promoted. Silence. Not even an acknowledgement. And what’s more, he knew that she knew. He didn’t let her off. He brought it up, and still, nothing. A hollow remark, ‘That’s good’. And then he left.

Promotion followed promotion. He moved around. He became a manager. But everyone has someone they’re answerable to. He should have known about the other shoe. Why didn’t he know? Another one. This time a control freak.

What are you doing tomorrow? You’re spending too much time in your office. You need to be out there. You’re spending too much time out there. You need to be in your office. These are wrong. I haven’t forgotten what you said in your interview. Don’t make me say this twice Jamison.

Eggshells, eggshells, everywhere eggshells. No matter where he stepped they cracked. And always she was there, ready to pounce. He tried speaking to the manager above her but she was a withered, weak thing, afraid and unwilling to risk the beast’s wrath, unable to control her.

Then he grew some backbone and confronted her head on. This was like a red rag to a bull. What followed was a verbal lashing of such severity, such ferociousness that he found himself unable to come into work for weeks after. He claimed sickness and racked his brain for days, trying desperately to find some way forward.

He was going to have to leave. It was unbearable. Somehow he had found it in himself to put up a fight this time. But like the bullfighters smashed into the air the outcome had been bloody.

The car was warmed up though. He could flee. He just needed somewhere to go…..

Does anyone else have trouble finishing their stories? Trying to keep my streak alive in combination with a working life, does not a good recipe make.

He started to type: This will be my final email as an employee of Treadex.