The Checklist by Addie Woolridge (famous ebook reader txt) 📕

Dylan balked. The entire process was devolving from slightly ridiculous to completely absurd in record time. Tim grinned and leaned back in his chair, this time putting his feet up on his desk. Taking another deep breath, she imagined what her report to Jared would look like:

Jared: I have discussed the issues with Tim. His solution is to put his feet up on his desk, click his pen, and bark orders at no one into his headset. I’ll let you know when I have details.

Dylan

That was not going to work. Readjusting her tactics again, she said, “I’ll put time on your calendar early next week to go over ways I can help implement your vision?”

Or redirect the strategy entirely, she thought.

“Just be on the lookout for an email from me with the details.”

“Of course.” She might be sick. So far, emails with good news from Tim Gunderson were entirely foreign to her.

“All right, I gotta make a call. Talk to you soon, you necromancer, you.” Tim giggled through his nose as he took his feet off his desk.

“Can I expect an email from you by Tuesday afternoon?” she asked, placing a stranglehold on her composure as she put the papers back into her satchel.

“Yes, or close to . . .” Tim waved as if to signal that they were done, then screeched into his headset, “Petey man! How are ya?”

With a curt nod, she walked to the door. Offering a small smile to Layla, she made it inside the elevator before her seething burst from her.

“Gee, Dylan. I know you have done this a hundred times. But I’m such a genius I don’t need your opinion. Oh, I know I’m paying for it. I roll around in money for fun, so wasting it doesn’t matter to me.” She gestured wildly around the elevator, imitating Tim’s voice.

Feeling the elevator slowing to a halt, she smoothed the front of her blouse and took a deep breath, forcing composure on herself before she stepped back into the complex cubicle layout that marked the way to her office. Dylan pushed down on her door handle and did her best not to slam the door behind her.

Setting her bag on the desk, she looked at her flashing voice mail light. She knew it was Jared before she even looked at the caller ID. Typing in her voice mail pass code, Dylan leaned against the edge of the desk, waiting for the robo-inbox to finish reading the time and date of the call while tension built in her neck.

“Dylan. Jared here. Calling because I’m reading your last few daily reports now, and it says here that you have meetings with Tim and other Technocore leaders scheduled for this week. Got to say, that really disappointed me. After our conversation, I thought we were on the same page about being a team player.” Jared sighed heavily into the phone, as if the act of Dylan doing her job was painful to him, before he continued. “I’m reminding you that you need to get approval from me before you schedule these sorts of meetings. I’m still the lead manager on this project, even if I am not on site at the moment. Let me know that you understand what I am saying and how the meetings went.”

For a moment, Dylan’s rage tuned out the sound of her voice mail robot asking her if she would like to save the message or delete it. How could he possibly be upset with her for doing the most basic parts of her job? If he wanted to approve meetings, they would never get anywhere. Especially if he wasn’t reading her progress reports until three days after she sent them.

Sinking into her chair, she pressed her fingers over her closed eyes for a second. If it was so important that he know about her every move before it happened, he should be in Seattle. It wasn’t like she had time to waste, and Jared hadn’t exactly been responsive to his email lately. Unless he considered his pointless midnight check-in missives responsive, which she certainly didn’t.

Deciding to handle Jared’s impossible request later, Dylan focused on her actual problem: Tim. There was a chance, albeit a small one, that Tim would change his mind and review the documents she’d left behind. Or maybe he would come to the same conclusion about next steps on his own. Taking one more deep breath, Dylan opened her eyes to the sound of the phone ringing.

“Dylan speaking,” she said through a forced smile, grabbing a pen. Consulting 101: customers could hear smiles on the other end. Consulting 102: always be ready to take notes.

“Um, hi, Dylan. It’s Charlie from security.” Charlie’s voice wobbled.

“Hey, Charlie. What can I do for you?”

“I was checking on you. Seeing if everything was, you know . . . okay?” There was a pause before the rest tumbled from him: “’Cause there are cameras in the elevator. I watch them.”

Dylan wanted to kick herself. It was her luck that Charlie would be monitoring the cameras in the elevator when she acted like a toddler in it.

“That’s sweet of you. I was letting off steam,” Dylan said, trying to make talking and gesturing to oneself sound as normal as possible. “Tough meeting.”

“Deep mentioned you had a plan. Tim didn’t go for it?”

Of course Deep had. “Not yet, but he will. And he did start this great company; his ideas might be even better.” The corporate can-I-help-you smile was back in full force.

“Not likely.”

Before Dylan could stop herself, she laughed. It wasn’t the most professional thing to do, but she did feel better.

“Keep your fingers crossed for me, yeah?”

“Sure thing. Walking people out of the building is depressing.”

“Thanks, Charlie.”

Smiling in spite of herself, Dylan smoothed another invisible wrinkle on her blouse and decided that Charlie’s call was a sign to get lunch before “hanger” took control of her entirely.

The familiar smell of home cooking washed over Dylan as she