The follow is a chapter from my manuscript of my novel Speak Up. This novel is currently in the works and any feedback would be appreciated, if constructive. Please know that I have a paywall up because my work is of value to me and if you wish to read it, you can pay for it. Happy reading.
Two weeks before admission:
It wasn’t fair that this happened to him. He was a good worker; he never came in late until the last five shifts. It wasn’t even his fault; he no longer had his own way of getting to work on time. The bus was to blame for the last few shifts where he punched in late. Now he was paying for it by sitting in Mr. Dillan’s office.
It was a cramped office, he wondered if that was by design to make anyone who sat in here feel confined. How Mr. Dillan sat in here at regular intervals was a mystery to Mike. But now he was waiting for his store manager to come in and talk with him. Nothing about this situation felt right to him.
His stomach felt like a snake trapped in a glass container that was set over an open flame. Both legs were bouncing with erratic and uncoordinated ways as he sat on the plastic chair that was set at the side of the cluttered desk. All he could do was look around the room and remind himself to breathe when his head felt light. Then it finally happened, Mr. Dillan entered.
He took his seat at the desk without looking at or speaking to Mike. The figure was a tall man with a shaved head and yet a pencil line brown goatee around his long mouth. Lanky arms and stilt legs came from a torso that looked a bit bloated around his abdomen. His long fingers picked and thumbed through a folder that he had brought with him.
“This isn’t how I wanted it to go, Michael.”
“Just Mike, please.” But Mr. Dillan didn’t hear it. His bald head shining from the fluorescent lights in this cramped room. The watery eyes of his store manager looking at the folder that Mike would never get to read.
“I’m afraid there have been some serious issues with you here, Michael.” He raised up a hand that looked like a flesh covered set of sticks on a ball of meat. “It’s not just regarding you recent tardiness. That is a glaring issue but you haven’t always been that way and from what Skyler tells me you are without a car the past two weeks and haven’t had much luck with the public transportation. Although you could have called in to alert us of your lateness, then maybe it would paint you in a better light.”
“I thought that my lateness had nothing to do with why I’m here?” Mr. Dillan talked over Mike, most likely because he didn’t here him. Mike felt the need to scream but felt that it would only make matters worse, he didn’t want to get fired for raising his voice. Past experience here at Target had taught him to not raise his voice and just try to find ways to get people to understand him without struggling to talk too much.
“There have been complaints from secret shoppers that you don’t ask about our Target shopper cards or mention any promotions. We need cashiers to inform customers of potential savings so that they will shop more, likewise we need to let them know what they could be saving if they signed up with the Target cards. It seems that in the past two months when you were assigned to the checkout sections you’ve barely spoken to a customer. Some standard shoppers have written some comments in reviews that you mutter and don’t even tell them their totals or about their savings. This is dismal customer service.”
“It seems unethical to spy on your employees and it makes the customers sound like entitled brats or braindead automatons if they need to be coddled into buying more junk.” Mike took a risk saying this, but Mr. Dillan wasn’t hearing him and didn’t even stop what he was saying as Mike criticized these accusations.
“We can’t have it here, Michael. I know that you didn’t want the cashier position, but we here try to rotate out staff so that everyone gets to work in a different area of retail, with exception to management or the electronic sections.”