Failure
The young man sat watching his boss only for moments at a time. The older man watched him constantly under his thick white brow. His employee was a quiet man. Never once before had this man caused a disturbance to the company; he was on time constantly, barely called off a day since starting here, and had a college degree from the private college outside the city limits. He noticed the man taking in his office. A small one compared to the boss above him, but his own none the less. He cleared his throat and fixed his silky black tie. The young man in the dark grey suit sat picking at a frayed hem on his pants now, not focusing on the pictures of the older man’s happy looking family. On his desk sat two framed pictures of his wife and two daughters, and one of the whole family on vacation to Florida.
The employer felt bad for the man he was about to fire. He’d just lost his wife and son, and you could tell the stress was wearing him down. The young man in the grey suit had a hint of pepper in his chestnut brown hair, already at the young age of twenty eight. The man in the black suit saw no problem in him taking the time off for grievances and putting things in order for his wife, but that could also be why he’s not a big boss. Compassion wasn’t good in a boss. Not in this world; he’d get taken advantage of. That’s why he wasn’t on the board, and just as expendable as the stressed, sad man in front of him.
“Look here, son,” the man in the black tie said, trying to separate himself from this situation, “I understand what you’re going through is rough,” the man paused. The man in the grey suit ran his hand through his thick, greying hair and picked at the fraying seam. He was trying hard not to look at the man about to fire him. He was stuck in a loop thinking about his wife, his son, his parents, and the ever-worsening living situation he was in. He thought about the two person tent he shared with only his suits and canned food supply. The guards paced the shanty streets keeping thieves from getting into tents and stealing things, while each person in the tents remembered someone lost in the tragic building collapse that killed dozens. He thought about the streets he would be kicked out on if the unemployment department didn’t find his case worth funding. He would have to evict his tent in the next couple days since losing his job and move either into the street or into a cheap apartment on the Tainted side of town.
Silence dragged on and the man in the grey suit was beginning to wonder if the man before him had the nerve to fire someone. After a few more moments, the man in the grey suit began to look at the wooden desk, specifically the file on it. It was his employee file, yet it was only marked with a number, no name, and a side note from the supervisor explaining the details of his wife and son’s deaths. The older man thought back to when he’d seen this man come in for the first time: he sat in the chair in a similar fashion, but he looked him straight in the eyes and smiled. The man before him currently looked like he had the life sucked out of him and all that was left was the corpse. He tried to imagine what a loss like the one the quiet man had experienced would be like, but couldn’t. He pulled himself out of thought and looked into the dead, pale green eyes that looked away as soon as eye contact was made.
“What I’m trying to say is, I don’t have enough faith in you to believe you can complete the job you’re at,” the man in the grey suit let his shoulder visibly sag, the man in the black tie hated his job, he hated having to fire people who were desperate for a job. He knew that if he didn’t fire them, though, it would be him on the other side of the desk.
“I...I’m fired?” the man said, speaking for the first time. His voice was timid and broken, but his words were clear and cut through the older man, who wanted nothing more than to say it was all a practical joke and send the man back to his desk. He was a diligent worker and deserved more recognition for that.
“Yes; I am truly sorry,” the man in the black tie said, meaning it. For a few moments, the man in the grey suit sat picking at the hem of his suit and thinking. What did it matter to the man in the seat across from him if he was fired or not? He’d broken protocol and taken days off that weren’t approved by upper management. The rules were went over in training and posted in the break room for everyone to see everyday next to the fridge. What did this man with a perfect family on the nice side of town have to be sorry for, he thought. Was a so pathetic looking that even uncaring people start to wince when looking at me? He wondered. Before he could stop himself, a laugh escaped his lips.
His boss cocked his head in confusion. He wondered what was so funny, but didn’t want to ask. He got an answer anyway as a hardier laugh escaped the young man's lips.
“Mr. Bronston, while I believe you have had no say, and you’re really sorry, your apologies don’t do a damned thing for me,” he felt his laugh get softer and fade out. Why should he care about this man's feelings? No one cared about his feelings, no one even cared if he lived, and yet this guy wanted to feel better about firing someone with no legs to stand on by saying he was sorry. He stood quickly and walked out of the office, leaving Mr. Bronston to his thoughts, and crossed into the cubicle sea where his desk was. On his small glass desk sat a picture his son drew for him and a photograph of him and his wife and son. He grabbed the pictures and moved down the thin halls. The people in the cubicles all pretended not to look at him, but they all knew he was fired. No one said anything, no one even had the courage to look him in eyes, yet he knew they were all watching to see what he would do. He did nothing; he simply walked up to the elevator and pressed the metal button and waited, holding the most important things he had in the office close to him. He climbed onto the elevator looking back at the curious group of people and smiled just as the door closed.
