The Promotion

 
The alarm clock played its daily monotonous tune forcing Angie’s numb brain to partially open her left eye to see what the item of her intrusion was and smack its imposition.
She’d been immersed in yet another dream about achieving a well deserved promotion and becoming the chief salesperson in her company. Always the same dream, with little variation but with the same ending.
An ending where she was at the summit of her profession, but it was only a dream.
She was surprised that she hadn’t had a nightmare with Rob, her now ex boyfriend, as the main character of her dream; especially after having been dumped by him the day before.
          I’m feeling damn traumatized, and my head is thumping as though my heart had moved upstairs and I feel totally confused, she thought with self pity.
          Why did Rob say to me in such a cold and sharp way that our relationship had to end there and then? He simply ‘No longer felt what he used to feel for me’.
Finished after going out together for over three years? she pondered.
          I have given him all of me, and in return he couldn’t even say what he said with the least of tact. It’s as though he was addressing me like one of his patients, saying that I would need two fillings and would be extracting a wisdom tooth, she thought, with tears surfacing.
She got up lazily and went straight to the bathroom to sit on the toilet.

As she started peeing, she noticed that warm feeling intermingled in her urine like she did every single month.
She gave a grunt and went into the shower, dried herself down and fit a tampon in before getting dressed.
She then proceeded to the kitchen and opened the fridge to find that there was no milk or any bread in the freezer.
The fridge was empty.
         I wonder if anything else is going to go wrong before I leave for the office, she thought now with tears streaming down her cheeks.
Just then, her mobile started ringing and she went and picked it up from her bedside table.
         “Hello, this is Angie speaking,” she said with a kind of weeping tone to her voice.
       “Hello Angie, this is Mr Hammond speaking, do you think you could pass by my office as soon as you get to the company?” her boss asked in his usual voice, lacking tone of any kind.
         “Yes, of course Mr Hammond,” she answered, forcing a smile which didn’t carry through the line too effectively, but who cared with a boss who had less feelings than a corpse.
 She put the receiver down, picked up her keys and when out the door. Living on a ground floor, there’s no need to take the lift; I won’t get stuck in the lift! Just straight into the street to have breakfast at my favourite bar in the neighbourhood, she thought.  It was closed of course.

…………………………………
 

Angie was in her mid thirties and, like many other women of her age, wanted to either be married or have achieved something good in her profession; or, why not both!
But she hadn’t achieved either one of them.
She was a highly experienced and professional saleswoman and very attractive, but also very unlucky.
Angie had a fairly slim and well shaped body, was dark haired and had mesmerising chestnut eyes that would captivate her client immediately, paying interest to what she was trying to sell.
She reckoned that she was any man’s dream but she was yet to find and be able to keep that ideal partner, especially with that Rob who had given her the boot the day before.
Work wise, she reckoned that she wasn’t getting that well deserved and well overdue promotion because she had an old fashioned boss who lacked insight and cast a shy eye at change or initiative of any kind.

I could do his job blindfold and much better. What a frustration, she thought.
         Maybe I ought to try and find a better company that would value my expertise? she wondered…             What, with my splitting up with Rob, my menstruation and nothing for breakfast in the house, most probably the call from the boss will mean number four disaster, she thought.
She resigned herself to her breakfast in the neighbourhood and went down to the garage, got into her scratched and dented second-hand grey Ford Fiesta and went on her way to the company.
After an uneventful thirty minutes, she arrived to her destination and parked her car outside the building.
Instead of going into the company, she went to the bar on the corner and ordered a hot espresso and a nice crispy croissant that helped her look at things slightly less negatively.
Having quickly finished her breakfast, it was time to pop into the boss’s office to see what dull and boring idea he had in preparation for her, so she put down the three Euros on the counter and went out of the bar, into a heavy rainfall. Of course she was not carrying an umbrella and, although it was only a few metres from the building she entered five times a week, she ended up as wet as if she’d had her morning shower with her clothes on.
Her mood was getting darker again by the second as she headed towards her boss’s office.
Once she’d arrived outside his office, she practised a little smiling before giving the door a light knock and started fidgeting nervously while she waited.
 There was no answer, so she turned round and went to her office and sat down at her tidy desk and started getting her work done.
She went on with it till lunchtime.
Still no sign of that short, overweight middle-aged boss of mine…
         I’m going to skip lunch, finish my work and go home early, she thought.
After a couple more hours at the computer and talking on the phone with her small sales team to check up on a few things, she decided that it was time to pack up and head out of the office. So she grabbed her coat from the hanger, picked up her handbag and headed for the door with a glum and gloomy looking face.
Just as she was closing her door behind her, she heard her phone ring so she resentfully went back in, dumped her handbag on the desk and grabbed the phone, giving it a grunt.
         “Hello Angie,” her boss said.
         “Sorry about not being around to wait for you, but I had to leave my office  as my wife asked me to run a couple of errands and I got held up in the traffic,” her boss said with his flat tone.
        “Anyway, could you pop into my office for a quick chat?” he asked.
        “Yes, of course Mr Hammond I’ll be right over,” she said with a strained smile, incapable of reflecting it on her voice, no matter how much she tried.
She thought about that ugly and unpleasant overweight wife of his as her own face was gradually showing more strain.

………………………..

 Angie rushed out of her boss’s office, beaming with content and delight.
         Mr Hammond has mentioned a promotion!  Well, I reckon I’m going to get it too! I mean why would he tell me about it, if he wasn’t going to give it to me? There’s no one in the company who deserves it like I do. One hundred pounds extra a week and I’m going to be informed about it all tomorrow morning! she thought happily.
She was fully thrilled with her long deserved promotion that had at long last arrived.
And she would be getting one hundred pounds extra per week in her pocket…
She went straight out of the building and headed towards the supermarket in her faithful four wheeled friend, already thinking of all the treats that she was going to add to her groceries that evening!
On her arrival to the supermarket, she jumped out of the car; made a brisk trot to the trolleys and on her arrival started fumbling in her purse for a fifty centime coin which, of course, she couldn’t find.
She went on to pulling at an unchained trolley but didn’t manage to move it too far, especially as it had only two wheels at the back and none in the front!
         Well, I’m not going back home without my well deserved treat, she thought and went to one of the tills and asked for change.
         “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any,” said the lady behind the first till.
Off to another and another and another. She’d tried eight of the nine tills, only one to go…
         “Yes, here you are love,” said the elderly cashier with a motherly smile, changing two fifty cent pieces for one Euro.
Off back to the trolleys, but where were they?

After a long wait, she snatched a trolley from an old lady just as she was about to chain it. The poor soul gave out a faint shriek as Angie shoved a fifty cents at her immediately afterwards.
She thundered toward the entrance and just on entering, the left front wheel fell off.
She gave out a squeak that was loud enough to make the odd customer, checking out their purchases, turn their head and give her a quick stare.
She darted back outside just as another customer was parking a trolley.  Angie gave a suspicious look at its wheels before putting her last fifty cents in...
She was finally heading towards the entrance, passing the lame three wheel trolley in triumph.
Everything looked a lot more accessible and attractive to her now and she certainly wasn’t going to try and resist those wonderful chocolate éclairs full of calories and with those deliciously saturated fats.
Also, she was going home with a bottle of French champagne and smoked salmon that would cut the edge of sweetness off her Moet & Chardon.
All three treats were awaiting her and her credit card…
After picking up all the essentials, she headed towards the confectionary section thinking that the less her champagne had to travel, the less fizz that would build up in its interior.
Yes, she wanted every sparkling bubble to go down the hatch and not go spurting all over the living room, just as the cork had become airborne and rebounded off the ceiling! She swiftly made her way to the section where her sweet drug would be awaiting her. There it was; Chocolate royal.
       You’re going to buy yourself two boxes Angie, she whispered to herself.
Next stop, Norwegian Salmon sector before the bubbly sector…
And there it was, the lovely orange coloured smoked fish fitted with their transparent vestments to show off their flavoursome flesh.
Two landed into the trolley…
         Final stop, my beloved French champagne, she thought with a beaming face.
There was her Moet & Chardon, waiting for her, lined up in military fashion with its attractive and well known label that was telling her:
         Take me home, I’m fed up waiting here like a soldier in a military parade! the bottle was saying to her…
It didn’t take her long to reach out.
         If it’s two boxes of sweetness; two bottles of pleasure, she thought. So, two bottles were carefully laid on the top of the softest part in her trolley.
She slowly and patiently pushed the trolley in order for her two beloved soldiers not to be disturbed, towards checkout. She paid with her plastic friend and continued slowly to her awaiting car.

……………………….

 No sooner she got home; she carefully placed the two bottles of golden liquid to chill in the freezer in order to get them cooled as quickly as possible.
After a long wait, shortened with the assistance of one of the boxes of chocolates, her Moet & Chardon were appropriately chilled and she went onto leaving one in the fridge before popping the head off the other one and then pouring a glass, and then another and another.
Not too long after, her next door neighbour heard another minor explosion with a thump against the other side of her wall.

 ………………………………

 The next morning, Angie was rudely woken up by a call from her boss telling her to pass by his office.
She put the phone down and with her piercing hangover, looked at the clock that helped her come to a rapid conclusion of what was going to happen to her promotion.
Off she went to the company with her splitting headache and straight to her boss’s office, knocked gently with her right hand knuckles, and with her other hand, her two middle fingers crossed.
         “Come in,” she heard her boss say on the other side of his office door.
She proceeded to open the door, trying to hide a worried looking expression on her face.
         “Ah, Angela, you are here at last, sit down,” he said.
 Angela was about to say something when, immediately he put his right hand out flat in front of him to stop her from uttering a word.
         “Well, Angela, as you know I was going to promote you but as you have proven to not be the least bit reliable from the very first day of offering it to you; I have decided to give the post to someone else,” he said, with his characteristically monotone sound.
He then started twiddling with his pen which he would always do when he started to get a little nervous.
          “I’ve also decided, along with the general manager to let you go,” he added.
 Angela’s jaw dropped open and her eyes widened with shock in response.
 She desperately fought to activate her vocal cords which had lost their function, seeming to have gone numb in response to the news.
Poor Angie was not prepared to ‘leave it at that’ with a speechless response and finally managed to let go of her rage and all of a sudden; her speech came back with a roar.
         “What? Just because I’ve arrived late for the first time in fifteen years of service to this company, helping this enterprise grow to what it is today, put up with you taking all the credit for my hard work; and you’re now firing me?”
Her now ex boss didn’t seem to be the least bit affected, quite the contrary, he simply gave out a smirk and followed it with an answer.
         “Whatever you did for this company, you were paid for doing it and if you hadn’t done your job, I’d have sacked you a long time ago. Now it is time for you to leave.”
          “The company will be giving you a month’s pay for each year you’ve worked here.”
         “Goodbye Angela,” he said as he took the classical role of picking up the phone to show that their interaction had terminated along with her job.
And that was that.
Angela went into her office, in an automotive mode with a blank face, fetched her belongings and headed towards the lifts without saying anything to anyone. She arrived to her old grey ford fiesta that she had left badly parked nearby, removed the parking fine and got into the vehicle.
There, she sat in the driver’s seat for a long ten minutes, five of them in a kind of catatonic mist and the other five minutes, gradually coming to and beginning to think about what to do.
         I guess I’ve lost everything now. My boyfriend, my promotion and my job, but what the heck, I’ve got well over a year’s pay from the company…Maybe I can even find a better job, she thought – trying to cheer herself up.
She got out of her car and went back to the bar on the corner where she’d had her coffee and croissant, to get a packet of cigarettes and have her first smoke in fifteen years.
        Well, chocolates, champagne, smoked salmon and now all that money, she thought as she headed back, coughing with a burning cigarette in her mouth.
Things didn’t seem to be so bad after all it seemed.
On her arrival, just before another rainfall, on the right hand front wheel there was an ugly yellow looking clamp well fastened, sporting a label on the windscreen.

Where’s my mobile?

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