Roberts Performance Review

1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-945648-26-7
Verlag: Pink Flamingo Media
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet/DL/kein Kopierschutz

E-Book, Englisch, 76 Seiten

Messy, disorganized and a bit lazy to boot, the work-at-home Judith is confronted by her disgruntled boss, Jeremy, for the increasingly poor quality of her work. Once he lays eyes on her disaster of an apartment, he lays down the law, issuing a shocking ultimatum. While she listens in astonishment, Jeremy rattles off a string of rules and regulations that will not only get her working again, they'll clean up her apartment and regulate every minute of her day. Can he be serious? 

Autoren/Hrsg.

Roberts, Jessica

Leseproben

Chapter One “I don’t understand,” she said for perhaps the fifth time. Jeremy sighed. “It’s very simple. Your house is a mess.” Judith couldn’t argue with that. As she looked around in hopes of making some excuse, she saw dirty dishes piled on the counter, stacks of unsorted papers on the table, and she knew that the other rooms were even worse. Mercifully, he hadn’t gone into her bedroom where piles of dirty laundry banked up in the corners. “Judging by the mail piled up on the counter, I suspect your bills aren’t up to date.” Bingo again. “And your work is slipping. That’s what brought me here, of course, but now that I see the condition of your house I can understand why you can’t focus.” There was some truth to that as well. She was glad he didn’t know that underneath those unpaid bills were unopened envelopes from clients with information she should be reading every day. “I know you’ve been having some problems,” he continued, “but I can’t have my clients suffering because of them.” “I know,” she began, a rush of glib assurances at the tip of her tongue. “I’m going to get organized today, and I’ll contact…” “It’s not that simple,” he cut in. She barely dared ask what he meant. Was he going to FIRE her? She’d never find another job like this, working from home, setting her own hours, making significant money working only part-time. Well, barely working at all, if she were honest about it. “If I’m going to keep you on, your work is going to be closely monitored.” “I see. Of course,” she said, feigning humility. Her work was the best, when she did it. If she just kicked it into high gear for a few days, she’d dazzle him right back into believing that she could do anything, and then she’d get a little slack again. “You might not want to agree so quickly,” he suggested. “The terms are pretty strict.” And subject to change as soon as you start getting positive reviews from my clients again. Whatever. “Like?” “Like you clean your house.” She stepped backward. “What in the hell business is that of yours?” “Maybe none,” he conceded, “but it’s one of my conditions. I happen to believe that it’s hard to work productively amid chaos, so as of today, a clean, organized workspace is a job requirement.” “Okay. What else?” “You submit a report to me by fax at the end of every day accounting for your time.” A pain in the ass, perhaps, but not so unreasonable. A lot of people did daily time sheets. It would help me keep her billing organized, too, which would be a good thing. It did seem like hours had been slipping through the cracks recently. “Okay, so you want clean workspace and my hours submitted every day instead of once a week?” He shook his head. “Not just your hours. An accounting of your time.” “I don’t understand.” Impatience flashed across his face. “There seems to be a great deal that you don’t understand. Perhaps I put too much faith in you.” She bit back the flood of angry retorts, knowing that she needed to keep the job and certain that this would all blow over in a few days once she was back in full swing, turning out good product and getting good feedback from her clients. “Your time will be accounted for from morning until night,” he continued. Not just your work hours, but every hour of every day, starting with what time you get up in the morning. If you go to the grocery store, I want to know how long you were gone. If you talk on the phone to a friend, I want to see the name written down, and I want to know what time you called and what time you hung up. Beginning to get the picture?” “You can’t do that!” He shrugged. “You’re quite right. Refuse, if you like, and I’ll find someone else to do this work. You’ve given me more than enough reason to fire you.” He tapped an envelope against his hand, the same one he’d opened when he’d first arrived. It was filled with emails and phone messages from Judith’s clients wanting to know why they couldn’t reach her. “We’re going to make a list,” he continued, “of everything that needs to be done in your life. Clients you need to catch up with, bills you need to pay, counters you need to wash…everything that you’ve neglected.” Her face flushed scarlet. This whole experience would have been far less humiliating if she hadn’t known that his concerns were valid. Even as he pointed out the things that she’d let slide, she was thinking about ways to shortcut, to avoid doing quite all the work. It wouldn’t to make a list. It might even help to know that someone was going to be checking up on her. She might even be glad, in the long run, that it had gotten done, though she hated it with all her heart at this moment. For the next three hours Judith’s anguish and humiliation grew constantly, as Jeremy walked from room to room poking into every corner of every closet and every nook in every alcove, listing work she needed to do. Then he handed her the list and told her to type it up, with a place next to each item for the date and the starting and ending time. She took the list from him and tried to agree cheerfully, but he gestured toward the computer. “Now.” By the time she had finished, the list covered nearly five pages. She couldn’t believe that she was this far behind. “This list will be submitted with your accounting of time every evening,” he informed her. “Until it is complete, there will be some other . . . restrictions.” “Like?” She asked in a tone of cultivated boredom, as if she had no concern over his restrictions. In reality, she was feeling quite trapped, almost frightened. No one had ever spoken to her this way in her life, and she did not know how to respond. Her strong instinct was to tell him to go to hell, but necessity prevented that. “You will not engage in any leisure activities until your work and your housework are up to date.” “No vacations, hm?” “No vacations indeed. There will also be no television, no leaving the house except for work or necessary errands, no visitors, no social telephone calls, and no reading not related to work except for one half hour at bedtime. Which, incidentally, from now on is 10:00 p.m. You’ll get up at 5:30. And no internet, unless it’s necessary for work. Since your ISP is through the office, that will be easy enough to monitor.” She stared at him open-mouthed. “This is insane.” “Indeed,” he said again. “One would think that a capable, educated woman of your age and qualifications could conduct her affairs without such rules.” Judith couldn’t respond. “One other point,” he added. “Everything that I have described thus far is to help you to get your life organized and to provide quality service to my clients. This is the future. However, we cannot leave your past laziness unaddressed. There must be punishment as well.” After a moment of stunned silence she said quietly, “You’ve gone too far. You’ve lost your mind. Get out of my house.” He nodded once. “Gladly. I’ll be back in two hours to pick up your files. Unless, of course, you’ve changed your mind by then and decided to accept the punishment that you know you deserve.” For the first half-hour after he left, Judith paced and ranted. Bastard! How dare he come into her house and try to tell her…?! Well, fine. She’d gather up his files and good luck to him in finding someone else to handle them as well as she had. The fact that, of late, she hadn’t been handling them all that well was quickly pushed to the back of her mind. The second half-hour she fretted and cried, worrying over how she would find another job that suited her so well. Finally, after an hour, she began to gather her files. It turned out to be more difficult than she’d anticipated, and she wished that she’d begun right away. The disorganization was so complete that she didn’t even know where some of the files were, let alone incoming documents that should be in them. She really did need to get things cleaned up around there. Still, she told herself indignantly, she was a professional. She could get that done. He had no reason to think that he couldn’t just tell her what needed to be done. Except he did have a reason, and she couldn’t quite convince herself that he didn’t. He’d talked to her before about the customer complaints that were beginning to come in. He’d talked and she’d responded with promises, but thus far those promises hadn’t been carried out. Not one. She gave a short, bitter laugh in her empty house. She probably did deserve to be punished. But it wouldn’t change anything. Or would it? She looked at the neat list he’d made her prepare, at the restrictions he’d placed all around her. With someone watching, maybe she could pull it all together. Maybe she could even be the star employee that she’d been just a short time earlier, before… Well, there was no use thinking about how she’d gotten to this point. Not now. She had very little time to get her files in order. Not enough time, as it turned out. When he rang the doorbell precisely two hours after he’d left, she had not found all the files, and the ones she had uncovered, were in embarrassing disarray. “You’re right,” she said as she opened the door. The words surprised her more than they did him. “Yes,” he said. “So what are we going to do about it?” She swallowed hard. “I’ll do what you say. Make the list, keep on...