Fighting Life

Chapter two

While Tana's morning had started off with a dream she did not approve of, troubled thoughts in the shower, she had been very determined to make the day turn out better. At work, she greeted the team she worked for with smiles and hellos. The place, a law firm, that shared a building with a police station. The law firm was owned and run by a boss whom they hardly got to see and who was quite sharp with people. Mr Clark Smith. From what Tana knew, he was tall and possibly in his thirties.

One thing that impressed her was that he owned his own law firm at such an age, but she never had seen him. Even when she was being interviewed for the job three years ago, it had been his personal assistant that did the interview, because as it would be told, he was a busy man and did not have time for interviews. He apparently worked very closely with the police in the building and was very strict on many things.

She knew this, because in the three years working at the firm, while she tried to do some studies, she had not had a single day off. Time off was looked down upon and the only way she could do her studies was online in her own time. Work was hard, and some days she did not even know if she wanted to continue working there. She heard stories of other staff leaving because of the situations at work, and it was a fact that the personal assistants receptionists normally only lasted a year if they were lucky. It was all because their boss, Mr Smith, did not believe in being sick, having holidays, or making a work place fun. That was for outside of work, otherwise the business would fall down and they would loss clients and cases.

Her job, was to go through files and process information, there was a group of fifteen of them that did this, working out the details of the cases, looking up information. Things like, a case where there was a traffic offence. They would gather evidence, photos, laws and rights. They would put it all together and then pass on to the personal assistant, who then gave it to the Boss and he was the one who went to the court room and fought. Mostly, he was a prosecutor, and so in short, always was the one fighting for the victim of the case. There were sometimes though he was the defence, dealing with the accused.

Mostly, her work place was ok, apart from this structure, but there were some things she did not like. Or at least, someone. Jenny. Who was a thirty year old woman who thought she was better then everyone and liked to stick her nose into things that was not her business. Tana always tried to be nice, be civil, but she was not shy of letting Jenny know when she was not interested in her mess. It happened at lunch, while in the kitchen, eating a small container of home prepped salad. Jenny walked in, glanced at her and snickered.

"Darling, you won't lose weight just by eating that stuff." She claimed.
"Who said I was trying to lose weight?" Tana asked a bit taken aback.
"Who are you kidding. What are you, a size eighteen? I know you always have salad and refuse if somebody brings in cake." Jenny claimed. "It is ok to be fat, not everyone can be skinny like me."
"Not everyone can be as rude as you either." Tana claimed.

She stood up, not too pleased at the insult and walked away, taking her food with her. She was not in the mood to be dealing with snide things that Jenny wanted to say and so took her salad to the office library and sat in silence there, eating, but not even sure if she was in the mood for that now either. She let out a sigh and closed her eyes, trying to hold back the horrible thoughts shooting through her mind. Those nasty thoughts that told her she was fat and she should stop eating all together.

By the time she had calmed down, her lunch break was over and so closing the container, she went back to her desk, placing it in her bag and then looked at what was next on her list of things to do. That was when she noticed a new email had come through. Opening it, she felt worried, nervous. It was a request from the personal assistant Maggie, to go to the boss's office right away. Feeling scared, Tana did not waste time. She went towards the office door, glancing sideways at Maggie who gave her a shrug and then Tana raised a hand and knocked on the office door.