Insider || hs

Macaroni

Freddie sat at her desk, unwillingly perusing the rows and rows of numerical data that littered her computer screen. It was towards the end of the day on a Wednesday, and she was really suffering from the whole Hump-Day blues thing. She could hardly stand to read one more piece of information or else she feared that her eyeballs would fall out of her head. Maybe that's a bit extreme, but that's what she had been thinking to herself for the last half hour, so that is how she shall be described.

There was just so much there in that mess of numbers, and due to its improper organization, Freddie didn't really know where to begin. Her asshole of a supervisor, Michael, had given her the task of reformatting all of it, even though that kind of thing was usually put to an intern or something. It was tedious, and well beneath the skill-level that Freddie was being paid for.

Sighing in defeat and clicking out of the document, Freddie stood from her desk and took her coffee cup from her desk to refill it in the break room. She had two hours before she could leave, and with her eyes struggling to stay open, Freddie was in desperate need of a pick-me-up.

When she entered the break room, she found the blonde receptionist from the main office sitting there and looking at a magazine that had been left on the table. Upon seeing the cover of People magazine, Freddie rolled her eyes and laughed to herself.

"Who's pregnant today?" Freddie asked the woman, glancing over at her as she poured the coffee into her mug.

The receptionist seemed startled for a moment, but quickly recovered and laughed as Freddie had. "Jennifer Anniston. She'd probably have like, seven kids by now if these things were ever true."

Freddie shook her head and leaned against the counter, gently blowing on the steaming liquid in her cup and looking at the girl sitting across from her. She couldn't have been more than Freddie's age. "Somehow, you'd think they'd get bored of using that story to get people's attention."

"I know!" The blonde exclaimed, trying her best to reign in her excitement, but failing. She was really girly, Freddie observed. "I must admit, though, it intrigues me every time. I'm a sucker for click-bait if I'm being honest."

"It happens to the best of us," Freddie grinned, thinking back to all those times she had found herself sucked into the endless hole that is Youtube. She tried to take a sip of the coffee, but found it to be way too hot for consumption just yet. "What's your name, by the way?"

"Oh, I'm Cher." Cher chuckled to herself as she observed Freddie's bewildered expression, shaking her head with amusement, "I know what you're thinking... weird name, right?"

At this, Freddie couldn't help but laugh. It was too perfect. "I don't really have room to talk. My name is Freddie."

Cher's eyes widened in surprise, but she was nonetheless smiling as she answered Freddie, "Okay, we have to be friends. You have no idea how often people quote Clueless and Cher songs to me; I'm sure you get lots of Queen lyrics, right?"

"It truly never gets old, does it?" Freddie replied dryly, smiling as her new friend laughed at her sarcasm.

"No, never."

The two of them continued to share stories of how their own respective names had caused them anguish over the years, until they were interrupted by Freddie's supervisor Michael. He was just an inch shorter than Freddie, but what he lacked in height, he made up for it in condescension. Just by looking into that man's lifeless brown eyes, Freddie could see that he didn't care for her.

"What are you doing in here?" Michael sneered, speaking to Freddie with a disgusted tone to his voice. "Didn't I ask you to fix that file?"

And as if a switch had been flipped in her, Freddie found herself self-consciously shrinking under the scrutinizing eyes of her boss. She hated having to lower herself in his presence, but he determined her future there at Wall Street. Thus, Freddie had no choice but to be the submissive employee that Michael was demanding her to be, despite however degrading it seemed.