It's Just Business

"You're late."

He froze, a half-step away from his desk, shoulders hunched in blatant guilt. Squip hadn't been in his office when Jeremy arrived a whole entire 45 minutes late to work and for some reason believed he was in the clear, an ill-advised sense of optimism against Squip's particular work ethic. He could feel Squip looming behind him, waiting for an explanation Jeremy didn't want to fully disclose. He shuffled around to face his boss, unable to meet his gaze, anxiety bubbling up and boiling over, sounds spilling out of his mouth like they had a mind of their own.

"I- I, uh. It was- Guh." Jeremy risked a quick look up, meeting Squip's disapproving eyes for a millisecond too long. He swallowed and dropped his gaze back to the floor. "O-overslept."

This was, of course, a total lie. He'd been running late because of a long series of embarrassing events that felt like belonged in a particularly cruel sitcom rather than the reality of Jeremy's life, starting at 5 o'clock in the morning. Most of it was his fault, poor choices and even poorer communication resulting in at least one outfit he needed to burn when he got home, and an apologetic email he needed to send to his dad. Squip didn't need to know any of it, they already judged him enough.

It was a wonder he wasn't fired for simply being an ineffectual loser.

"Don't let it happen again."

"R-right. I won't. I'll... I'll set two alarms. From now on." He glanced up a couple more times, smiling apologetically, waiting for Squip to really scold him, yell, or maybe change his mind and tell him to pack up his desk and leave. But that didn't happen. Squip had turned his back to him and walked away, returning to his desk and sitting in front of his laptop with a perfectly apathetic expression on his face.

Jeremy stood there a moment longer, fiddling with a loose string on the hem of his shirt, until Squip flicked his eyes to him again.

"Why are you just standing there? Get to work."

Without wasting another second Jeremy stumbled back and turned away, escaping to the tiny nirvana of his cubicle, ignoring the waves of frustration that seemed to radiate from Squip's side of the room. If he kept his head down and stayed out of the way the rest of the day, maybe nothing else terrible would happen, and he'd be able to go home at the end of the day with a shred of sanity and drink until he passed out.

He'd been doing a lot of drinking since starting this job. Was this a sign of alcoholism?

His plan to stay out of the way and avoid Squip proved a fruitless effort. In fact, Squip seemed to be purposefully sniffing him out, slapping papers on his desk, nitpicking every tiny mistake, telling him to redo an entire Excel worksheet, the copies of this document he'd printed came out crooked and blurry. It went on and on, relentless throughout the day, and by lunch Jeremy wanted to just call it quits. He was tired and stressed, all sense of anxiety and guilt from his lateness gone and replaced by an ever-growing aggravation that gnawed his insides and gave him a tension headache.

What was Squip's problem, anyway? Jeremy'd been late, so what? It was one time. Once. He was usually early! And now he seemed to have a vendetta against him. His day had already started so poorly he'd considered calling in sick, and he regretted not doing it now. Squip never took a sick day. Squip never smiled, or took a lunch break, or participated in office birthday parties. He just worked, and apparently wanted to personally make Jeremy's life a living hell.

If Jeremy weren't so fed up with it, he might have actually worried about the guy's health.

The icing on the cake was when Squip refused to let him leave at the end of the day.