A Wrench in the Gears [Damien Haas]

10. I'm mad at your, uh, protocol!

Hey, guys! What's up?

Two chapters ago, I was only thanking you guys for 200+ reads, but now we've reached 300+! Thank you, thank you, thank you so much!

I keep thinking about what I'd do if I were currently in summer vacation. How many chapters would I be able to write in a day? How many Smosh videos would I be able to watch in a day?

Anyway, we're back here with Jade's Point of View, so let's get to it, shall we? See you!

-/-/-

All for naught. That's how it feels like working a week after my brothers had died. I didn't feel like I was doing anything for anyone anymore, to the point that I had filed absences just so I could stay all day crying in the bathroom. The worst part was when I had to file an absence to clean out their room. I swore to them I would keep all their things in place, but we needed to make sacrifices. Some guy had bought off everything, telling us that he had two sons who would really love the stuff.

I finally return to work on a Monday. Of course, this meant that I had to work for Smosh, and it was our fifth week. We were almost halfway through with the project, which seemed to be a success as it resonated through different social media networks. Cancel culture seems to have been lessened except for Trump who will always be cancelled, and life was fair to those who didn't have deceased brothers with leukemia.

When the elevator doors open, I go straight to the Athens room without greeting anyone. I had ditched the casual outfits for my work attires so that I could head down to Athens without changing my clothes anymore.

"Hey, Jade," Lily greets me as I put my bag down on my desk and tie my hair into a ponytail. "Ian wanted to see you this morning, he told me to tell you once you arrived. He's probably in his office."

Without a word, I make my way towards Ian's office, holding a lot of files for the next video as Lily requested me to bring. I knock on the door, and Ian tells me to enter, so I do. "You wanted to see me?" I ask.

"Welcome back," he says as he gestures for me to sit down across his desk and takes my files for me. "It's been a week since you went for work. Your absences were noted, and I just wanted to welcome you back into work."

"Is that all?" I reply a bit coldly.

"No," he answers as he puts the folders into the shredders. "I don't want this usual stuff for today. As a psychology graduate, Shayne best believed that you needed to talk about it. So Monica, you know her, right? Monica pitched this wonderful idea." He hands me a new folder.

"My brothers' deaths are not for your monetization, Ian," I tell him, handing his folder back to him. "If you're planning to use it as a means of earning money, I'd be more than glad to be out of this project because I don't follow protocol that insists on making money out of disrespect."

"You didn't even read it," he says, crossing his arms and not accepting the folder. "Today's video is the only one we requested to be demonetized."

When he says that, I read through the papers. Basically, what Monica had pitched was something that Smosh, one of the comedy content creators in YouTube, had never done before: an emotional video. In here, I was going to be filmed as I talked about my brothers. It was going to be ten minutes long, and I didn't even have anything to say. Even though it served as a part of our project, I feel tears in my eyes as I continue to read it.

"I went to your headquarters last Friday," Ian continues. "I talked with your boss if we could make this happen, especially because journalists aren't supposed to be taken lightly of, but she said it was okay with her. You needed it, apparently. You need this. And that wasn't the only thing I saw, because I saw the Picture."