The step was made of fine marble, silver gray veins running through the polished white velvet stone surface. Her shiny black high heels were sartorially sculpted to her foot by Malone Souliers. Her silky white feet and sylphlike calves had a floating lightness to them that was pulled down by the heft one inch platform under the heels with skinny bands like long tentacles of a big headed black octopus.
Her hands glid down the heavy, wooden handrail spun by carpenter into an old world beauty aesthetic. Behind them was the wide open window spawning multiple floors. The eye looking out hit straight onto the cobblestone streets filled with suited finance people and the regal columns of the stock exchange front. With all the splendor, you could have easily missed her bracelet, a fluid chain of pure gold. The smaller these get, the more expensive they seem. Hers was skinny like a dental floss with so many links in them that it flowed liquid like water. It gave her just delicacy and high class.
Her body was wrapped into an above the knee pencil dress that was so snuck that it might have been a baby wrap, the kind where babies get wrapped in tightly to help them soothe their anxiety. Her hip bones were visible in a good way to show her slim tummy. She used to work out before she moved to NYC. Now it was simply the office pressure that kept her from eating. Her young face was gaunt. She was feeling her teeth. She wondered if the front, right, bottom molar had started wiggling because she was grinding her teeth in her sleep.
She left the staircase that used to be a part of a high end clothing stores at the previous turn of the century. She had to lean her 103 pounds into the heavy fire door and pushed into the pit. Tiny desks that barely fit a screen and a keyboard were pressed together. Bags, backpacks, and briefcases were piles in the little walkways between the desks. The wardrobe stands were overloaded with woolen coats. She had to lean her body way out to get past them, balancing on her heels. The tumultuous talking of two hundred people and clattering of keyboards was so disorienting that it seemed to blur the vision.
When she passed two women, one typing away and the other leaning over her back, she heard it again. Ever since she started a quarter ago, whispers of "Big Dick Hank" seemed to be everywhere. At first she thought that she had misunderstood "Big Thank" because the closing of the quarter was close. She kind of expected the bosses to hand out a good reward for the long nights, but she had lost that hope. The leadership knew that there were plenty young ones like her eager to get the good name of the firm on their resume. Half the new hires would be let go to be replaced by the next league. The tension had been heating up day by day. The mentions at first guarded whispers had become less and less guarded and expelled with more emotional sighs and smirks.
Her phone vibrated with message from her coworker Suzie: "Ms. Abergine, Elaine did a really great job simplifying her initially overcomplicated software design." A deep grunt escaped Elaine. The environment increasingly letting raw emotions gush out had affected her. Elaine had done her master thesis on algorithm design. She was sure that her algorithm that was beyond anything the firm had seen would be her safety ticket to survive the coming culling. When she had spent afterhours to mentor Suzie to understand asymptotic performance, she had thought that it would be a plus in her performance review. Fucking cunt!
Elaine swung the conference room door open. A long table had everyone assembled. Ms. Abergine was sitting at the head of it. She was in her mid-thirties, blond flowing hair, and a dress that had been bought at a high end department store and carelessly thrown over her. She was comfortably leaning back in her chair with her arms wide on the armrest like she was a captain of a ship. Next to her was Grims, nasty woman, displaying the same kind of comfort and power. Grims was the software architect. Everyone else was sitting tucked in and upright with their laptops flipped open and ready to type. Their eyes were spooked and glassy. Their carefully arranged hair pampered with the right product had turned into wild running streaks and tangles by noon.
"Elaine, you are late again!" admonished Ms. Abergine. "You need to prioritize better."
Elaine had volunteered to represent the team at the code quality council (that's the meeting that she was coming from) when Ms. Abergine had begged for a volunteer. Little did Elaine know that it was all a show for her own boss. Ms. Abergine hated losing any of her workers for nonsense like fixing issues for users. But once Elaine had realized the truth, it was too late to withdraw. Sigh, another nail in her coffin.
Elaine found her seat at the long conference table with the other first years. The floor was jumble of large Kate Spade purses, gym bags, and company branded laptop bags -- like a soccer team had thrown their gear all over the place. The other first years were in a posture of being slumped over the table to stare at the laptops, leaned back in exhaustion with the eyes at the ceiling, or were inspecting their frayed hair ends. As Elaine stepped deeper into the room, the smell, stench actually, of heavy female perspiration was immediate that it triggered a visceral reaction. Armpits were darkened. Strands of sweat wet hair clung to cheeks. Blouses were unbuttoned to provide heat relief without concern for showing blue bra cups because there were only women on the team. Ms. Abergine relished lording over the strung out, desperate, and flailing. It gave her something to look down upon that would run and scurry with every stroke she gave them without facing the least pushback or hesitation.
The first ten minutes of the meeting were usually Ms. Abergine enjoying to watch a woman curse herself into typing faster to get another batch of code submitted before the imminent status report. She also loved to admire a face that had wide open eyes and was staring straight ahead motionless with rapid breath panting through the mouth and the paleness spreading over the cheeks. Decorum had evaporated under the constant pressure so much that one woman was waving the hem of her dress up down to fan cool air unto her body and spreading the stale smell of her vagina into the stuff room. The musk scent mingled in between the acidic scent of armpit sweat. Ms Abergine's eyes were glowing. She thought of her underlings as pigs. And whenever a new cohort had reached the point where the stress caused them to act like pigs, she felt all justified in her view of them.
"We have to complete our next software release cycle in two days. The project management office has set our goal to complete 98% of the burndown tasks. Grims distributed the remaining tasks to you. If anyone misses their goal, that person won't be eligible for a favor performance rating anymore. What are you still doing wasting your time in a meeting? Get coding!" Ms. Abergine waved them to scurry out of the conference room.
Half the women had slipped out of their heels. Some were quick enough to snap them right on. Others grabbed them to walk out barefoot. A couple single shoes were left behind because the owner couldn't find them fast enough under the table. A female business suit jacket was left behind. A purse lay on the floor. Lots of Starbucks cups and vending machine snack bags were left on the table. Ms. Abergine joyfully shook her head at the mess her first years left behind -- like a battlefield.
Elaine found herself at her desk. Her breathing was so fast. It was hard to slow it down. It was hard to have enough air. She tried to stare at the code at her screen, but her eyes kept only repeating the same line: "for (int i = 0; i < goal; i++);" Her mind couldn't comprehend anymore. She looked in panic at the small corners of her desk. She looked around herself to see the soft afternoon light filtering in through the distant windows that were mostly covered with something because some of the coders liked the dark dungeon look. Even getting up to the restroom to put water on her face felt suddenly overwhelming.
