By the second week, something subtle but ominous happened.

Evelyn and Sophia smiled at Risa a lot more.

This, Risa would later learn, was never a good sign.

“So,” Evelyn said one morning, swiveling her chair toward her, “we were thinking…”

Risa straightened. “Okay.”

“We’re going to pass you a couple distributors,” Sophia added casually.

“A couple?” Risa echoed.

“Two each,” Evelyn said. “So you’ll handle four.”

Risa nodded slowly, doing the math. “So… you’ll have ten each?”

“Yes,” Sophia said brightly.

“And,” Evelyn continued, “there are two unofficial ones that you’ll kind of help with.”

Risa smiled. “Of course.”

Of course, she thought. Why not make it six.

Brad overheard this conversation and rolled his chair over, as if summoned by the words more responsibility.

“Great,” he said. “That means training wheels are mostly off.”

Mostly.

“You’ll be handling Customer Service independently now,” Brad continued. “But we’re here if you need help.”

Risa nodded. “Sounds good.”

Analytics, for once, was quiet. It wasn’t the first of the month yet, which meant no distributor uploads, no transcoding frenzy. Just her Promo Tracker project, sitting there like a personal Everest.

After days of trial, error, and Googling things phrased like “SUMIF multiple criteria why excel hates me,” she finally cracked it.

The formula worked.

She tested it twice. Three times. Again, just to be safe.

Then she turned to Brad. “Hey—can I show you something?”

Brad leaned over. She walked him through the file, explained how the SUMIF pulled the numbers automatically from the SAP report.

Brad smiled. “This is great.”

Risa beamed.

And then—inevitably—

“Okay,” Brad said, “now can we also pull the most recent invoice date?”

Risa blinked. “Oh.”

“And,” he continued, “it’d be great if you could export the report more frequently.”

“How frequently?” she asked carefully.

“Daily,” Brad said. “When promotions are active.”

Risa nodded. “Sure.”

Scope creep, her brain whispered. Hello, old friend.

She returned to her desk and opened Excel again, now juggling:

• • Four to six distributor clients

• • Promo Tracker formulas

• • A new invoice-date requirement

• • And—surprise!—both the BOL Tracker and the Sales File

Typically, Evelyn and Sophia split those duties, rotating monthly.

But since Risa was new—

“It’s good training,” Brad had said.

Risa didn’t hold a grudge.

She was too tired for grudges.

She started noticing things.

Like how no one really left at 5.

5:30 p.m. was considered “early.”

6 p.m. was normal.

And staying past 7? Not unusual—especially in Customer Service.

Risa had never had a full-time job before, but she had interned. And internships ended at 4:45 with people apologizing for keeping you late.

Here, the work just… kept going.

Evelyn and Sophia often stayed past 7, powering through emails and orders like veterans of a long war.

Customer Service, Risa realized, was quietly one of the most overworked departments in the company.

Analytics, meanwhile, looked… peaceful.

Fred and Rachel worked on dashboards. When Risa asked Rachel if there was anything she could help with—

“Oh,” Rachel said, “analytics isn’t really about reports. That’s only like ten percent of it.”

“Oh,” Risa said.

She stopped asking. Instead, she waited.

Eight days until the first of the month.

Then, it arrived.

Fred rolled his chair over, “So—how do you want to split distributor uploads?”

Risa thought for a moment, “Fifty-fifty?”

“Twelve each?” Fred asked.

“Yeah,” Risa said. “Seems fair.”

Fred nodded. “Works for me.”

It was only later that Risa realized her fatal assumption.

Distributors did not send files on the first.

They sent them within the first three business days.

Which meant chaos.

Files trickled in at random times. Some complete. Some missing columns. Some formatted like crime scenes.

Risa spent her mornings formatting, saving, and uploading distributor files into Power BI.

Each upload took one to three hours to refresh.

During that time, she:

• • Sent pro forma emails

• • Processed orders

• • Updated the BOL Tracker

• • Answered distributor questions

• • Entered sales numbers

• • Sent the Sales File at the end of the day

She ate lunch at her desk.

She drank coffee like it was medicine.

She watched the Power BI refresh wheel spin and spin and spin.

By the end of the day, she leaned back in her chair, eyes burning, brain buzzing.