Chapter 14
by starlightnovelsclubRisa clocked out Friday evening with the emotional urgency of someone escaping a collapsing building.
Her mouse clicked the log-out button with more force than strictly necessary. The screen faded to the Shizz Company default wallpaper—an aggressively cheerful image of a woman holding hair serum while smiling like she had never experienced an existential crisis in her entire life.
Risa shut her laptop.
Closed it.
Pushed it slightly farther away from her like it might reopen itself and demand she memorize product SKUs in her sleep.
She exhaled.
“Freedom,” she whispered.
The word felt suspiciously temporary.
By Saturday afternoon, Risa sat at her parents’ dining table, staring at a plate of sliced mangoes her mom had prepared like emotional support fruit.
She had been avoiding this conversation for weeks.
Not because her parents weren’t supportive.
But because saying things out loud had an unfortunate tendency to make them real.
Her dad glanced up from his coffee.
“So,” he said gently, “how’s work?”
Risa stared at her mango slice like it might contain life answers.
“…Do you want the honest version or the HR-safe version?” she asked.
Her mom immediately snorted. “Honest.”
Risa inhaled deeply.
Then she explained everything.
The quizzes.
The product memorization expectations.
The strange interrogations disguised as one-on-one meetings.
The Promo Summary situation.
The vague, floating sense that she was constantly failing at tasks she was already completing.
By the time she finished, her dad had set his coffee down, and her mom looked like she was mentally drafting a strongly worded email to Shizz’s entire executive board.
“They expect you to memorize every product?” her dad repeated slowly.
“Yes.”
“Like… all of them?”
“Yes.”
“With full detail?”
“Yes.”
Her mom scoffed so loudly Risa was pretty sure the neighbors heard it.
“I’ve worked at my company for over ten years,” her mom said, folding her arms. “I can’t confidently name every single product we sell. And we don’t even sell that many.”
Risa blinked.
“…Really?”
“Of course really,” her mom said. “No one does that. You learn what you need as you go. If someone needs details, you reference materials. That’s why documentation exists.”
Her dad nodded. “Even at my job, most people specialize. You’re not expected to be a walking encyclopedia.”
Risa leaned back slightly, something tight in her chest loosening just a little.
“So this is… weird?” she asked cautiously.
“It’s very weird,” her mom confirmed.
“Borderline unrealistic,” her dad added.
Her mom waved her hand dismissively. “And honestly? I’d be shocked if your manager could do what she’s asking you to do perfectly.”
Risa stared at her.
“…You think so?”
“Absolutely,” her mom said. “People who demand perfection are usually the ones who know how impossible it is.”
Risa absorbed that quietly.
It comforted her.
Just slightly.
Not enough to erase the knot of dread sitting permanently behind her ribcage—but enough to remind her she wasn’t losing her mind entirely.
She poked another mango slice.
“I still have to go back next week,” she muttered.
Her dad smiled sympathetically. “Unfortunately, that’s how jobs work.”
“Illegal,” Risa said.
“Very illegal,” her mom agreed solemnly.
Monday and Tuesday passed in a blur of emails, distributor calls, SAP sessions that aged her biologically, and juggling tasks like a circus performer whose audience consisted entirely of people yelling conflicting instructions.
Her schedule was packed so tightly she was fairly certain if she sneezed, three deadlines would collapse simultaneously.
She survived.
Barely.
Which meant Wednesday arrived.
And with it…
The 1:1.
At 9:59 a.m., Risa adjusted her headset.
At 10:00 a.m., she joined the Teams call.
Rachel’s camera turned on immediately.
“Good morning, Risa.”
“Good morning, Rachel!” Risa said, deploying her professionally upbeat voice—the one that sounded like sunshine but was powered entirely by anxiety.
Rachel nodded once.
Then, without preamble, she asked:
“So did you do what I told you to do last week?”
Risa straightened slightly.
“Yes,” she began. “I reviewed the products more and made sure to reference the website—”
“Did you check Power BI?” Rachel cut in.
Risa blinked.
“…Power BI?” she repeated.
Rachel’s expression darkened instantly, like someone had flipped a villain lighting switch.
“I told you to use Power BI to learn the products,” Rachel said sharply. “Why didn’t you do it?”
Risa’s brain scrambled violently through last week’s memories.
Power BI had been mentioned.
She remembered it vaguely.
Like a ghost of an instruction floating in a sea of fifteen other directives.
“I’m sorry,” Risa said quickly. “That slipped my mind this week. I did check it previously, though, and I focused on reviewing the products through the website and—”
“That’s not what I asked you to do,” Rachel said, cutting her off again.
Risa stopped talking.
Rachel continued, her tone sharpening with each word.
“I wanted you to use Power BI to learn the products. It’s important for building your database manipulation skills as well.”
Risa stared at her screen, stunned.
She could understand the logic.
Power BI was useful.
But—
Was she not going to ask what I learned?
Was I not even going to get a chance to say what I actually reviewed?
On screen, Rachel sighed heavily and rubbed her forehead like she was personally carrying the burden of Risa’s entire existence.
“Risa,” she said, “why didn’t you do what I told you to do? I was more than clear on my expectations.”
Risa felt her chest tighten.
“I did review,” she said carefully. “I just didn’t use Power BI specifically this week. But I did review the products—”
“No,” Rachel said firmly. “You didn’t. Because you didn’t do it on Power BI.”
Risa blinked.
Her brain stalled, attempting to process that sentence.
“I… did review,” she repeated.
“You didn’t follow instructions,” Rachel countered.
“I followed the goal,” Risa said, her voice tightening despite her efforts to stay calm. “The goal was to learn the products, right?”
“The goal was to use Power BI to learn the products,” Rachel corrected.
The conversation spiraled.
Back and forth.
Round and round.
Like two people arguing whether a sandwich counted as food if it wasn’t eaten with the correct emotional attitude.
“I reviewed through the website and product documentation.”
“You didn’t use Power BI.”
“I still learned the products.”
“You didn’t follow instructions.”
“I still achieved the learning objective.”
“You didn’t use Power BI.”
Minutes blurred together.
At some point, Risa realized twenty minutes had passed.
Twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes of defending the fact that she had studied.
Something hot and unfamiliar stirred in her chest.
Anger.
Not explosive anger.
Not screaming, keyboard-throwing anger.
Just… a steady, simmering refusal.
“Rachel,” she said finally, her tone still professional but noticeably firmer, “I understand that you wanted me to use Power BI. I acknowledge I didn’t do that this week. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t review or learn the products.”
Rachel’s jaw tightened slightly.
“I need you to follow instructions exactly,” she said.
“And I will moving forward,” Risa replied. “But I also want to be clear that I did put time into learning the material.”
Rachel didn’t budge.
Neither did Risa.
For the first time since she started at Shizz, Risa felt herself planting her feet—softly, politely, but undeniably.
The silence between them thickened.
Finally, Rachel exhaled sharply.
Risa attempts to make amends, “I’ll make sure to review using Power BI for next week.”
“That’s not the point… Why didn’t you do it?” Rachel held her head as if she couldn’t believe it while Risa wondered ‘Then wtf do you want me to do?!’
The call ended shortly after with no future steps or plan of action.
Like a meeting that had resolved nothing but everyone agreed to stop talking anyway.
Risa removed her headset slowly.
The private meeting room was silent.
The hum of her laptop fan filled the room like white noise for existential crises.
She stared at her desktop.
What am I doing wrong?
The question looped through her mind, worn smooth from overuse.
How was everything going wrong?
And the most ridiculous part?
None of it was about her actual job.
She was completing reports.
Managing distributors.
Maintaining files.
Meeting deadlines.
The things she was being criticized for floated in this strange, abstract category of expectations that felt simultaneously mandatory and impossible to define.
She leaned back in her chair.
“Ah,” she murmured softly to the empty room, “This must be corporate hell.”
Her email pinged.
She didn’t check it immediately.
Instead, she sat there for a moment longer, staring at nothing, feeling like she had just lost an argument where the rules had changed halfway through and no one told her.
Then, with the quiet resignation of someone who still had bills to pay and a warehouse that still closed at six, she turned back to her laptop.
And opened her inbox.
