The Cube People by Christian McPherson Page A

cruel action, especially since Carla had done nothing to provoke her. I know the smell of cleaning products had always been a sore point with Brita, but considering Carla’s condition, so to speak, I was surprised. Still, I think every person who has come into this quad has wanted to spit on Carla’s desk, just to see what she would do. I’m looking at the answer and it’s not pretty.
    â€œWhy did she do that?” she squeaked.
    â€œI don’t know, Carla. She’s just mad at everyone and everything I guess.” For the next hour, Carla goes into a hyper-animated cleaning frenzy, spraying and wiping everything down, over and over. The monitor gets at least a half an hour dedicated to itself alone.
    Bruce waltzes in and grabs the guest chair that the four of us, now three of us, share in the quad. “Hey, smells clean in here. I guess you heard about Brita, eh?”
    â€œShe told me she quit.”
    â€œWow, did she ever,” says Bruce, but he fails to elaborate on what he means. After the spitting action, I imagine that Bruce got something equally as good. Bruce suddenly rubs his hands feverishly together as if he was trying to spark a fire, and then, in what I think he thinks is dramatic, slaps his knees. “Well, Colin, I’m afraid you’ll have to be the one to pull up the slack around here until we find a replacement for Brita.”
    â€œSure thing,” I say, completely unfazed by what he’s just said.
    â€œReally?”
    â€œYeah, no problem.”
    Bruce seems flustered by my response, and I imagine he was waiting for me to take exception to what he’s said so he’d have the opportunity to practise his manager skill set. I suspect he’s got a performance review looming and he is looking for some examples of leadership to write down.
    â€œWell you’re going to have to refill out your estimates form, now that you’re taking over for Brita… temporarily that is.”
    Although I pretty much despise everything about my job, the one thing I hate above all others is doing estimates. I’m supposed to guess how much time it will take me to complete each piece of code that I’ll be working on over the next six months. Now I’m going to have to figure out how much time doing two jobs will take. Dutiful, I do it just the same, for I am a good civil servant.
    I work on my new estimates, form 220, for over two hours, trying to piece together everything Brita had been working on and would have been working on in the future. When I’m done, I bring the form over to Bruce. He’s on the phone, so I drop it into his in-basket. Forty minutes later Bruce returns with the estimates form.
    â€œYou’re a little high in a couple of places, Colin, and a little low in others. Look at it again, see if you can identify the problem areas, and fix them up.”
    â€œSure thing,” I say, seething on the inside. I go over the whole thing again and make what I think are the appropriate adjustments. When Phil and I get back from lunch I notice that the form is back in my in-basket with several yellow stickies on it identifying the areas where the numbers are too high or too low. My jaw tightens and I grind my teeth. I randomly beef up or down the numbers identified as being incorrect guesses and march it back to Bruce’s desk. He’s on the phone again, so I toss it into his in-basket.
    Not ten minutes later, he’s back in my quad. “Still not right Colin, a couple of these are still a little low.”
    â€œWell, why don’t you just put the number that you want in the box?”
    â€œWell Colin, then I would be doing your job, wouldn’t I?”
    I want to pop him in the mouth. “Bruce, I don’t know what number should go in the box. It’s an estimate. So just put in whatever number you want. I don’t mind being wrong. I’m just tired of guessing.”
    â€œColin, it’s great