“Maggie, please sit down. I have something I need to tell you, so prepare yourself for bad news,” her Boss declared as Maggie knocked on her door.
She sat down slowly going over in her mind just what all this might be about. Was it her hard-charging attitude? Her results-at-any-cost methods? Her inability to compromise on quality no matter what? Whatever, it must be important for Wanda to have called her on the carpet. “Okay, Wanda, give it to me straight. I’m a big girl,” she announced with a grim look on her face.
“We’re letting you go, Maggie. I’ve laid it all out in your dismissal letter and it’s been cleared all the way to the top. As of right now, you’re done here, so I guess you better get your stuff packed-up,” Wanda said, her face taut with tension. “And the others have been notified and have been ordered to stay clear of you until you leave. Here’s the letter. You can stay in my office and read it if you prefer. I’m leaving, however. I have another meeting.”
With that, Wanda brushed past her as she left her office and headed down the hall. Shaking, Maggie slowly composed herself and began to read her dismissal letter. It was seven typed pages of her ‘offenses’ against her subordinates in chronological order. Phrases like ‘inappropriate microaggressions’, ‘racial insensitivity’, ‘patterns of offensive language’, ‘toxic personality disorder’, and many others that literally jumped out of the letter. She barely took a breath as she read the letter a second time. Finally, letting the letter drop to the floor, she started sobbing, knowing that her future was now not quite as bright as when she awoke this morning.
Composing herself again, she leaned down, retrieved the letter from the floor, folded it neatly and placed it in the bag along with the products she had planned to sell that afternoon. As she wiped the last tear from her eye, she stood up straight and proud, adjusted the bag’s strap on her shoulder, took the unsold products out of the bag and placed them on Wanda’s desk. She moved the chair back to its original position, turned off the office light, and walked into the hallway.
She was feeling better now as she strode towards Wanda’s front door, her back straight and her head held high, looking neither right nor left. ‘It’ll be a long frickin’ time ‘til they find another Girl Scout Cookie salesgirl as good as Maggie Jensen!’ she said to herself defiantly, ‘A long frickin’ time!’
End