5.16.2006

He shoots... it's up... it looks good... BRICK! Dammit!

"Hi, Spencer! How are you? It's so great to see you, glad to see you're back," she said, glee spilling out her veins.

"I'm fine. It's great to see you, too. Should we get started?" I say, straigtening my tie and fluffing my jacket. Her eyes widen.

"I wasn't here yesterday, so I was unable to get the results of your drug test. Let me run downstairs to personnel. You just have a seat and wait just a minute. K?" she says through a smile. I nod.

I flip through post it notes and curl the phone cord around my finger. Someone's calling, but I can't answer, yet. I catch eyes with a few people walking by, some of whom I haven't seen in months. I get a few back slaps and "Glad you're back!"s.

Ten minutes pass and I see the woman who greeted me walking toward me from across the room, a folder in hand. As she paces closer, I see the irrevocable smile on her face just minutes ago had vanished. Her lips are perched and she refuses to look me in the eye as she passes me and heads straight to the corner office and closes the door behind her.

After a few minutes of awkward looks from others and my uneasiness, the door to the office slings open. My new boss (I hope) approaches me, leans in and, almost whispering, says, "Follow me."

I feel like a third-grader who just got pulled out of class by his principal. One of my friends smirks at me. An older man looks at me as if I'm three feet tall. Our approximately two-minutes trip to the human resources department is eerie and speechless, with exception for a lighthearted conversation stopper and starter, "I've had a headache all day ... But I just took some Tylenol."

We reach human resources and my new boss hands the folder to the HR director, forces a grin at me, and leaves the office.

"Spencer, how are you?" the polite woman asks.

"Great," I reply.

"Well, there were a few problems with your test results," she says, then looks at the other woman in the room, the one whose job it is to assess test results and such. They lock eyes, then both turn to me.

"You can go home now," they say, then before they open their mouths I nearly tell them to stop. I know what they're going to say. I should just walk.

The nice woman pauses. Now, she's ready.

"We'll call you."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry, man. The THC-laced Tylenol will get ya every time...

Burt said...

Insert tug-boat horn ... mua mua!

Lindsay said...

I wonder what all they found in your cup. Were you trying to get your old job back or something? I thought you had a new one not all that long ago.