by Robin Roseau
"No," she said.
I rose from the chair and said, "I'll send you those links." I turned around and headed for the door, but then I stopped and turned around. "I had an amazing weekend with someone. I thought she did, too, but apparently, I was wrong. I also thought she was an amazing woman, but apparently, she wasn't half the woman I thought she was. I'll just mark it up to bad taste on my part."
She didn't say a word. I turned to go but then turned around again.
"Other than Aphrodite, I never kiss and tell. Never, not even the ones who have beaten me. So she has absolutely nothing to fear from me." I paused. "Of course, I'm feeling like she did worse than beat me, but even then, I never kiss and tell. Her secrets, of which she is clearly ashamed, are safe, at least from me."
I didn't wait for any response. I turned tail.
And fled.
Stress
The first thing I did when I got back to my cube was grab my gym bag and head to the ladies' room. I changed into my jeans and casual shirt, stuffing the skirt, blouse and pumps into the gym bag.
I wasn't sure whether I'd ever choose to wear these particular clothes again, but I certainly wasn't going to dress to please Miranda.
After that, I held it together until I got home. I saw Aphrodite waiting for me, and I was bawling by the time I had stripped the wig and clothes from her. I wrapped her in a toga and collapsed at her feet.
I told her everything.
She looked down at me, not saying a word.
"I'm such an idiot!" I screamed. "Why do I keep doing this to myself? Why?"
I vowed, over and over, Miranda was the last woman who I'd let abuse me. I knew even when I said it that I was lying to myself, but I made the vows, anyway.
I'd keep it for a while. I'd avoid all women. I was good at avoiding people. I'd do my job and maybe pick up a new computer game. Elder Scrolls Online looked pretty good, or maybe I'd go back to one of the games I used to play.
What? I'm a nerd. Sue me. If Felicia Day could be a gamer and look hot while doing it, so could I. Well, maybe I didn't look that hot, but still...
I ate a liquid dinner, although not enough to be sick, and collapsed early into bed, then tossed and turned the entire night. I woke up with a raging headache, bags under my eyes, and my stomach in knots. I did something I've never done before: I called in sick for something short of influenza.
I spent a good share of the day in bed, but finally roused myself sufficiently to have a proper dinner and give myself a pep talk.
"Okay," I said. "Move past it. She was on vacation, and for some people, vacation isn't real time. It's fake time, fantasy time. That's why she didn't want my number. That's why she acted like she did yesterday. To her, it wasn't real, and I just have to accept that."
Then I sighed. "But I have to work for her. I have to report to her. I have to sit in her office and remember what a bitch she was to me."
Then I shook my head. "No. I don't. There's email. I don't have to talk to her very often. Roger barely pays any attention to us at all, and I used to go weeks between conversations with Elliott sometimes. She isn't going to have any more time than they are. I'll rarely have to deal with her. And I can be a professional. I can."
And that became my mantra. "I'm a professional. I'm a professional."
* * * *
I made it back to work bright and early on Thursday. I had already mailed her the links I had promised, and she hadn't asked for reports of any sort, so I could ignore the fact that I had a new boss.
I could focus on my job, a job I was good at.
So that's what I did, as best I could. The guys asked me about the new boss. I told them they'd have to come to their own conclusions.
"You must be happy to see a woman though," suggested Davis.
I shrugged. "I don't want to be judged on my gender," I said carefully. "I don't judge my bosses by gender, either."
Early the next week, Roger stopped by my cube, sitting down in my guest chair. "So?"
"So?" I echoed.
"What did you think of Miranda?"
I really didn't want to think of Miranda. And I really, really didn't want to answer questions about her. I thought for a moment but then finally said, "I found her very surprising."
Roger asked a few other questions, which I sidestepped as well as I could. Finally he said flat out, "You didn't like her, did you?"
I wasn't comfortable lying to him, but while on the spot like that, I couldn't come up with anything polite to say, either. Finally I said, "I'm going to keep doing what I always do: focus on my job."
"Fair enough," he said. "You turned down the promotion. Again."
"It's best if I focus on the equipment and leave managing people to someone else."
"I told her that's what you would say," he said.
* * * *
I managed to avoid Miranda for a good two weeks. The guys and I did our jobs. We kept the network humming. We kept the firewalls up to date with the latest patches. We monitored performance figures, tweaked capacity as necessary, and complained to vendors when national or international transmission rates degraded.
I tracked usage figures and stayed on top of capacity planning. I kept the maintenance schedule posted and sent emails when there were notable updates.
We did our jobs.
When network traffic out of the Huntsville sales office increased dramatically, I did what I always did: I snooped on the traffic to determine why it had suddenly increased. I wasn't that surprised by what I found. I set up additional monitoring, and when the traffic continued over a three-day period, I collected everything I had, packaged it up with a pretty bow, and sent an email to Miranda.
"One of the salesmen in Huntsville has been downloading a significant amount of questionable material. Attached are the details. Cassidy." Questionable Materials was a euphemism, of course, but I didn't actually look all too closely at the content to make a more specific accusation.
The reply came a few hours later. "I'll handle it." That was it. No thanks. No acknowledgement of any sort.
What did I expect?
But maybe that meant she was going to leave me alone.
I was wrong.
* * * *
It was exactly two weeks to the day that Miranda started that I was summoned back to her office -- at 2:20 PM sharp. I didn't think that was accidental. The summons didn't include a reason, so I brought my tablet again, arriving exactly on time. Jane told me to go on in.
I didn't bother with niceties but headed straight for her chair and waited to see what she wanted. I half expected her to play some sort of power game with me and make me wait, but she looked up the moment I sat down.
"How much time do you spend looking for things like the issue in Huntsville last week?"
"Almost none," I said. "I don't look for that at all. But I do track network usage, and when there are significant spikes, and those spikes continue for more than a brief period, I try to find out why."
"So if traffic like that started slowly and increased over time..."
"We might notice, but not the same way or as quickly," I said.
"Might? That's not a word I am fond of."
"Did you want a longer explanation?"
"Yes."
"Unless I have a specific reason to look, I don't snoop," I said. "Instead, we monitor traffic statistics. We assume that the various offices will generate a similar amount of traffic based on their size. A four-person office will generate less traffic than an eight-person office."
"I imagine half the traffic."
"Actually, no. There is a certain amount of constant chatter that goes out to all offices. You would have to subtract that off first. And then there are a wide variety of other factors. And then, of course, there are always going to be spikes for one reason or another, some more legitimate than others."
"For example."
"Weather conditions. I presume you won't fault people for checking weather cameras before beginning their
drive home."
"No."
"You may be less interested in everyone watching the latest cute cat video that went viral on YouTube."
"Why don't we block YouTube entirely?"
"Because there are legitimate reasons to go there."
"Name one."
"Training videos. Research on a customer. Research on a competitor."
"That's three." She frowned.
"I wasn't sure if you would be satisfied with the first one that came to my mind," I replied. "Even viewing those cute cat videos isn't cut and dried. Salesmen need to have a personal relationship with their customers, which sometimes means being up on the latest fads."
"So we don't block YouTube."
"We don't block any sites unless either I or security deems the site a security risk. Those we block quite aggressively. It is my job to provide an infrastructure; it is not my job to tell people how to use it."
"If they aren't using it for legitimate work-related purposes..."
"Then it's an issue for their managers. But how do I know that someone in the design department doesn't think best after watching an hour of Gilligan's Island reruns? Maybe that's when she comes up with her best fresh ideas."
"I find that unlikely."
"There are jokes about people who have jobs who seem to do nothing but stare out the window, but when asked why that person has a job, you hear about how every few years, that person comes up with an idea that saves the company millions of dollars. It wouldn't be a viral joke if there wasn't an element of truth." I paused. "I don't think I understand why I'm here or why we're having this discussion."
"I am fairly certain we do not want our network used to download the traffic that was being downloaded in Huntsville."
"Probably not," I said, "but for all I know, the person in question is hosting a stag party for a client and was doing research."
"That's a joke, right?"
"No. I am saying that I am not the person to decide if traffic is appropriate. I thought it was questionable, and so I brought it to your attention. I presume you did something about it, as it appears to have stopped. As of yesterday, traffic patterns in Huntsville returned to normal, but I'll keep an eye on it."
She studied me for several seconds, frowning the entire time. "Why are you not more concerned about this issue?"
"Which issue?"
"Our network being used to download porn."
"I am concerned that the network I manage runs as smoothly as humanly possible. That includes dealing with security and capacity issues. I do not believe the amount of illicit traffic we're carrying is sufficient to become alarmed. When we have spikes like these, I report them."
"It's porn."
I sighed. "And I am hardly the person to preach about acceptable human sexual practices. You know, some people do their Christmas shopping from work. It helps them hide from their spouses what they're getting. How do I know when someone buys a scarf whether it's for his wife's neck or her wrists?" I cocked my head. "Of course, I can't tell what they're buying, anyway. All I see are the sites they hit, but most traffic is over a secure connection, so I don't get to see more than that."
We stared at each other. Finally Miranda said, "I want you to secure our network so this cannot happen again."
I immediately said, "You need to define this."
"I want you to ensure no more porn is downloaded through our network."
"That is close to impossible."
"I don't believe you."
I sighed. "I can blacklist sites by IP address. I can probably find a list of known porn sites and block them. The list changes constantly, and I do not believe I could keep up with the latest list of known sites. However, doing so would dramatically degrade our network."
"That doesn't make sense. If there is less traffic-"
"The number of sites I would have to block is absolutely huge," I said. "The firewalls would all need an extensive blacklist, and then every packet that passes through the firewalls would need to be checked against the blacklist. That takes time, and it would slow down the delivery of each and every packet. So what I need to do is buy larger firewalls, which are expensive. But even if we did that, I still couldn't guarantee no porn could get through."
"Why not?"
"Because I can't keep up with new sites. And even if I could, not every site that carries porn is going to be in whatever blacklist I obtain. And after that, I can't prevent someone from using a web proxy to download instead."
"Just tell the firewalls to block the porn."
"Unfortunately, there's no current technology that can tell porn from non-porn. If I were smart enough to create it, I wouldn't be working here."
"Pornography is a form of violence against women, and I will not have it on our network."
"I am not a sociologist, so I cannot comment on that, Miranda. I'm just a network technician. I am telling you that from a network standpoint, we do not have a problem. Honestly, cute cat videos undoubtedly consume more bandwidth than porn downloads. Hell, porn spam advertising consumes more bandwidth than porn downloads."
She narrowed her eyes. "You know I don't like language like that."
"How would I know that? According to you, we've only met for twenty minutes before today, and we didn't talk about my language at that time."
She audibly let out a breath of air. "I do not care for crude language."
"I will keep that in mind. Will there be anything else?"
"Yes. I do not want porn across our network. Take care of it."
"I will produce a performance analysis detailing what will happen if I attempt to implement your plan with our existing hardware and make recommendations for the hardware improvements required if we wish to maintain the same level of throughput with the new restrictions implemented. There will also be ongoing costs associated with keeping the blacklist up to date, and there may be a subscription fee to obtain the best blacklists. I'll also outline a few other choices that are less expensive but may not be as all-inclusive. It will take a few weeks."
"Excuse me?"
"It's somewhere between forty and eighty hours to prepare a rough plan. Once you select the plan you wish me to implement, it will be more time. I have to fit this in around my other duties. This is probably a several-month project."
"A several month project. Several months, to block a few websites?"
"Roughly four percent of the entire internet is porn. It's more than a few websites. Furthermore, you told me you wanted it to be impossible to download porn, which I don't believe we can actually do. But I have to do more extensive research to determine the methods that will get us closest to what you require."
Miranda paused for a moment and then appeared to come to a decision. She leaned forward. "I brought you in here to discuss a solution to this problem, and you are telling me you can't do it. I am deeply disappointed with you, Cassidy. I expected more from you."
Up until that moment, I had been doing well. I'd been cool and calm, responding carefully and logically. As only the second time seeing her since our weekend together, I had felt pretty good with my poise. But her words were like a knife to my gut, and I reflexively clutched my stomach. Tears sprang into my eyes.
I lowered my gaze, not saying anything. My vision grew blurry, and I blinked the tears away. One ran down my cheek. I didn't bother wiping it away.
"Get started on a proposal," Miranda said eventually. "Get out of here."
Again, I found myself fleeing from her.
* * * *
She had done it intentionally; I knew she had.
I was disgusted with myself, but what else was new? I'd spent most of my life disgusted with myself. Why did I give other people so much power over me? Why did I give her so much power over me?
This was why I didn't want to deal with people at work. Machines never went out of their way to hurt you. This was why I had gravitated towards networking instead of programming. Programmers still have to deal with people. They are writ
ing their programs for people, and so they actually have to talk to them. I just wanted to do my job and have everyone leave me alone.
It took me an hour in the ladies' room to get myself back under control.
* * * *
After that, I avoided everyone. As one of few women in a male-dominated field, I typically get more attention than I care for. I didn't advertise my sexuality at work; frankly, my personal life wasn't any of their business. I was pretty good at ignoring flirting. The few men who had tried to ask me out were met with a simple response: I don't date coworkers. The guys I worked most closely with learned over time to treat me as one of the guys, more or less, but I guess it was only natural that they would still want to spend time with me.
They weren't necessarily any more successful in their love lives than I was, after all.
But I had tricks when I didn't want anyone bothering me. I had a coat rack in my cube. It didn't get much use in the summer, of course, but I intentionally left an umbrella hanging from arm and a spring jacket from another. And when I didn't want to talk to anyone, I moved the coat rack until it was positioned immediately in front of the opening to my cube. If someone really needed to talk to me, they could still interrupt, but my coworkers knew not to bother me casually when the coat rack was in the way.
And so I moved the coat rack right into the center of my cube opening, and there it would stay.
* * * *
Life went on. I didn't date. I went home to see my parents over the Independence Day holiday. Mother asked me if I was eating and then introduced me to the niece of a friend of hers, Lexi. She was actually pretty nice, but I could tell she felt as awkward about everything as I did.
"Sometimes the path of least resistance is pragmatic," I told her.
She laughed. "Yeah. How would you spend the weekend if your mother and my aunt weren't playing matchmaker?"
"Watch the fireworks and spend quite a bit of time with a book in my hand. You?"
"Watch the fireworks and do some water skiing."
"Are you any good?"
"I'm not bad," she replied. "You?"