Page 39 of Paradigm

“Different how?”

“My job is pretty boring, and my boss is not that great. I thought I’d be able to work from home, like I told you, but he’s saying that he’s against that policy now. I’d have to talk to someone above him just to get to do that. I like that I have an office there, but you know me – I like to be able to work in my own time and my own space. I’ve never missed a deadline or had any issue working from home before.”

“Did you tell your boss that?”

“Not yet. I don’t want to get on his bad side right away. I just started working here. It’s only been two months, and if I do something to make him or even the company mad, they could always terminate me, and I’d lose my visa.”

“They can’t do that if they promised you in your interviews that you could work from home,” her dad remarked.

“I checked the handbook, and it says that it’s at my manager’s discretion. They didn’t tell me that during the interview process, but it’s in the documentation that I had to sign to get the job.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous. If you want to work from home, I think you should talk to your boss and tell him that if there’s any issue with your productivity, you’d work in the office full-time, but as long as you’re doing your job, you should be able to work from anywhere you want.”

Eline sighed and asked, “Did I make a mistake coming here?”

“What? Why would you ask that?”

“I’ve never had a job that was also the reason I could live somewhere. It was just work before, but now, if I get fired or quit, I lose my visa. I feel all this extra pressure to be perfect there, and it’s stressful sometimes. I didn’t get much sleep last night, so I was slower than usual today, and I worried that my boss was looking at me like he was frustrated, and–”

“Eline, all you can do is your best. Focus on the work, and maybe try to get out from under that boss of yours if you can.”

“He’s the VP of engineering. The only person above him is the chief technology officer. He’s fine, from what I can tell, but I’ve only spoken with him once. I don’t think I could be an engineer there and not work for my current boss.”

“Are you really worried?”

“I haven’t done anything wrong. My team hasn’t missed anything big. I think I’m fine. I just feel that pressure that I’ve never felt before, and I don’t know what to do with it.”

“You keep your head down, and you do your work. If there’s a problem with the boss, you tell the human resources person about it. Make sure to do that before he says anything about you to them.”

“Yeah, okay. I will.”

“Is everything else there all right?” her dad asked. “Are you enjoying things outside of work?”

“I think so. I like it here, but it’s still strange, having to drive everywhere. I miss trains.”

Her dad chuckled and replied, “I remember that about living there. I’ve been getting so much more work done since we moved back home and I could do it from the train.”

“I miss the food, too. I miss you and Mom, of course, and I miss walking around the canals. I think I took it all for granted.”

“We always take things for granted until we don’t have them anymore.”

She swallowed and said, “There’s something else, too.”

“What’s that?”

“Being homesick, I can handle. It comes and goes, and I’ll think about the things that I like about living here, and it’s fine, but something I could not have predicted happened.”

“What?”

“Arlowe is here.”

“Arlowe?”

“My Arlowe,” she said.

“I haven’t heard that name in a long time,” he replied.

“I haven’t said it out loud in a long time, but she’s here.”