“Corrective Action”

by Amanda Viola

Kim struggled to find a comfortable position in a chair that one can only assume was never meant to be comfortable. That’s why manufacturer’s made chairs like these, for middle management types to feel superior to their inferiors, making them squirm in discomfort awaiting their upcoming admonishment. Plus, her hips had really “spread”, as her co-worker Judy liked to call it, in this last trimester making the chair a literal tight squeeze.

“You’re definitely having a girl.” Judy said to her once as her long, lacquered pink nails pushed B11 on the break room vending machine. “My ass got real wide with my daughter. Stretch marks and hemorrhoids too. Girls do that.” She said with an eye roll as she ripped open her bag of mini Chips-Ahoy. When the day finally came that Kim had to swap out her low-rise jeans for maternity leggings, the irritation she felt at the sight of her warped body paled in comparison to the anger she felt about Judy’s unsolicited observation coming true. Maybe it was her rounded facial features or the holes the 4g gauges had left in her ears or the Supergirl t-shirt she wore despite her changing body, the S growing and stretching as her baby did, that made her appear even younger than she actually was. Regardless, to the outside world her youthful appearance and lack of ring on her finger served as a permission slip for all sorts of unwelcomed behaviors from co-workers and customers alike.

Though she had been working at Sav-Mart for a little over a year, she had been in the manager’s dank, dark office only a few times. The overhang of the store’s exterior allowed for very little light to trickle in through the plastic vertical blinds. A layer of dust kissed most surfaces, catching the reflection from the overhead fluorescent lights. The walls bore no family photos nor personal artifacts, just sales reports, company memos and this week's mailer from the Sunday newspaper announcing DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! on flat screen t.v.’s. The only sign of any personality in the office, if one could call it that, was a name plate that said KEV sitting on the manager’s desk. He started going by “Kev”, demanded it actually, after the only black employee called him that once. He took it as a sort of right of passage into the urban community, the kind that made him feel safe to rap the “n word” as Lil’ Wayne blasted through the speakers of his Ford Focus.

Kev finally entered his office, his voice and the scent of Axe body spray preceding him. “Hi Kim, so sorry to keep you waiting.” The affected nature of his tone signaled to Kim that she was now engaged in some sort of boss-man pageantry, though he didn’t quite sell it enough for her to be successfully intimidated. Clearly this was phase two of letting your employees know who’s in charge. Phase one; uncomfortable chair. Phase two; leave them waiting as if you have so many more important things on your mind. Make it clear you’re the boss. Can’t have them questioning who’s in charge. God forbid they call for a mutiny, or worse, they try to unionize.She laughed to herself imagining him pacing outside the office door, looking at his watch and waiting for the exact amount of time to let an employee wait according to The Art of the Deal or whatever business man book he held as gospel that week.

Kim saw through it immediately, not just because his face lacked the inscrutability required to pull off this sort of charade but because she knew him back when he was Kevin Janowski, a greasy weirdo who was too uncoordinated to make any sports team so he did what any other sycophant pervert would do, he became the equipment manager for the girl’s basketball team. He was a junior when she was a freshman, which makes no difference really since he dropped out of school his senior year to work at, you guessed it, Sav-Mart. She felt sorry for him, in a way. He had traded any hopes and dreams for a name tag with a happy face on it and $5.75 an hour. Moments like this probably make it all feel worth it to him though, because this was his kingdom and she, the feudal serf. The anxiety that began to pump through her veins had less to do with a fear of him, but more with the fact that this kind of moron had this much control over her livelihood. However, the sweat that began to bead on her forehead didn’t understand that distinction. She hoped he wouldn’t notice it because it probably turned him on a little to see fear on a woman’s face. She hoped her swollen breasts that she tried to no avail to keep tamped down under her sports bra would provide an ample distraction.

“Kim” he said in a tone that dripped in condescension. “Kim, I think you know why I called you in here today.” Phase three; let them implicate themselves. Of course she knew why she was in there but fuck him. So, she plastered a confused baby deer look to her face, cocked her head slightly to the side and folded her arms in front of her, which made her polyester blue work vest gather in weird places but this was no time for vanity, he just called draw.

“Kim” he said, blinking first. “I know you were sleeping in Patio and Garden. Again.” Dammit. She thought. Who ratted? “And before you try to say you weren’t, I saw it on the security cameras. Kim, your behavior is becoming an issue. First it was the excessive bathroom breaks. I can’t have you leaving your register unmanned like that. It caused an overflow at self-checkout. Then, when you finally came back, you were, well, I don’t know how to say this gently but, sweaty and a customer complained about your attitude.” It was the way he said attitude that made her fingers involuntarily retract into a fist.

“Then we had the stool incident of last week.” He called it the “stool incident” to insert a little levity, to let her know hey, I’m still the fun guy who totally unprompted ate an entire plate of Jell-o shots after prom remember that? Maybe this was phase four or maybe he was improvising. “You brought a stool from Kitchen’s over to your register to sit on.”

“Well, actually,” Kim finally spoke. “A customer thought it was on sale but it wasn’t, it was just placed incorrectly on the shelf under a tag for a stool that was on sale. She didn’t want it so I sat on it until I had enough time to do all of my go-backs.”

Kev sighed heavily. He was momentarily torn between his frustration with the stool incident and the idea that a stool was placed incorrectly on a shelf. After a few seconds, he snapped himself back and said, “Well, Kim. I can’t be letting this kind of behavior slide any more. Now, I’m not going to fire you, so calm down,” she was never anything but calm, for the record, “instead I’m going to have to put you on Corrective Action. I’m going to consider all the incidents I just mentioned as your first strike, okay? But two more and I won’t have any other choice. You know, you’ve put me in a very uncomfortable situation here, Kim.” Kim shifted her weight attempting to ease the pressure on her very full bladder .

Kev’s eyes wandered away from hers, his fingers fiddled aimlessly with his clipped-on tie. “I can’t be giving you preferential treatment because of your, um..” he paused and looked at her like he expected her to finish the sentence for him. When she continued to stare at him, refusing to grant him the satisfaction of ambiguity, he finished, “your condition. If I let you have extra bathroom breaks I have to let everyone else have extra bathroom breaks, and even though here at Sav-Mart we are a family, we are also a business.” The finality in the tone he used when he said “business” indicated to Kim that their parley had come to a close.

Behind Kim’s stoic expression, the myriad of things she wanted to say to him had begun to percolate. She wanted to tell him that he’s an inconsequential waste who gets his jollies from wielding the sliver of power he holds. That no matter how much he bleaches his teeth the only way he could ever get laid is to make sure she’s good and drunk first. She wanted to tell him that he’s peaked. That his hairline is receding. That his goatee makes him look like a serial killer. Maybe it was the cumulative effect of months of degradation or maybe it just was the acid reflux she developed during her second trimester but either way, Kim felt like a volcano of vitriol about to erupt. Then suddenly, she felt the baby kick. It had kicked before but this one felt extra hard. Like a, hey mom, don’t fuck this up, kind of kick. Her internal monologue suddenly turned into a list of all the repercussions of losing this job. Car payment. McDonald’s dollar menu for the foreseeable future. No heat. The cost of diapers. Her live-in boyfriend and father-to-be Brett was probably taking a fat bong rip at this very moment, so it was highly unlikely he could support them in the interim. Kim steadied herself on the chair’s armrests and stood up. Kev was now at eye level with her swollen belly, which forced him to look straight down the barrel of her protruding belly button. Suddenly he found himself in the kind of high-noon standoff that none of his boardroom back-slap affirmations could have prepared him for. Or maybe for the first time, he felt shame. It had been easy to strong-arm a woman, even with direct and sustained eye contact but there was something about that 8 month old fetus swimming around in her belly that made him cower like the little man he tried so desperately not to be. There hadn’t been much about this pregnancy that Kim was grateful for but today was different.

He finally mustered up enough courage to lift his gaze from his lap and quickly darted it to the clock behind her head. “Well it looks like you still have 7 minutes left on your break. Make sure you take them.” He said with an overwrought sympathetic tone, attempting to rewrite the tenor of the last five minutes. Kim waddled out of the office, wishing her water would break all over his carpet.