text: “Hey Tammy, are you busy?” Clarke asked as he steps into Tammy’s cubicle. Her internal eyeroll is engaged with this constant question from those above her in the totem pole of office politics. She wishes she could ask them: “don’t you pay me to be busy?” Minimizing the document she had open on the right side of her double monitor, she turns to Clarke. Tammy is famous around the office for what everyone has taken to calling “Tammy’s waterfall”. She places all of her “to-do” paperwork on the left-hand side of her desk. The least important items are at the bottom and each successive project is layered on top of the others with just an inch of exposed header so she knows what is next and it cascades down the desk until it is almost falling off of the desktop at its height. She knows Clarke couldn’t have missed the excessively large pile of paperwork to her left. “What can I do for you, Mr. Kent?” “How’s your day going? Did you have a good weekend?” While she thinks the obligatory small talk to lead into the favor is a nice gesture, she truly is busy and wants to dive right into the “ask” that has brought him to her cubicle. “It was good. How was yours?” A very detailed story followed. Her hand was poised over the mouse itching to move it to her open task list but she knew it was rude to continue to type while he regaled her with his hiking adventure and Sunday golf game. She gasped in all the right places and put an emphatic “oh” in when it was required and cheered at the fact he had come in under par; but, in her mind she was calculating what she could get done if she skipped lunch and stayed a little late. When it felt like Clarke was wrapping up, she smiled and nodded. “Was there something you needed?” “Oh yes. Do you mind coming in my office and taking a look at something for me? I’m having that problem with my excel spreadsheet again. I always swear I am going to take better notes next time you help so I don’t have to ask.” Tammy locks her computer screen and follows him into his plush office. She shows him again how to fix the problem and attempts to return to her desk. She is stopped by Susan at reception who thrusts her cell phone into her hand, “look” is all she says. It is a Facebook post with a picture of her soon-to-be-ex husband with the girlfriend that ended their marriage. Three angry rants and two consolatory hugs later, she starts back to her desk. Before she can get logged back into her computer, the phone begins to ring. Super Needy Client needs her help right away. She talks her down off her proverbial ledge while she pulls back up the files she minimized nearly an hour ago when Clarke interrupted. It is a letter. Her letter of resignation. She reads the opening paragraph again. Then closes the file. She is so tempted to just send it. Send it today. Make this the first day of the last two weeks of this decade long job. She doesn’t really despise the job. She genuinely likes most of her co-workers but she did it this weekend. She watched the show. The documentary about the person who quits their 9 to 5 job and reduces their life to one sleeping bag, two matchboxes and a radio and goes to live in the woods and finds their long-lost passion of leaf art and now lives off the tiny leaf-art income and feels fulfilled and joyful and at one with nature. She picks up the forms at the peak of the waterfall with the matching task in her system and starts her research on the resolution. She is technically making a difference for the person who is on the other side of this paperwork who needs her help. She isn’t performing life-saving brain surgery but how many actual people can say they are brain surgeons? Someone has to process the brain surgeon’s forms so they can keep brain surgeoning right? Tammy feels guilty about abandoning the stack but she has to go the bathroom and maybe heat up her lunch to eat at her desk. She gets corned by Hilda from the office next door to hers which shares the public restrooms. Hilda has to tell Tammy about her daughter’s new baby. She takes her back to her office to show her pictures and cry. Miraculously, Hilda’s phone starts to ring and Tammy mouths: “I’ll see you later. Beautiful grandbaby!” and she escapes back to her own office. In the break room, while heating up her frozen meal, Jake strides in and asks her what she is having. He spends twenty minutes on his new workout routine and diet regimen. It’s called Paint Your Palette. He does twenty minutes on how his breakfast is all yellow foods, lunch is all green foods and dinner is a protein power shake that is red. She teases that Jake should throw in some Mac and Cheese orange to round out the palette or some chocolate chip cookie brown. Jake laughs with her. When Tammy reaches her desk, her lunch is cold again. Somehow her day is escaping her grasp. She imagines her tiny lifeboat and the waterfall of paperwork is about to capsize it. She takes advantage of the after-lunch coma of her fellow cubicle workers and attacks the waterfall with fervor. In two hours, she’s made a dent in the form stack. The ear pod in her ear is her theme music and her foot is tapping to the beat unheard by her fellow cubicle neighbors. Tammy has a second wind, and it takes her to and past closing time. The others leave with a flurry of “see you tomorrows” and she pushes through two more projects before she scoops up the paper left in the stack and files it away. Before she shuts down her computer, she pulls the letter file back open. She looks around the mostly empty office. On her other screen, she brings up her bank account balance. She looks between that and the letter announcing her two weeks’ notice. It’s a possibility. She writes an e-mail to her boss and attaches the letter. She stares at the computer screens for a long time. She pulls a Snickers bar out of her drawer and downs it in a few bites. Her finger hovers. She hits send. She better start practicing her leaf art.