When my mortification subsides a little, I check my work email.
Empty inbox.
I’ve never had zero email before. Even on my first day with Binary Birch, a welcome message was waiting for me, as well as something from HR and Sandra.
Speaking of Sandra, I dial her up.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” she says instead of a hello.
“I am?” Did she say that sternly?
“I just got off the phone with Mr. Chortsky. He made his feelings clear.”
I feel like I’m about to fall through the floor. “Did he explain why?”
“Mr. Chortsky, explaining himself to me?”
This time, I definitely detect a note of annoyance—hopefully at the Impaler and not me. “Look, Sandra, about the testing I was—”
“That’s another thing.” Her tone is clipped. “We’re not to speak about Project Belka or any sort of work until you’ve rested—and once you have, he wants our interactions to happen face to face.”
Weirder and weirder… unless they plan to fire me, that is. I think firing someone face to face is how it’s usually done.
“Is there anything else I can help with? Some other projects I can work on?” I ask in desperation. “Being bored won’t help me rest.”
Sandra sighs. “What about your app? You can always work on that. The cleaner that code, the higher the chance it will impress people.”
Is that a hint? Do I need to prepare a resume and use that app as my portfolio?
“Did you send a link to my code to the development department?” I ask, fishing for more hints on my fate.
“As soon as I got it,” she says.
“And?”
“I haven’t heard back from anyone yet. I’m sure the dev team will review it in due course.”
Unless I’m fired. “Okay, thanks, Sandra. How about I swing by the office tomorrow, after I’ve rested for the remainder of today?”
“Is that what you and Mr. Chortsky discussed?”
“He didn’t exactly define the word ‘rest’ for me, if that’s what you mean.”
She heaves another sigh. “Fine. As long as you’ve rested by then, I’m free at eleven tomorrow. Would that work for you?”
“Yep. See you then,” I say and hang up before she can change her mind.
After I eat lunch and feed Monkey, I decide to do what Sandra said—check on my app source control repository.
A surprise is waiting for me there.
For the first time ever, someone is collaborating on the project with me.
The first message is about a bug report.
Actually, it’s more than that. It’s an unwelcome critique of the app as a whole—dripping with cattiness.
Quaint app. Not bad for someone who’s never coded a day in her life. For your information, if you aim the app at an image of a cartoon character’s face, the returned lookalike isn’t the same character. So, for example, I used it on Daffy Duck, and your app decided he looks most like Donald Duck. If you think about it logically, Daffy looks most like Daffy.
Hmm. I bring up a picture of Daffy on my work phone and use Precious to aim my app at him. The app indeed says he looks like Donald instead of himself.
So this is a legit bug—especially if one forgets for a second that the app was made for people to use, not cartoon characters. At least a duck looks like a duck. If the app claimed Donald Duck looked like Bugs Bunny, that would be worse.
I check out the helpful user—screen name CrazyOops. No profile image, but the screen name itself is enough for me to guess who this is. First half must refer to (You Drive Me) Crazy and second half to Oops!...I Did It Again, both songs by Britney Spears.
I’d bet Monkey’s liver this user is another Britney. As in, Britney Archibald. She must’ve been dying to find a bug in my code to retaliate for the numerous flaws I found in hers.
Hey, at least it means the development department got Sandra’s email, and some of them are looking at my code. Maybe the others are less biased. In fact, I see a couple of other messages already.
First, though, I record CrazyOops’s IP address. If she’s made other accounts in order to further diss the app, I’ll know it’s her.
Surprisingly, the next message is not a bug report. Instead, someone located the reason the app was doing what Britney bitched about and fixed it.
Holy binary. Who is this mysterious do-gooder?
The screen name is Phantom, and the profile picture is of the half-masked face of the Phantom of the Opera.
That’s not a lot to go by. Maybe she or he is someone who likes the classics—but that can be lots of people.
Putting aside the mystery of the identity of this person, I check out the next message from them.
It’s not a bug report or a fix this time, just a direct message. A long one at that. In it, Phantom suggests a whole range of interesting and fun features for the app and includes references to open source projects and libraries that I can use to implement said features with relative ease.
Also, Phantom suggests a number of improvements that would “make the app ready for wide use.” The issue that stands out to them is that my database of user pictures is public at the moment, which will cause privacy concerns with the more paranoid users. Here, too, Phantom suggests references that I can use to make this job easier.
I double-check the IP. Not the same as Britney’s, but I could’ve guessed that based on the supportive tone and because she’d never end a message to me the way Phantom has:
Your code is elegant. I think you have a talent for this. Don’t give up, and you’ll go far.
Even though I have no idea who Phantom is, it’s got to be someone on the dev team, which makes me swell with pride.
Also, I get the screen name now. Whoever this is, they’re acting like a mentor, which the Opera Phantom was to Christine.
I just hope this Phantom isn’t hideous, or harboring a dark obsession with me. Note to self: Don’t call the Phantom an Angel of Software and keep an eye out for a mannequin that looks like me in a wedding dress.
Grinning, I write a thank-you message to the Phantom of the Code and spend the rest of the day familiarizing myself with all the sources they’ve provided me with.
As I work, I actually feel myself becoming a better programmer—or at least a cockier one.
When my eyes get tired, I log off and feed myself and my grumpy guinea pig some dinner. After that, I put on the gloves and the N95 mask again so I can rid myself of the one remaining eyebrow. I manage to do this without getting the toxic substance in my eyes, mouth, ears, or any other orifices.
Eyebrowless, I survey my pale face in the mirror. I look like I’ve gone through chemo, yet still better than when there was just one eyebrow.
Belatedly, I realize my big eyebrow-related shopping won’t arrive in time for my meeting with Sandra. Oh well, I’ll just draw them on and make sure to redraw as needed.
Thus determined, I finish my evening routine and go to sleep.
When I arrive in the office the next morning, Sandra and I grab the meeting room nearest her cube. She looks uncomfortable, exactly as I imagine she would if she were about to fire me.
Crap. Is this it?
“So,” she says, steepling her fingers.