＃１０９

    “You bastard.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “My KPIs. You almost got me. Good one.”
    “I don’t know what you mean. Was there something wrong with them?” Matheson genuinely quizzical. A fine actor, or—
    “Come on,” Pincio chastises him, dragging a cursor through the email. “Emptiness of desk? Return of company vehicle? Har-har. Swing me the real ones.”
    “Those are the real ones.”
    Gravity ratchets up a notch, forcing Pincio’s brow into a truthfinding furrow. Matheson’s forehead likewise wrinkles, but in bemusement, not play, his eyebrows tipped-over question marks that at last conceive the possibility in Pincio’s mind that the man truly is playing it straight. Then—
    “Then what the hell is this? This looks like a termination checklist.”
    “Ah! No, never,” reassures Matheson, who is at last able to chalk the conversation up as Pincio’s problem, not his. A simple matter of employee anxiety. “We’re all family here at Terklee’s. The company is just undergoing a realignment. Going back to our roots, core competencies... nothing to worry about.”
    “Request account closure from IT..?” says Pincio, leafing through the affronts as vigorously as one can digitally leaf. “This is a Terklee’s core competency?”
    "It's about being agile.”
    “Confirm unused leave to be paid out..?”
    “We are operating in a complex economic environment.”
    Pincio steams. Matheson lifts a hand that makes it halfway to the man’s shoulder before being preemptively shrugged off, then smoothly reversing course—as though it had only ever intended to reach chest height—and settling back by Matheson’s side against an overlong reversible leather belt that pokes out like an uncut ziptie.
    “Jim, there is no way in the world that this is a serious list of performance metrics. Somebody is fucking with me. How are you not seeing this?”
    Fucking is a mistake. Matheson will tolerate anxiety—we’re all family at Terklee’s—but never an appearance that everything is not under control. Matheson the Manager is managing the situation, thank you, Lena, who is spying through the balustrade with INNOVATE stenciled across it. His hands rise to perch on his hips, left hand cocked behind the belt. Draw in three, two...
    “Those are your KPIs, Pincio. The market decides, not me. This is the direction we are moving in as a team and I need to know if you’re going to play ball or spit the dummy.”
    The mixed metaphor clips Pincio’s unpatted shoulder, spins him on his heels so his return shot goes astray. “And if I don’t meet the KPIs?”
    “You’ll be put on a PIP.”
    “Say I don’t meet the PIP targets.”
    “You would be fi— let go.” Matheson smirks with confidence that he has just averted the one potential blunder remaining for him in the conversation. Cleanup duty now. Erotically denied, Lena swivels back to a document she hasn’t edited in months.
    “So my job is to prepare for getting fired, and if I don’t do my job I’ll be fired. Do I have that about right?”
    “Roles change.”
    “Has yours?”
    Matheson’s grin is trying to pierce his ears. “My job is to take care of you, Pincio! We’re all family at—”
    Pincio’s broken hand is the best he’s ever felt.