You tell her you won’t be doing that.
“The atmosphere in this office is so stagnant,” Susie says, and decides to try and make Miss Hoity-Toity resign. You don’t see or hear anyone openly agreeing to help Susie achieve this objective, but then they wouldn’t do that in your presence, given that you now eat lunch with Eva every day. So when Eva momentarily turns her back on some food she’s just bought and looks round to find the salad knocked over so that her desk is coated with dressing, when Eva’s locker key is stolen and she subsequently finds her locker full of condoms, when Eva’s sent a legitimate-looking file attachment that crashes her computer for a few hours and nobody else can spare the use of theirs for even a minute, you just look straight at Susie even though you know she isn’t acting alone. Susie’s power trip has come so far along that she goes around the office snickering with her eyes half closed. Is it the job that’s doing this to you all or do these games get played no matter what the circumstances? A new girl has to be friendly and morally upright; she should open up, just pick someone and open up to them, make her choices relatable. “I didn’t know he was married” would’ve been well received, no matter how wooden the delivery of those words. Just give us something to start with, Miss Hoity-Toity.
Someone goes through Eva’s bag and takes her diary; when Eva discovers this she stands up at her desk and asks for her diary back. She offers money for it: “Whatever you want,” she says. “I know you guys don’t like me, and I don’t like you either, but come on. That’s two years of a life. Two years of a life.”
Everyone seems completely mystified by her words. Kathleen advises Eva to “maybe check the toilets” and Eva runs off to do just that, comes back empty-handed and grimacing. She keeps working, and the next time she goes to the printer there’s another printout waiting for her on top of her document: RESIGN & GET THE DIARY BACK.
—
EVA DEMONSTRATES her seriousness regarding the diary by submitting her letter of resignation the very same day. She says good-bye to you but you don’t answer. In time she could have beat Susie and Co., could have forced them to accept that she was just there to work, but she let them win. Over what? Some book? Pathetic.
The next day George “finds” Eva’s diary next to the coffee machine, and when you see his ungloved hands you notice what you failed to notice the day before—he and everybody except you and Eva wore gloves indoors all day. To avoid leaving fingerprints on the diary, you suppose. Nice; this can only mean that your coworkers have more issues than you do.
You volunteer to be the one to give Eva her diary back. The only problem is you don’t have her address, or her phone number—you never saw her outside of work. HR can’t release Eva’s contact details; the woman isn’t in the phone book and has no online presence. You turn to the diary because you don’t see any other option. You try to pick the lock yourself and fail, and your elder sister whispers: “Try Grandma . . .”