"Complicated"
Shirley and Jenn are at work. It’s a typical 9-5 in Tech. They’ve been working on a project together for a few months and recently it started going badly.
Jenn: Shirley, “Chill out, what you yelling for?”
Shirley: This project is insane. Management is insane. I’m so close to quitting today.
Jenn: It’s nothing to quit over. It’s stressful, but you should “lay back.” What we’re doing isn’t new, “it’s all been done before.”
Shirley: (scoffs) What do you know? I’ve been doing this longer than you.
Jenn: What’s up with the newfound attitude? You’re usually the cool and collected one. Take a step back from this. If this was Tina’s or Joseph’s project would you feel this intensely about it? “If you could only let it be” then “you [would] see.”
Shirley: But it’s not theirs. It’s ours and we’re going to get fired over this. How are you not more concerned?
Jenn: One botched day of our work for the last few years is not going to throw us in the fire and put us on the who to nix next emails.
Shirley: I like it better when you’re working your deadlines instead of on this one.
Jenn: (sarcastically) And “I like you the way your are” too. Let’s go out for lunch for a bit. Get out of this stuffy office. “When we’re driving in your car” you seem to be relaxed. It also allows you to “[talk] to me one on one.”
Shirley: That sounds great if we didn’t already have one-foot in the grave on this one. What happened to you? “You’ve become somebody else ‘round everyone else” here at work. Always laughing with Sammy and Tina, who if I remember correctly you don’t actually like.
Jenn: You’re different too! “You’re watching your back like you can’t relax” every day. Your work has been good for so long, but what are you so paranoid about all of the sudden? It’s “like you can’t relax.”
Shirley: You are right about that. Ever since we got switched to that new manager I don’t think I’ll last here. You’re always “trying to be cool” with them and I don’t have that repertoire.
Jenn: What’s wrong with that? We have to get along to go along. It’s only been three months or something.
Shirley: “You’re trying to be cool.”
Jenn: So?
Shirley: “You look like a fool to me!” No one believes that’s the authentic you.
Jenn: “Tell me” something.
Shirley: What?
Jenn: “Why do you have to go and make things so complicated?”
Shirley: I don’t get you. “I see the way you’re acting like you’re somebody else” and it “gets me frustrated.”
Jenn: At some point, you’re going to have to be adaptable. “Life’s like this.”
Shirley: No it doesn’t have to be. This new manager and our new tasks. This is insane. So you can keep working, but I’m done.
Jenn: Listen, “you fall, and you crawl, and you break, and you take what you get, and you turn it into” something you can tolerate. That’s what I’m doing. I don’t want to have to look for another job in this economy.
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