"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Crunchers, Inc." - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

Edith nodded.

“I was five, maybe littler. He told me to take care of it.”

“Which I’m sure you did.” The computer beeped again. Edith wished she
could take that insistent tone with people. Maybe that was why they all came to her
in the end. Because she was unfailingly polite.

“I did!” Reginald said with something like surprise. “And because of that
horse, I went to a Wild West vacation in Arizona when I was twenty-five. I met my
wife, we had my daughter, and I wouldn’t be standing here.”

“Resigning,” Edith said.

That stopped him. “Quitting,” he said after a moment. As if he were actually
reflecting.

None of them had ever reflected before.

“How will you pay for your home? Your wife’s—” she paused, looked down,
saw nothing on the wife except that she had some outstanding student loans, and
took a wild stab at it. “—continuing education? Your daughter’s first four-year
college? Hmmm?”

“We have savings,” he said, sounding less and less certain of himself.

“And what happens when those savings run out?” she asked.

He stared at her for a long moment. Then those blood-shot eyes of his went
slightly wild and he yelled, “I can’t stay here! My grandfather gave me a horse!”

“I know,” Edith said, hitting the image of the check on her desk-screen, then
hitting print so that Reginald could have a hardcopy recommendation letter in
addition to the e-mail version. “Believe me, I know.”

****

Reginald left fifteen minutes later, stopping to tell anyone who made eye
contact with him about his grandfather, the plastic horse, and the small gestures that
could turn into major events.
 Damn EISH, anyway. They’d found a way to get to him.

They always found a way in.

Edith summoned Conrad Meisner, telling him to meet her in five minutes in
what had been Reginald’s office. She felt unfairly burdened.

Any senior management official who got confronted with a terminating
employee had to handle all problems caused by that employee.