I’m getting wrapped up in the job. That’s what’s happening. I’ve been making sale after sale, day after day. Things with the accountant are getting tense. She and Jake got into a yelling match the other day. I was in the back talking with Estelle about it when the accountant’s mom walked by, dropping something off for her daughter. I had just finished saying that maybe we could infuriate the accountant enough to make her quit.

When the accountant came back, she had a nasty look on her face. She didn’t say hello to us. Estelle told her that her mother came by, and the accountant said that she knew, that she had already spoken with her.

She passed by my side of the counter and told me that a pile of books that had been stacked there for over a month needed to go. I was on the phone. It wasn’t me that had put the books there. I had fought long and hard to keep that area clean. It was the boss had done it. He’s always taking advantage of open counter space. She knows this. It’s one of her main frustrations with him.

The next day, she’s not in the office. She’s taking two days off. There’s no word of where she is or what she’s doing, and that’s fine. While she is gone, we all gather and talk about her. There is the serious question of what we should do. Should we tell our boss how we feel about her? He loves her too much. This isn’t just some temp. This is one of his original employees. Someone who had walked out after our boss had made some unreasonable purchase or other. And now she’s back, here to reinvent the wheel again and save the day. She’s gotten under all of our skin, and she’s en route to making Jake quit.

He had put a request for time off on the calendar on the week before Christmas. He meant to tell the accountant, but she ended up yelling at him about something else, and so he forgot. The accountant found Jake’s written time off on the calendar, and he was told that it was impossible, he couldn’t go. No way. Nobody can take those days off. It’s the busiest time of the year. We need all hands on deck.

She brought the matter to our boss, in her distinctive distorted human resources manager manner, and he agreed that it was impossible, so Jake was then presented with an ultimatum.

Jake’s boyfriend’s mom had already bought him the ticket. She’d surprised him with it. He’d told her at the time that it might not have been the best idea, that his work might not be happy about it, but it was too late; she couldn’t return it.

Now Jamie-Beth is planning an intercession. She thinks that she is the accountant’s favorite. She took the accountant out for drinks one time. The accountant had told her that she reminded her of a friend of hers.

What do you mean, Jamie-Beth had asked.

The accountant had told her that it was nothing. You’re just intense, is all.

I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, Jamie-Beth tells us, but never intense. Do you think that I’m intense, she asks.

It’s definitely not the first word I’d use to describe you, I tell her.

Here she is, going into battle against the monster, and I switched my Saturday for Sunday, because Jamie-Beth may not be intense, but I have a feeling that her battle with the accountant is going to be.