In an email sent to our entire division, my boss blamed a project failure on my legally protected medical appointments.
His mandatory 7 a.m. meetings were the problem, scheduled directly over the physical therapy I desperately needed to function after a bad car accident. I had tried reasoning with him, explaining the screaming nerve pain and the doctor’s orders.
He told me the business needs came first, all while scheduling his own work day around a 3 p.m. tee time.
This man thought a few corporate buzzwords gave him the right to bulldoze my health and my reputation for his own convenience. He never expected I would use his favorite glass-walled conference room as a stage for his downfall, all with a single sheet of paper.
The Tyranny of 7 A.M.
The email notification slid onto my screen with the subtlety of a dropped anvil. *Meeting Invitation: Project Apex – Sunrise Sync.* The organizer, as always, was Mark. The time, as always, was 7:00 a.m. A thick, hot knot of acid formed in my stomach.
It was a recurring series. Tuesday and Thursday, for the foreseeable future. My standing physical therapy appointments were Tuesday and Thursday at 7:30 a.m., a precious slot I’d waited two months to get after the car accident. It was the only way I could function, the only thing keeping the sciatic nerve pain from screaming its way down my right leg and turning my day into a tight-lipped endurance test.
Mark knew this. I had told him, calmly and privately, a month ago when he’d first started this trend. He’d given me a placid, unblinking stare and said, “Well, we’ve all got to make sacrifices for Apex, Sarah. It’s a high-visibility project.”
The conference room was already buzzing with the low hum of laptops and forced morning cheerfulness. I slipped into a chair, my back protesting the stiff upholstery. Mark was at the head of the table, holding court, his crisp white shirt practically glowing under the fluorescent lights. He looked rested. He looked like a man who hadn’t spent ten minutes that morning meticulously working through a series of stretches just to be able to put on his own shoes.
“Glad everyone could make it,” he began, his eyes sweeping the room before landing on me for a fraction of a second too long. “Commitment is what’s going to get Apex across the finish line.” He clicked a button, and the first slide, a garish explosion of charts and buzzwords, filled the screen. My phone buzzed in my bag. A text from Dr. Sharma’s office: *Confirming your 7:30 a.m. appointment? Please reply Y or N.* I felt a muscle in my jaw twitch.
The Ghost in the Machine
“Mom, did you see my permission slip for the field trip?” Leo, my fifteen-year-old, stood in the kitchen doorway, all lanky limbs and a cloud of dark hair. He was holding a crumpled piece of paper that looked like it had survived a natural disaster.
I was standing at the counter, trying to chop vegetables for dinner. Each bend forward sent a low, electric thrum down my leg. “It’s on the counter, honey. I signed it last night.”
“Oh. Cool.” He grabbed it, then paused. “You okay? You’re making that face again.”
“Just a little stiff,” I said, forcing a smile that felt brittle. It was my “pain face,” as my husband, David, called it. A slight tightening around the eyes, a rigid set to my mouth. I didn’t even know I was making it most of the time. It was the ghost in my own machine.
David came in and wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder. He saw it too. “Tough day?” he murmured, his voice a warm comfort against my ear.
“The usual.” I leaned back into him, letting his solid presence ground me for a moment. “Mark scheduled another two months of his ‘Sunrise Sprints.’ Right over my PT.”
David’s arms tightened. “Again? Did you talk to him?”
“What’s the point? It’s like talking to a particularly ambitious brick wall. He thinks ‘synergy’ is a substitute for basic human decency.” I winced as I reached for the olive oil, the movement pulling on the tight bands of muscle in my lower back. This was why I needed the therapy. This dull, persistent ache was the price of sitting in a conference room at 7 a.m. instead of being on a padded table, working to reclaim my own body.
About the Author
