Age Recommendation: 18+
Two women working alone on Christmas Day. Strangely for Australia, it isn't summer weather - it's full on snowing.
"I can't believe they rostered us."
Chrissie tried to ignore her coworker. Her entire attention straining to focus on the streams of columns, the numbers forced into the little cells. Contained and controlled. Forced to try and give up some meaning.
There were no formulas in the sheets. It was an export from another company. Which meant that most of the results were floating point numbers - and rounded. Which meant the results couldn't be relied on, and had to be reforged by the depths of her mind.
"I mean, it's actually snowing! It never snows here. Snowing. At Christmas. In Australia... And we're at work, looking at stupid accounts, and it isn't even an emergency or anything!" Lisa continued to complain.
Chrissie was entirely grateful for the simplicity of GST. Unfortunately, it wasn't the only tax that applied, and the ones that did... They changed over which state the product was manufactured in, or worse, which it was shipped out to. Often both. Stupid numbers that were made stupidly complex, just because someone wanted to hide how much they could get.
The average person was still burnt by it.
She delicately adjusted the numbers in the spreadsheet, making sure they accurately reflected the correct tax rates. It was a painstaking process, requiring precision and attention to detail. One wrong calculation, and the entire report could be thrown off. Most of the numbers were right, but...
Every number could shift the others, and the nature of floating point numbers meant that the accuracy didn't shift with time, it shifted with similarity to certain squares of two. It was frustrating, and hard to spot unless you knew what you were looking for.
"This stuff isn't even due until March!" Lisa said with frustration, "It's snowing! I can remember it snowing just once. I was going for my Ls, and terrified, and that was a mess, but... Once! It's snowing and I'm in here with -"
"Seven fifty four!" Chrissie snapped.
Lisa nodded tiredly, "Yeah. Complex and frustrating, because spreadsheet programs just don't wise up and use fixed point decimals. Especially with an adjustable precision! This thing just sucks."
Chrissie sighed and looked over at the window, at the rain drops rolling down it, and the tiny white powder trying to gather at the bottom but melting away just a little bit too quickly.
She didn't really care about the numbers. She wanted to escape into it, because her head was full of a lot of things. Thoughts that she couldn't safely share with Lisa, or anybody really.
Part of it was why she was in the office. Her Christmas was ruined. Working on the day had come as a relief, her boss had almost rejected her volunteering. If she was at home... She might well have curled up in tears on the couch, whilst a takeaway pizza lay on the table and went cold.
Unfortunately, part of it was still waiting for her at home. And tomorrow. And the day after. She couldn't actually escape it. Being at work instead of on holiday was an attempt to escape, but it was waiting. Today would end, and it would still come crashing in on her.
The bed lying so very empty.
Her blanket feeling so very big.
Random things like the BBQ outside that she would never think of using. All of it were reminders. Conversations and memories of a past that led towards a future that would never be hers.
So instead she was looking at the numbers, and cursing CSV for its inherent inaccuracies. The company probably did use it to sneak a cent here and there, but it was just the format being a difficult one. Floating point numbers belonged nowhere near financial applications, but still somehow was the standard for most spreadsheets.
"I didn't actually have Christmas plans." Lisa admitted, "Kinda hate Christmas, to be honest. Last year I spent it with the fiancé. The one I caught up my ex-best friend's duff on Boxing Day. Screw Christmas."
© Copyright 2024, James Milne