Maxed Out Read Online Free Page A

him.
    “It’s ‘their’ as in ‘the amps they own’ as opposed to ‘the
amps in that location,’” he says. “This is like fifth grade English stuff.”
    He’s right. Normally the word processor picks this stuff up.
I must be slipping. Maybe it’s the constant looming presence that’s interfering
in my work. Nah. Couldn’t be.
    “Don’t you have something better to do?” I ask.
    “No,” he says. “I’m supposed to help you. Since you haven’t
told me how I’m supposed to do that, I’m stuck here watching you. I don’t like
this any more than you do. Do us both a favor and assign me something. Share
the load.”
    “Okay,” I say, turning around. “Do this article.” I hand him
my notes and requirements for the piece on the Korean band Phil assigned me
earlier this week. “You’ve got two days. Go.”
    “This is your article,” he says. “I’m not supposed to just
do your work with no help from you. You’re supposed to ease me into this.”
    “Phil said I could use you however I wanted,” I say. I don’t
actually remember any such thing, I’m just bluffing. “Of course I’m going to
review it and monitor you a little, but you came really highly recommended. I
doubt a little buzz piece like this will give you any trouble.”
    “I’m going to check with him first,” he says, standing up.
Fuck. Second day with Jeremy and he’s already going over my head to override
me. Things are turning out just great.
    A minute later, Phil is standing over me, shaking his head.
“I wanted you to do that article, Jeanine,” he says. “You’ve got a unique
insight into this sort of thing. Let it through. Jeremy can do your regular
column.”
    “But I’ve got that almost complete,” I say. “He just has to
–“
    “You’ve got too little on your plate as it is,” Phil says.
“There’s more than enough time for you to complete the other article before we
print Friday. Don’t go throwing all the hard work on the new guy.” He turns and
leaves before I can rebut.
    I bury my head in my hands. This looks bad for me – it’s not
that Phil is wrong about anything in particular, just that the whole point of
this was to give him something to do to get Jeremy off of my back. Now, he’s
just proved that he’s got more sway with our boss than I do.
    “You heard him,” Jeremy says. “E-mail me what you have done
so far for that article. Also your notes.”
    “What?” I say. “It’s just a little column. He said you
should write it. I’m basically finished. If you put your name on it at this
point it’d be plagiarism, straight up.”
    Jeremy glances in Phil’s general direction. “Do you want me
to –“
    “No,” I say. He’s made his point. “Whatever. I’ll do it.”
    Half an hour later, when he’s finally done browsing
Facebook, he edits my name out and hands it to Phil. If the plan was for me to
be productive, it failed: I’ve spent the whole time glowering in Jeremy’s
direction. I certainly haven’t stopped now. The way Jeremy just circumvents the
normal order of operations and hands off MY article right to the boss,
bypassing every edit, check and balance in the process is both baffling and
offensive.
    The worst part about this is that if Phil doesn’t like what
Jeremy hands in I’ll get blamed for not teaching him right.
    Being frustrated isn’t getting me anywhere. I try to focus
on my work. I’ve got a few sources and a contact for a possible interview so
far but not a lot else. The good thing about Jeremy bringing the boss in was
his choice of words about me doing the article. I’ve been thinking about this
as a little fluff PR thing, but as I finally bring myself to do some research it
turns out there’s actually something going on here – maybe not something
newsworthy in itself, but I can spin it to create a narrative. I need to be
sure on my facts first, though, which means doing things and not pretending I
have heat vision and I’m incinerating our new