Severance
Cast:
Arachnea, Matoi Mikumo – age 27
Bunbee, Takagi Hachiemon – age 34
September, 2007
Arachnea has been made to wait in a small, unadorned conference room. When the door finally opens, Bunbee walks in with a large folder under his arm.
"Welcome to your performance review, Arach- ah, Ms. Matoi Mikumo. Or at least, that is what I would have liked to say. Owing to certain events of which you may be aware, this will actually be more like an exit interview."
The woman sneers. "I did what I had to do. You didn't give me enough resources to complete my assignments."
"You went over my head, and as a result the decision to let you go will be handed down from above."
"What does that matter? You set me up to fail!"
Bunbee takes a deep breath, while pinching the bridge of his nose. "Of course you'd see it that way. You're not even entirely wrong: Most of our departmental budget has been diverted to other departments as a result of my actions. To say nothing of supporting your activities, it has been a struggle to even pay your salary. Now, I am going to talk about why. To begin with, did you know that nobody named Kamaki Rintarou has ever been employed here?"
"Kamaki- Wait, wasn't that Girinma's name?"
"Indeed. After he was fired, I made an inquiry to human resources, who kindly informed me that I had never had any subordinates! Imagine my surprise!"
"Never-" Arachnea's eyes widen. "You can't do that! When Mr. Kawarino hears of this-"
"I'm sure he already knows. You've always received your salary in cash, right? The story as it has been made known to me is that none of you were ever hired and that the money paid out to you was 'mistakenly' entered into the company's ledger as discretionary funds, or some such nonsense. Getting the records corrected has required a great deal of my time this quarter, as well as nearly all of our funds. I even had to give myself a pay cut."
"I don't understand. Why would you do that?"
"Because there are some things you don't do to people. I couldn't do anything for Girinma, but when you go looking for your next job, Nightmare won't be able to deny that you worked here."
Bunbee slides the folder across the table to her.
"This folder contains the details of your severance package. For your next employer, make sure you pick a better company."