She said:
"Your file formatting is a mess. I can't make sense of it."
"And you only have digital copies. What happens if they get lost someday? I want you to handwrite the source and the client contact information for every single project right now."
After more than ten days of this, with nothing ever satisfying her, I slammed my hand on the desk.
Abraham, who had been playing deaf and mute through all of it, called us both into his office at once.
"Winona, what's all the shouting about?"
"Agatha is the design director. You do whatever she tells you to do. The day Director Mason is satisfied is the day I sign your resignation request!"
Agatha let out a smug little hum, and before she turned to leave, she ordered me to make her a coffee and bring it to her office.
I folded my arms and looked at him.
"Abraham, this is what you call keeping business and personal separate?"
"Winona, whether you admit it or not, she's the design director now. If you humiliate her in front of everyone, how is she supposed to command any respect later?"
"Get it out of your system and then leave. It doesn't look good for you to be alone in here with me."
Five years of marriage, and for the first time, sharing a space with him felt suffocating.
"I'm going strictly by the law. Thirty days at the most, and I'm out on schedule. She can do whatever she wants with that."
Before starting at my new company, I still had to move and sell the apartment.
I didn't have time to waste dragging this out with them.
On my last day, all that was left on my desk was a water cup and a laptop.
Abraham had a meeting at headquarters today, so he'd signed off yesterday, and my resignation paperwork had already cleared.
After saying my goodbyes to everyone one by one, I gathered up those last two things and got ready to leave.
Only to find Agatha and her people blocking the doorway.
"I suspect there are company secrets on your personal computer. I'm having the tech department take it now!"
That laptop held every drop of effort I'd poured in over the years. It never left my side, going to and from work, and there was no way I'd let them walk off with it on their own.
"I'm willing to cooperate with an inspection, but I'm not handing it over to you!"
Agatha's lips curled into a mocking smile. "There are a lot of newly designed templates and fonts on that computer too, aren't there?"
I froze. Those were the portfolio pieces I'd been preparing for interviews after deciding to resign. I hadn't told a soul.
And the only person who could open my computer was Abraham.
Agatha said loudly:
"Some people have no professional integrity whatsoever. The company pours all these resources into training her, and she won't even hand over the core materials in full."
"If everyone acted like this, how would the department ever get its work done?"
All I wanted these past days was to resign and get out fast, but that didn't mean she got to walk all over me.
"This is my personal computer. The templates and fonts on it are my own original work. They have nothing to do with the company."
"You have no right to take my private designs!"
The coworkers around me chimed in. "Exactly. Who doesn't know how much Winona has contributed here? Most of the proposals were original work she did with her own hands. Why would she need to take anything?"
"If you ask me, some people are just deliberately making things hard for others!"
Agatha couldn't keep her composure. She gave the order: "What are you all standing around for? Go grab that computer from her!"
"Can any of you afford to pay for damage to company property?"
She pointed at the coworkers around her. "Anyone who wants to resign alongside her is welcome to come help her!"
Everyone lowered their heads in unison and pretended to work.
Two security guards pinned me down, and Agatha unlocked my computer with ease, using Abraham's birthday.
She clicked around a few times carelessly. "Nothing worth looking at, really." Then she held it out to me.
But I was being held, and couldn't reach to take it.
She smiled, and let go. The laptop dropped to the floor.
Her high heel came down on the screen, and it shattered to pieces.
