Expected

She expected the always tense exchange, the manager's tone and pressure, repeating talking points as trained. No problem.

She expected the redundant emphasis on sales, the standard lecture about office costs, the usual warning that longer hours may be required, time-off frozen.

She expected the same tired spiel heard at every anesthetized department meeting or seminar, after a tortured year of brand new incompetence from brand new leadership, while her employer's brand suffered a horrible ambush of decimated corporate earnings.

She expected fifteen, maybe twenty plodding minutes of her boss's status quo, "Let's up our game!" nonsense, then the short drive, what to make for dinner.

She didnt expect she'd be going home to her family, unemployed.