I have a presentation due in two hours.”" The IT tech sighed. "“Did you save your work?”" "“It’s auto-saving to the cloud.”" "“Should be fine then. I’ll come look at it in a few minutes.”" 30 minutes later, her computer was back online. She opened the presentation file. It was blank.
Her heart sank. Six hours of work gone. She went to Claire’s office. "The presentation for Westfield Associates. My computer crashed and the file corrupted.
I’m going to need more time to recreate it." Claire looked up from her laptop. "“That presentation is due to Marcus in 90 minutes.”" "“I know, but did you not save backup copies?”" "“It was supposed to auto-save.”" "“Supposed to?”" Claire shook her head. "Amara, this is unacceptable. That client is important. You can’t just lose an entire presentation." "“It wasn’t my fault.
The computer...” “It’s your responsibility to back up your work.” Everyone knows that." She picked up her phone. "I’ll have to tell Marcus. He's not going to be happy." Amara left the office feeling like she’d been punched. She went back to her desk and started rebuilding the presentation from memory. She worked frantically, racing the clock.
At 5:30, Marcus appeared at her cubicle. "“I heard about the Westfield presentation.”" "“I’m almost done recreating it. I’ll have it to you by 6:00.”" "“That’s not the point.” We can’t have this kind of unreliability." "“My computer crashed. I’ve never had this happen before.”" "“That’s what backups are for.”" He crossed his arms. "Look, you’re still new here.
You’re learning. But you need to understand that this kind of mistake reflects on the whole team, on me." "I understand. It won't happen again." After he left, Amara sat very still. Her hands were shaking. She wanted to scream.
She wanted to cry. Instead, she took a breath and kept working. She finished the presentation at 6:15 and emailed it to Marcus. Then she went to IT. "“Can you check my auto-save settings?” The presentation I was working on earlier didn’t save." The tech pulled up her account.
After a moment, he frowned. "“Your auto-save was disabled.”" "““What?” I didn’t disable it.”" "“Someone did.” See the timestamp? Three days ago, 2:15." Amara’s stomach turned cold. Three days ago at 2:15, she’d been in a meeting. Her computer had been unlocked at her desk.
"“Can you turn it back on?”" "“Already done.”" She walked back to her desk slowly. She looked across the office to where Claire sat, typing away at her computer, perfectly composed. Amara sat down and opened her email. She wrote a message to Marcus, carefully worded, explaining that her auto-save had been disabled and IT had confirmed it. She attached a screenshot of the timestamp.