My new apartment was not very far away. Just up the hill. One block away. But it felt like progress. Emotionally, spiritually, geographically—one block can mean a lot.

When I saw the ad for the apartment, it felt like fate. Years earlier I had tried to rent that exact same place, but someone else had beaten me to it. And if you’ve ever tried to rent in Salt Lake, you know the rule: apartments move faster than Mormon engagements.

So, this time I did not hesitate.

Well—no. That’s not true. I hesitated responsibly.

I left work early to go look at the place, and I brought my brother Alan with me, because at this point in my life I did not trust my own judgment. I had made… several questionable decisions. Some involving men. Some involving housing. Some involving both.

So, Alan came as my emotional support adult.

We walked through the apartment together. I watched his face carefully, like a juror trying to read the verdict.

But it was good.

The price was right. The rooms were normal human sizes. And most importantly—after my last apartment—the floor was level.

You don’t realize how important a level floor is until you’ve lived on one that isn’t.

The only real downside was the parking. It was on the street.

And the street was a hill.

Not a dramatic San-Francisco-tourists-taking-photos hill. But definitely a hill.

A hill with a dramatic drop off at the end, and a school playground at the bottom. And nothing but a chain link fence to block the path should the road be icy, or my brake lines having been cut by an evil villain.

And I had never really properly learned how to parallel park. So, I was going to have to learn. Fast.

Nothing builds character like parking on a slope while strangers watch.

The apartment also had a little garden space I could claim. Which was exciting.

Unfortunately, it had been neglected for years. It was mostly weeds, rocks, and the vague suggestion that vegetables might have once lived there.

Still, I was optimistic.

I pulled the weeds, built a little raised flower bed, bought bags of soil. I planted things. I watered them lovingly.

And then the wildlife arrived.

Apparently, the neighborhood squirrels had been waiting years for someone dumb enough to restart the buffet.

Birds came. Squirrels came. Occasionally a deer would wander by like it had a dinner reservation.

Honestly, the only creatures who didn’t benefit from the garden were me.

But the kitties loved it.

From the window, they had an all-day wildlife documentary.

Birds. Squirrels. Leaves moving suspiciously.

Every five minutes someone was pressed against the glass like, “Mother. I must murder that immediately.”

Sometimes I tried bringing them outside with me.

This did not go well.

Bingley immediately developed a fascination with the back of the property, which I’m fairly certain contained nothing except trouble.

Betty, meanwhile, discovered grass.

The garden was on a slope, and Betty—who was a very… generously proportioned cat—would simply start waddling downhill.

Not running.

Not jumping.

Just slowly rolling forward like a furry bowling ball.

He’d reach the neighbor’s lawn and start nibbling their grass like a tiny cow.

I’d be halfway up the hill yelling, “BETTY. THAT IS NOT OUR GRASS.”

But he had committed to the journey.

And Betty was not a quitter.

Meanwhile, life at work was… evolving.

I was still working at Spring with Ann, building increasingly elaborate Excel spreadsheets every month to track the commission plans.

And when I say “commission plans,” what I really mean is corporate obstacle courses.

Every month the VPs invented new hoops for the sales team to jump through in order to get paid.

And every month I had to build a new Excel structure to calculate it.

Sometimes it felt less like accounting and more like translating ancient runes.

“Okay… if they sell this product in this region during a leap year while Mercury is in retrograde… they get 3%… unless the moon is waxing.”

Meanwhile the company was exploding.

When I started there were 300 employees, then it grew to about 3,000 employees.

Then suddenly we were at 8,000.

Then 10,000.

The growth came in these huge, chaotic spurts whenever the company bought out a competitor. One day everything would be normal, and the next day it was like:

“Good news! We now own three other companies and no one knows how their payroll works!”

It was impressive.

Also… deeply poorly managed.

Management would make big promises to the sales teams, and then forget to tell payroll.

Or they’d plan massive takeovers and not mention it to the people who were supposed to pay everyone afterward.

My personal favorite was when they would change the commission structure mid-month and not tell me.

Which meant I would calculate everything using the old rules.

And then the checks would go out.

And they would be wrong.

And everyone would say, “Diana, why are these wrong?”

And I would say, “Because someone changed the rules and forgot to tell the person doing the math.”

But somehow… it was still my fault.

After several payroll disasters like this, management decided I needed help.

So, they hired someone.

I trained him for weeks.

Weeks.

I explained the systems. But he never took notes. He never seemed to catch on.

And every five minutes he would come back to my desk and say, “Hey, how do I do this part?”

Which was… all of it.

Or worse—he would just do it wrong.

Which meant I had to fix it later.

So instead of reducing my workload… I now had a second job: cleaning up after him.

And of course—because this is how the universe works—

He was getting paid more than I was.

Naturally.

And when the Assistant Manager position opened up?

I was passed over.

Twice.

At a certain point the whole situation started to feel like one of those stress dreams where you’re running as fast as you can but somehow still moving backward.

Then one of the VPs got fired. And three department heads quit in the same week.

And suddenly the building felt less like a workplace and more like a house where someone had quietly yelled “fire”… and half the adults had already left through the back door.

That’s when I had a thought.

Maybe—

Just maybe—

It was time to go.

Turned out my instincts were right. Our company had been purchased by a larger company right before I had started. They were the ones flush with cash, able to fund the momentous growth. We went from being a small, unimportant retail chain to the second-largest AT&T retail chain in just a few years.

And once we had finally made it big—

We were sold to the competition.

If I had stayed a few more weeks, I would have been laid off with the rest of the office staff.

But instead, I found a new job at Sinclair Oil. A payroll position in a team of three—me, Valyn, and the manager, Kayla. I was told that Kayla planned to retire in a few years, and when she did, I would be promoted to her position.

I should have gotten that in writing.

If you don’t know, the Sinclair logo is a dinosaur.

Which, as it turns out, was extremely on brand.

The place was staffed almost entirely by people who were well past retirement age but had simply decided… not to stop working. The head of our department, Verm, was in his seventies. Kayla was in her seventies. Valyn was in her sixties.

And they were far from the oldest people there.

Which meant things were done the way they had always been done.

Slowly. Laboriously. With an astonishing amount of paper.

There were handwritten ledgers. Ten-key calculator receipts in long curling ribbons. Typewriters. Fax machines. Filing cabinets that appeared to predate the moon landing.

It was maddening.

My coworker, Valyn, was also incredibly maddening.

We went to lunch together my first week. Sushi. Before ordering, we discussed that we would share our rolls.

Very civilized.

Very collaborative.

However, when the food arrived, she immediately wrapped her arm protectively around her plate and began shoveling her roll into her mouth like a raccoon guarding a donut.

I did not get a single piece.

But she helped herself freely to mine.

At the end of the meal, she told the waitress we would split the bill.

And then she didn’t tip.

This should tell you everything you need to know about Valyn.

She was the kind of person who would make a mistake and then try to hide it. And if it was discovered, she would blame it on me.

Even if it had happened before I started.

Even if it was a payroll I had never touched.

And somehow… no one ever called her on it.

She was constantly on personal phone calls, conducting long, loud conversations about gossip I had absolutely no interest in hearing.

And they were repeated.

Over and over.

Like a podcast no one had asked to subscribe to.

I quickly learned never to tell her anything unless I wanted the entire office to know.

Which led her to complain that I “wasn’t very friendly.”

She cut her nails at her desk.

She cut her toenails at her desk.

I cannot adequately express how much restraint it took not to commit a felony.

And then Kayla died.

One morning she simply didn’t wake up. Apparent heart failure.

It was shocking. Sudden. Sad.

But from a purely professional standpoint… it also seemed like the situation we had discussed.

Kayla had planned to retire soon.

And I had been told I would take over her position.

So, while the company figured out what to do, and it became clear no one else was stepping in, I took it upon myself to begin clearing out her office.

Which, as it turned out, was not a small task.

One thing you should know about Kayla:

Kayla was a hoarder.

A hoarder who had worked in that office for eighteen years.

There were piles upon piles of paper. Drawers packed so tightly they barely opened. The space under her large corner desk was filled so completely that you physically could not put your legs underneath it.

Which I assume is how she maintained such good posture.

Cleaning out the office was not easy work.

She had printed every email she had ever received.

Every single one.

Apparently, she also had a deep and abiding love for the photocopier.

She didn’t just make copies of things.

She made thirty-two copies of things.

Articles. Emails. Random documents.

Why thirty-two?

No one knows.

Possibly the copier refused to stop.

As I started pulling out more and more paper, I began finding mouse droppings.

Which is never a good sign in an office environment.

Then I found bags of candy that had been stashed away and fallen behind stacks of boxes.

The mice had enjoyed those very much.

I also discovered shoes.

A stash of unused Christmas cards.

And approximately nine thousand plastic grocery bags.

The deeper I dug, the stranger it became.

It was an immense project.

And not one person ever offered to help.

It took weeks.

Weeks of digging through papers, mouse droppings, and what was essentially an indoor landfill.

I had purchased face masks to wear while I worked, due to the chance of hantavirus.

Which, in hindsight, was excellent timing.

Because that was right when we started hearing about a new virus spreading around the world.

COVID.