The Ignored by Bentley Little - (ebook by Undead)

asked.
    “Everything. If you had bothered to look through the books I left on
your desk, you would have noticed that we no longer use that hardware system. I
want you to revise those operator manuals so that they reflect our current
system.”
    “How do I do that?” I asked.
    He stared at me. “You’re asking me how to do your job?”
    Connor had grown increasingly uncomfortable, and he nodded toward me.
“I’ll show you,” he offered.
    I looked at him gratefully, smiling my thanks.
    Stewart fixed the programmer with a disapproving glare but said nothing.
    I followed Connor back to his cubicle.
    It was easier than I’d thought it would be. Connor simply gave me a
stack of manuals that had come with the computers Automated Interface had
recently purchased. He told me to xerox them, put them in binders, then deliver
them to the different departments within the company.
    “You mean I’m just supposed to replace the old books with new ones?” I
asked.
    “Right.”
    “How come Mr. Stewart told me to revise the manuals?”
    “That’s just the way he talks.” The programmer tapped the cover of the
top manual he’d given me. “Just make sure you return those to me when you’re
through. I need them. You should find a distribution list somewhere in your desk
that will tell you how many copies each department gets. Gabe always kept an
up-to-date distribution list.”
    Gabe. My predecessor. In addition to being friendly and outgoing, he’d
apparently been well-organized and efficient as well.
    “Thanks,” I told Connor.
    “You’re welcome.”
    I licked my lips. This was the first positive contact I’d actually had
with one of my coworkers, and more than anything else I wanted to follow up on
it. I wanted to build on this tentative base, to try and establish some sort of
relationship with Connor. But I did not know how. I could have attempted to
continue the conversation, I suppose. I could have asked him what he was working
on. I could have tried to talk about something non-work related.
    But I didn’t.
    He turned back to his terminal, and I returned to my office.
    I saw Connor later, near the Coke machine, and I smiled and waved at him
as I entered the break room, but he ignored me, turned away, and, embarrassed, I
quickly got my drink and left.
    At lunch, I saw Connor leaving with Pam Greene. They didn’t see me, and
I stood on the sidelines, watching them take the elevator down. I’d begun
dreading lunch, feeling self-conscious about the fact that I always ate by
myself. I would have much preferred working eight hours straight and getting off
an hour earlier at the end of the day, not taking a lunch at all. I did not need
sixty minutes each day to prove to me how I was regarded by my coworkers. I was
depressed enough by the job as it was.
    What depressed me further was the fact that everyone— everyone —seemed to have someone to eat with. Even someone like Derek, who as far as I
could tell was almost universally reviled, had someone with whom he spent his
lunch: a squat, toadlike man who worked someplace upstairs. I alone was alone.
The secretaries who were nice to me during working hours all said good-bye and
waved politely before abandoning me at lunchtime, not even bothering to ask if I
would like to accompany them, perhaps assuming that I already had something to
do with my lunch hour.
    Perhaps not.
    Whatever the reason, I was ignored, not invited, left to my own devices.
    The secretaries, I must admit, did seem to be nicer to me than everyone
else. Hope, our department secretary, always treated me well. She had the calm,
kind, perpetually friendly air of a stereotypical grandmother, and she greeted
me each day with a cheerful smile and a heartfelt “Hello!” She asked about my
weekend plans on Friday afternoons; she asked how those plans turned out on
Monday morning. She said good-bye to me each evening before I left.
    Or course, she was equally nice to everyone within