The Nettle Tea Chronicles

Zoe

Zoe's Wednesday went pretty normally. Work was about as bland as usual; which was to say boring but not uneventful. She was even getting used to getting screamed at over the phone!

At least she could take solace in knowing that her coworkers all got screamed at too. And they could all vent about it together.

If any of them had even a single social bone in their bodies. Outside of Cassandra, who she had ended up befriending by happenstance thanks to their shared love of gaming, the list of coworkers that either of them would consider even just acquaintances was pathetically thin.

Truly, the vast majority of the folks that worked in their office were very much the show up, do their work, and go home types. Which, to be completely fair, Zoe was 100% behind. She was also like that.

But damn, their work was a big cause of stress, and she wanted nothing more than to at least be able to whine with her coworkers about all the shit their customers said to them.

And she felt bad about Cass always being the one she complained to. It went both ways, of course, but she also didn't want to always spend their time together whining about work. Work sucked, but talking about it so much off the clock wasn't the way she wanted to spend her time.

It was almost one when Cass swung by her desk. It was well past typical lunch time, and Zoe had been convinced that her friend had either abandoned her for lunch or simply not gotten to take one herself before she showed up.

Zoe rolled her eyes and pointed to the phone still by her ear, with the woman on the other end yelling about something that Zoe had no power over. Which was, unfortunately, quite typical.

Cass offered her a consoling smile and pointed to the door. Zoe nodded, then tried to focus back on her phone conversation, that really wasn't much of a conversation at all.

"Yes, ma'am, I understand that. I am sorry for the inconvenience, but there's nothing that I can personally - Yes, yes, I understand that."

Zoe held in the massive sigh building in her throat while waiting for the woman on the other end to stop shouting long enough for Zoe to hand her off.

"Yes…yes. Ma'am, as I said, there's nothing I can do to help you, I'm sorry. Let me transfer you over to the billing department to get you taken care of."

As expected, that set the woman off again. Zoe knew for experience getting sent around on a game of phone tag trying to find someone capable of helping you was a nightmare, but on the other hand, she was just tech support. She literally could not help the woman with billing issues.

Desperately hungry, she put the woman on hold despite her protests and transferred her call to billing. She prayed someone would pick up. But she wouldn't be at her desk if it bounced back, so it would be someone else's problem.

Or, perhaps, hers if the woman was irate enough to wait on the line afterward for the survey.

She doubted it though. People as mad as this woman was wouldn't leave feedback on a survey like that. If the call got bounced up to her boss, maybe. But not the automated survey.

Zoe quickly gathered her jacket, threw it on, and unceremoniously dumped her things in her large jacket pockets. They zipped closed on this coat, and she loved that. They were big enough for everything she needed, so she didn't have any desire to carry a purse. Especially in the city.

She slipped away from her desk toward the door and out down the hallway. Ducking into the break room, she found Cass leaning against the wall looking at her phone. Doomscrolling, no doubt.

"Yo."

Cass's face popped up and she slid her phone into a pocket. "Escaped?"

"Barely." Zoe rolled her eyes again. "How is it that people always contact fucking tech support when their issue is clearly billing? Isn't filtering that shit exactly why we have the stupid automated phone tree?"

Cass snorted. "Supposedly." She trailed off as she pushed off the wall and motioned toward the elevator with her head. Zoe followed obediently behind her as they made their way out of the building quietly. They didn't have long for lunch. Leaving so late meant if they took their full hour, they'd return around two, which wouldn't look great. They both knew they'd want to be back before then.

It wasn't even necessarily the company's fault for that one. It was an office wide problem, where other workers would judge you. For as much as Zoe would have loved to ignore that sort of thing, she didn't want to end up making her work environment even more stifling.

"I heard recently that when a caller goes through the phone tree in a certain way and eventually says they want to talk to a person, it gets sent to tech support instead of an operator." Cass said flatly, once they were a ways away from the office doors.

Zoe almost did a comical double take. "You're joking."

"Nope. They do, apparently, need to make a few specific choices in the tree to get to that spot, but it's apparently common enough, because damn." Cass sighed.

"You had a couple rough ones today too?"

"Of course. People love to yell at other people, apparently. Where are we going?"

"I was following you," Zoe laughed. "Did you not have somewhere in mind?"

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"Nope. Just walking." Cass said. "We shouldn't go anywhere for a sit down. Maybe just a quick deli sandwich somewhere?"

"I'm good with that." Zoe said. "How about the Italian deli around the corner?"

"Sure, lead the way."

Zoe did, stepping half a step in front of Cass to lead, not that either of them didn't know exactly where they were headed. There were only so many potential lunch options within quick walking distance of the office.

"So, how do you feel about the raid so far?" Cass asked with a grin. Zoe appreciated the change of topic.

"It's great. We found good people, and the content has been the right level of difficult. Though I am curious if we're doing the Firdraig fight correctly."

"I know, right? It feels like we have two different but interlocking puzzles working against us at the same time. If we mess up either one, it's a wipe."

"I'm not mad at the idea, though. If anything, I appreciate that they've made each fight pretty distinct. But at the same time, Firdraig in particular doesn't feel like it has any sort of 'intended' solution."

"That could be by design." Cass said, pointing at Zoe in agreement. "I feel like we were all on the same page, that Firdraig and his dragon were working with two different AI bases. Or, at least, they aren't both being controlled by one set of instructions."

"Yeah, definitely. They act too independent of one another, generally speaking, and other than when Firdraig is riding Garmiad, they don't seem to actively be reacting to one another - just us."

"It's definitely an interesting way to design a fight. We'll have to see how the rest of it goes, but I certainly don't have any special insights like you did with the whole defending the wall one." Cass chuckled.

Zoe wrinkled her nose in embarrassment. "Don't say that. I think we were just too locked in on what we were doing to immediately see what felt like a pretty obvious solution."

"Still, you were the one to figure it out." Cass shrugged as Zoe pulled open the door to the little Italian deli. Whether it was because it was after 1 or just a Wednesday thing, Zoe wasn't sure but the place was pretty empty. There wasn't even a line at the counter.

They both got their food taken care of pretty quickly. Zoe got a chicken salad sandwich. The deli's chicken salad was phenomenal, and she got it most of the time she got food at this deli, unless she wanted something hot.

Cass went for a tuna melt, which was one of Zoe's other common orders. Zoe grabbed a bag of chips and a drink before sliding over to stand by the pick-up counter. Barely a minute passed before Cass slid in beside her and bumped Zoe with her hip.

"I'll trade you half for half." Cass said with a devious little grin. "I couldn't decide today, and I know you like the tuna melt."

"Sure, sounds like a plan to me." Zoe grinned wide and nodded. They chatted a bit more about the raid fights they had already gotten past, as well as their favorite characters involved so far. Zoe, of course, picked Scathach. Between the shadow master's design and fighting style, she really just perfectly meshed with Zoe's sense of style.

Cass, for her part, was apparently a fan of Áine and Uathach. The former because of her devil-may-care trickster attitude and magic, and the latter because she appreciated the devoted but individually strong daughter type that Uathach fit neatly into.

Zoe appreciated them too. She had to admit, she enjoyed the shenanigans that had come up with Áine while they were in the Fae's world.

Once they had gotten their food and sat down to eat it quickly, Cass offered half of her sandwich to Zoe, who reciprocated with half of her own. With happy nods and the exchange completed, both women plowed through their sandwiches. Trying to keep their lunch break short, they even ate in relative silence for speed.

They could chat once they were on their way back, after all.

Once the food was gone, Zoe got up to throw her trash away. Without really thinking much about it, she grabbed Cass's empty plate to take with her. Cass muttered a quick thank you, in the middle of taking a drink from her bottle of tea.

Zoe returned quickly enough, grabbing her coat from the chair as well as her own half-drank bottle of raspberry iced tea and they were off again.

The conversation had fallen off a little with the food, but Zoe was comfortable enough with the silence that she didn't mind the relatively relaxed walk back. She slid her hands in her pockets for warmth against the cold and strolled along.

"We should have some time tonight after work before raid, yeah? Wanna grab dinner together on the way back?" Cass asked.

"Uh, sure?" Zoe said, looking sideways at Cass. "I usually just drop by a convenience store on raid nights for something cheap and quick, but it's not like we're super pressed for time. I'm down for something a little bit nicer."

"That's what I was thinking." Cass said. "Especially since we basically just inhaled our lunches and didn't really get to enjoy the food."

Zoe snickered. "Right? Ugh, why does our office have to suck so bad? We can't even enjoy our lunch break if we get tangled up in a call."

Cass offered a wan smile toward the sky. "Unfortunately, I imagine there are more offices like ours than ones that aren't. At least in major cities, anyway." She amended after a pause. "I bet there are some nicer places to work outside the city."

"Maybe I should move, then. It's not like we make all that much more money in the city, and the rent is that much more expensive."

"I know it doesn't feel like it, but I think we do make that much more, working in the city." Cass laughed. "As sad as that is, anyway. I know it sure as hell doesn't feel like it."

"Oh, for god's sake, please don't say that." Zoe whined. "Don't destroy my dreams of escaping the city and living a nice, comfortable life in the 'burbs with a nice house and a cushy job."

"Now, wouldn't that be nice?" Cass sighed dreamily, thinking about the chance to settle down in a nice neighborhood. "Pretty sure it's just a dream, though. I don't necessarily struggle to make rent, but there's no way I can save enough for a house. And I'm one of the lucky ones, at that."

"Yeah, I feel that, too." Zoe looked up at the towering city buildings that surrounded her, narrowing her view of the sky considerably. "But maybe one day we'll get lucky, yeah? Get to move to a nice place. With yards. And grass. And trees."

Cass chuckled, looking up as well, though Zoe wasn't sure if she was thinking the same things about the view. "If you manage to win that lottery, take me with you. I'd love to get the heck out of this city, too."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah."

They walked in comfortable silence the remaining couple hundred feet to the office building to return to work, solidly before the unspoken 2 p.m. cutoff. And as Zoe stepped inside, she glanced up one more time at what she could see of the open sky, only for it to be cut off abruptly when she stepped in the door.

When she returned to her desk on a much higher floor, she couldn't help but chuckled wryly to herself.

She had a much better view of the open sky from the window at her desk.