As much as he loved fantasizing about it, Alex didn't have the guts to quit. He showed up early to work on Tuesday, wearing his best black suit and a professional smile. The young analyst had a feeling that he was in trouble, but he hoped Miss Planner's wrath would pass quickly. The tiny tyrant came to his office shortly after he did, holding a black clipboard.

"Good morning, Alex. Do you have a moment to do your quarterly performance review with me?"

Miss Planner leaned against the door frame and stared him down. Her piercing blue eyes were so cold it made him shiver. She looked like a goddess of the underworld come to torment a murderer.

"Uh... yes, ma'am. Can't wait!"

Alex fumbled for his pen as he nodded nervously at her. Miss Planner smiled triumphantly and slid into his office. She sat across from him, her hands folded neatly together in front of her. The atmosphere was tense, but Alex's face didn't show a trace of fear.

"So, Alex. How are you doing today?" Miss Planner asked with a warm expression.

"Well, uh... getting the day off to a good start. Weather's pretty bad, but... a little rain won't stop us from doing what we do best."

The young analyst was trying his hardest to sound upbeat. He didn't know why he was compelled to pretend like everything was fine when he felt like he was about to have a heart attack. His mouth was so dry he couldn't swallow.

"I couldn't agree more," Miss Planner said with a peaceful nod. "Well, let's get started then. What is your official title and how do you feel you did this last quarter overall?"

"Oh, uh... I'm a 'Workforce Analyst.' Just finished up my second year and... well, I didn't have any big wins this quarter, but I'm confident about the next one."

He laughed a bit while wringing his hands. Miss Planner waited patiently for him to regain his composure.

"I see. You're working on something good, then? Something that'll really help us out?"
"Oh, yes, yes!"

Miss Planner waited for him to elaborate, but he was at a loss for words. She furrowed her eyebrows and looked at him expectantly.

"What is it?"
"Oh... uh..."

Alex's eyes shifted around the room, and he stammered for the right words. Miss Planner waited with growing impatience.
He looked up at her, and she stared blankly back at him.

"Alex, you've got to give me something to work with here. Tell me what you've been working on."

Alex's swallowed hard and got a grip on himself. He took a long, deep breath as he gathered his thoughts.

"I was looking at... our customer retention rates. You know, seeing where our customers are coming from and seeing how much money we're bringing in from repeat business. And I thought a lot about how we can keep people coming back... Nuke is highly addictive, obviously, but we're not the only ones selling it. So we still need to give people a reason to keep... coming back to us."

"And what did you find?" Miss Planner asked with an excessively sincere smile. "How can we make sure our precious customers stay loyal?"

Alex opened his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn't come out. His tongue felt heavy, and he had the irrational fear that he'd say the wrong thing and Miss Planner would get angry at him. His heart raced, and he couldn't breathe.

"Well... I... think... we might get more people coming back if we... if we...”

He was stammering, and Miss Planner stared at him in silence. Her face was a polite mask, revealing nothing. Her flat, lifeless eyes seemed to stare right through him as if he were transparent.

"Alex, I made sure to give you and Erica an entire extra day to get ready for this performance review. I wanted to be absolutely certain that you'd have enough time to make a strong case for yourself. I know you have something. Tell me how we can keep our customers coming back."

"W-well... it's a long-term... retention project. Our... our customers tend to be young people without a lot of money. So, uh, they normally can't afford to buy as much Nuke as they would like. But there's actually a way to keep them coming back without giving out any discounts or freebies. The answer is... convenience."

"Go on."

"People with lots of money will always be able to satisfy their craving for Nuke, no matter what. It's the people who can't afford it that we want to lock into buying habits. The way to do that is to make it easier to buy Nuke from us than to go to the trouble of going somewhere else."

"And how do we do that?"

"I'm still working on the specifics... we... we could offer to deliver it right to their door. If that doesn't look promising... we could set up a locker system, or expand our distribution network... at any rate, we could really improve our sales by making it as easy as possible to buy our product."

Miss Planner jotted a few lines down on her clipboard.

"It's not revolutionary, but I can see the profit potential. I want you to keep working on it. Let's move this along. How do you feel about your role in your team? What do you think you need to be more effective?"

"Well, I like working on my own, and I guess I'm mostly just interested in improving sales, while everyone else seems to be more interested in creating experimental drugs and weapons... so I think my perspective and goals are a little bit different. I think if I had a little more help, I could really make this quarter a winner," he said with a sheepish grin.

"You aren't happy with the research support staff? Whenever I ask them to find some data for me, they get back to me within the day. What's wrong with them? Or do you mean that we need more analysts? Because if that's the case, I'll see what I can do."

"No, no, nothing's wrong with the support staff. They're great, they just... they do their thing and I do mine."

Alex squirmed nervously in his seat. Meanwhile, Miss Planner watched him with intense focus, her face completely blank.

"Well, we hired them to help you. If they're not doing that, there's something wrong."

"They can crunch the numbers and get back to me when I need them to, but they aren't very proactive, you know? The issue is... like you said, that we need more analysts. I wish we had just one more analyst on the team with a business background."

"We just brought in Gordon, and we still have an opening. I know we need more hands on deck. Do you want me to make sure we get someone who knows their stuff?"

"Yeah, that'd be great. Thanks. I'm looking forward to working with whoever we get."

Miss Planner looked back down at her notes.

"Any other issues you're having?"

Alex thought for a moment but chose not to speak up out of fear of being labeled a whiner. He felt like he'd said too much already.

"Umm... I think I'm doing alright."

"We're going to go to the next topic, then. I'm going to give you some quick feedback on your performance this quarter. After that, we'll do your actual review. Sound good?"

Alex exhaled deeply and slowly nodded. He knew Miss Planner was a fan of the 'compliment sandwich' approach. She gave a small amount of positive reinforcement, followed by constructive criticism, finishing up with another piece of positive reinforcement.

She started off on a positive note, as Alex expected.

"I want to thank you for always coming in on time this year. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen you show up for work late, and that's despite living the furthest away from the office of anyone else here. It shows commitment, and I appreciate it."

Alex couldn't believe what he was hearing. The best thing she had to say about him was that he showed up on time every day? He wanted to stand up and scream that he was doing so much more than that, but he kept his composure. He knew she was far from done.

After a brief pause, Miss Planner continued.

"Still, I have some issues with the way you performed this year. I'm sure you can imagine what some of those issues might be. Let's go over them now. Please, don't feel intimidated by me. I just want us both to be on the same page."

Alex laughed nervously and nodded. He had a pretty good idea of what was coming next.

"You haven't produced a single actionable idea for us in five months. Not one. You've come close a couple of times, but by the time you'd figured it out, someone else beat you to the punch. That's not a very good track record."

Alex looked down, nodding.

"And it's not even that you haven't come up with anything. It's that you've been getting in the way of the other members of the team. Tracy, in particular, seems to mention you at least once a week. I kind of figured you'd be eager to help her with her website when you didn't have a lot going on yourself... but she said you barely did anything. I didn't put you on that team to let you take a back seat like that. I put you there so you'd have an impact."

"I'm sorry," Alex said softly. He felt like he should be mad, but he couldn't find it in him to argue. He had messed up badly, and he knew it.

"I know you are. I also know you can do better."

"How can I improve?" he asked humbly.

"I'm glad you asked! One thing you can do is help out the other members of the team as much as possible, starting today. You're not the only one working here, you know. And everyone else pitches in when someone needs help."

"Right. I understand."

"I hope you do. This job is a team effort. If you don't start contributing more, we're going to have a discussion about that, and it might end with you getting moved to a different division. Do you understand?"

Alex nodded. He understood all too well.