The Last Straw

“I’m done, I quit.” Marla slammed her locker door and stomped out.

Jenny followed on her heels. “What? Why? You can’t quit!”

“I’m done. I’m tired, of being everyone’s answer for everything.”

“It can’t be that bad, can it?”

Marla gave her a look and stalked out of the break room.

A week and a half later, a note summoned her to the manager’s office.

She knocked, peeking inside the door. “You wanted to see me?”

“Yes, thank you for coming so quickly,” Kyle said, “I wanted to ask if everything is alright with you?”

Marla looked puzzled. “Yes, fine, why?”

“Well, productivity took a nosedive this week and other staff members have expressed concerns about you. So I wanted to see you and check in.”

Marla leaned back against the door frame and smirked. “Let me guess. Steve is complaining about the press line glitching. Donna hasn’t submitted any of the shipping reports. Carla ran out of the HAZMAT labels. Want me to go on?”

Kyle furrowed his brow and leaned back in his chair, “Um, yeah, that’s just a few of the issues. How did you know? You aren’t working any of those departments right now.”

“No, I’m not. But I’ve worked them all in the past and apparently I’m everyone’s answer gal for everything. But I’m tired. I can’t get to my own work because I’m so busy cleaning up every one else’s messes that they are too lazy to be concerned about. Friday’s issue with the press line was the last straw.”

“Take a seat.” Kyle motioned to a chair opposite his desk. “What happened?”

“May I?” She motioned to the door and nodded. She closed it and took a seat. “Friday I was scheduled to leave early for an appointment. I planned it weeks in advance, made sure I had everything arranged so I could leave early. Just as I’m heading to the break room to clock out, Steve stopped me to ask for my help. I told him I had an appointment, but he was frantic about the press line malfunctioning. So I popped over to see what was going on. It’s the same glitch we always get if the programming sequence isn’t followed exactly. I’ve shown him a dozen times, even wrote out a cheat sheet for him. Because I was in a hurry, I just corrected the sequence and went to tell him it was good to go. He was over by Jerry’s machine, laughing about how he doesn’t have to worry about anything, all he has to do is call Marla.”

“At this point I was going to be late, so I gave him a thumbs up to let him know it was fixed, but I was ticked. You know I don’t mind helping. You’ve placed me in the training role because I’m good at what I do and good at showing others what to do in a way they can understand. But I’m tired of being taken advantage of. Listening him mess around and laugh about it while I’m frantic trying to get out on time was the last straw. Everyone of them has been at their jobs as long or longer than I have. There’s no reason they should continue to need my help. So, Monday morning I quit. I stopped running to everyone’s rescue, reminded them where they could look for the answers, and finally caught up on some of my own backlog.” She laughed a little. “I’m honestly surprised it took this long for them to go over my head.”

Kyle frowned. “Marla, why didn’t you tell me this was going on?”

She thought for a moment. “Because, I honestly don’t mind helping. I do know this place inside and out, so it’s easy for me to pitch in wherever. But until Friday, I didn’t realize how exhausted I was being everyone’s ‘go-to’ gal.” She paused again, “I still do love the problem solving and the trouble shooting. I don’t ever want to lose the ability to do that. But I can’t run this place single-handedly while the people that are being paid to be responsible pass the buck.” She laughed, “If I could, you could double my pay and still save money by getting rid of the lazy ones.”

Kyle chuckled too, then grew serious again. “Alright, let’s figure out a way to bring productivity back up without overloading you. All I can say, is that tomorrow’s staff meeting just got very interesting.”

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Written during Beth Kempton ’s Moon + Shadow retreat 1/11/2026