Kwame

 The click of Maria’s pen was the soundtrack to Kwame’s oppression. One click meant she was thinking. Three rapid clicks were a summons. He’d come to dread the sound, a tiny, sharp punctuation mark on his every move.

As the junior administrative assistant to the senior administrative assistant at a large FMCG distributor, Kwame felt his every task was micromanaged. Maria didn’t just assign work; she prescribed the method. The font for the inter-office memo (Calibri, 11, never 12). The angle of the sticky notes on her desk (a perfect 45 degrees). The number of stirs for her afternoon coffee (exactly six, to avoid aeration).

He saw it as control, plain and simple. Bullying in a business-casual wrapper. And so, Kwame had developed a defense mechanism: a sheath of passive-aggression so polished it was almost professional.

He did exactly what was asked. No more, no less. If Maria asked for a report “as soon as possible,” he would finish it by 4:59 PM, regardless of his workload. If she forgot to specify a deadline, it went to the bottom of his pile. He became a master of malicious compliance. When she demanded he “physically confirm the storage room inventory,” he spent three hours counting every single paperclip, letting the phones ring unanswered. He’d reply to her nitpicky emails with a single word: “Noted.” He took back control by becoming a brick wall, polite and immovable. It felt like a victory, a silent rebellion. But it wasn’t a good look.

One Tuesday, the Regional Director, Mr. Ramsaran, rushed into their shared office. “Maria, Kwame, the presentation for the St Lucian team. The sales projections slide is outdated. I need the new data integrated and the whole deck re-sent in the next twenty minutes. It’s critical.”

Maria, flustered, turned to Kwame. “Kwame, you have the final files. Please, update slide fourteen and email it to the distribution list immediately.”

Kwame felt a familiar surge of resentment. Not even a ‘please.’ Just another order. He looked at Maria, then at Mr. Ramsaran, and deployed his weapon of choice.

“Of course,” he said, his voice flat. “I need to pull the Q3 data from the server, cross-reference it with the preliminary figures from marketing, and ensure the formatting aligns with the corporate template. The process can’t be rushed without risking errors. I’ll have it to you as soon as the system allows.”

He turned to his computer, the picture of diligent procedure, and began clicking with deliberate slowness.

Mr. Ramsaran stared at him, his expression shifting from panic to cold disbelief. He didn’t look at Maria. He looked only at Kwame.

“Kwame,” he said, his voice dangerously quiet. “This isn’t a theoretical exercise. This is the business. Right now, you are not being controlled. You are being asked to contribute. And your response is to give a speech about procedure?”

The air left the room. Kwame’s carefully constructed wall of passive resistance crumbled under the weight of that simple, stark observation. He wasn’t a freedom fighter reclaiming his autonomy; he was an obstacle. The energy he’d spent trying to seem in control by slowing everything down had only revealed that he was the one who was stuck.

“Maria,” Mr. Ramsaran said, “You see this…please handle it.” He left without another glance at Kwame.

The click of Maria’s pen that followed wasn’t a command. It was a period. A full stop to the illusion that Kwame was in control of anything at all, least of all his own reputation. He had been so busy fighting his petty war against Maria that he had forgotten he was supposed to be on the company’s team. And in trying to protect his peace by resisting her, he had cost himself something far more valuable: his potential.