Chapter Eleven

Summary

• The narrator starts a new job at OTP (a publishing company) and is tasked with a lot of administrative work that piled up after their predecessor left months ago.
• The narrator is an assistant to Penny and is mentored by Kristina Dorval, who insists on being called Kris and has a more admin-focused approach.
• The narrator learns about important department meetings, including Creative on Thursdays and the all-department Nonfiction Publishing Meeting (NFPM) on Tuesdays, where the narrator will take minutes.
• Penny demands a lot of the narrator's time, requiring multiple meetings to be scheduled, including some with international colleagues considering the time difference.
• An incident demonstrates that suggesting a lunchtime meeting is highly controversial at the company.
• The narrator successfully rearranges Penny's diary to accommodate new meetings by canceling or moving others.
• Penny gives the narrator a list of tasks, such as providing sales figures, printing schedules, and preparing documents for a meeting.
• The character Dawoud (implied to be a family member) calls to ask the narrator to order catheters for their dad, revealing a caring side to the narrator's family obligations.
• The narrator gets a voice message from their mother excitedly about learning how to send voice messages on WhatsApp.
• The narrator considers the printer problematic and foresees a tech uprising but manages to complete all tasks before Penny returns from her meetings.
• The office routine becomes predictable, and the narrator is curious about a Creative meeting they are not part of, involving the reissue of a once unpopular cookbook.
• The author of the cookbook, Jim Carper, comes off as unpleasant in correspondence and signs his emails "OG Vegan."
• While serving tea to a meeting Penny is having, the narrator observes their food photography and is awkwardly asked by Penny to pour more milk into her tea while being watched by others, making the narrator uncomfortable.
• This situation leads the narrator to feel undervalued and question whether their contributions are appropriate for their position.