It’s hard enough finding a good job, but keeping a bad job is no day at the cinema either. When there’s money missing and you’ve got a target on your back, it just might come down to fisticuffs with your boss. See what happens when the narrator of “Unemployed & On Probation” refuses to inform on his fellow employees.
This flash fiction story was published recently at Mystery Tribune. Read it free here
In this fifth installment of the Baby Idiots series, our nameless narrator finds himself on the wrong side of his boss’s temper, but that won’t stop him from asking for a pay raise.
Here is an Excerpt:
Turns out, they basically wanted me to be a narc. But even my grandma knows–Don’t be a narc.
And Chip started asking me about someone named Fox. Asking whether I knew if Fox was ripping the place off or whatever, and I told Chip I had no idea what he was saying.
He was going, Fox, Fox. But no matter how many times he said it, I wasn’t going to remember something I never knew. And then he told me he was talking about the guy who I had lunch with three times that week.
I was like, “Oh… That guy? His name is Fox?” and I laughed. But I could tell Chip didn’t think it was funny. Also, I could see how the fact that I laughed at the name Fox might be offensive to a guy named Chip.
Barb goes, “Are you saying you aren’t friends with Fox?”
I told them that I wasn’t friends with him yet, but that I could definitely see myself playing video games with him for several hours straight.
They asked a couple other dumb questions and then they told me to “keep the whole conversation under my hat” and I was like, “I’m not even wearing a hat.”
Then I walked downstairs and told Fox how Barb and Chip suspected him of stealing and Fox just walked right out the front door without saying a word.
I never really saw him again. Bummer, I know. I mean, video games.
After that, I was pretty sure I’d have a target on my back at work. Especially after Chip told me to watch out because I had a target on my back.
The Baby Idiots series started as a simple story with a simple question in mind. How do you write a story about an irredeemable jerk you just have to love, even when that jerk is bashing someone’s brains in?
Carl Robinette 
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