The Lanyard Goes in the Bag

July twenty-fourth. The shift ended at eight and I stood in the break room for about forty-five seconds doing the specific nothing that happens right after a long day, lanyard still around my neck, bag open on the table, brain catching up to the fact that I was done.

Simone had already clocked out. She does this. I am technically the one with the supervisor tag and she is still, reliably, two minutes ahead of me to the door. I asked her once how she manages it and she said she starts putting her jacket on at eight minus four, and I said that is cheating and she said it is strategy, and we have had this exact exchange approximately six times since October.

Simone clocked out two minutes before me. As usual.

The walk out through the back corridor is its own small ritual. We don't talk about work on the way to the exit, not a rule we made, just something that happened. By the time we hit the door we're usually mid-sentence about something else entirely. Tonight it was whether the trail was different in July heat than it was on the fourth, which is a question I'm still thinking about and haven't landed on an answer to yet. Three days would be about right.

The walk out is its own kind of exhale.

The lanyard is in my bag. That's the whole post, really. Some days that's the whole accomplishment.