The time: 9:30 a.m. The setting: my living room. The characters: a 26 year old young lady with a broken laptop, an age unknown FedEx delivery person named Kevin. The conflict: I am waiting for a FedEx overnight delivery that I must sign for that will be delivered some time today (allegedly between 9:30 and 1:30 p.m.), but FedEx and I have a history of missing each other.
As a remote worker, starting the morning in pajamas is traditional, but not today. Today I have to be ready to greet my new work laptop at the door at the drop of a hat. So I get dressed—already an unusual start to my day. I make a cup of Earl Grey tea and check my emails. I refresh the FedEx tracking page—no updates other than the FedEx truck carrying my new laptop left the facility at 8:36 a.m under the care of Kevin.
I’m not necessarily in a rush to get my new laptop, but I am extremely nervous about not hearing the delivery person arrive. I write a note and tape it to my front door: “doorbell broken! please knock!” I open my personal laptop to finish the movie I started last night while I keep myself busy folding laundry: Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie, a film my husband described as “a love letter to Toronto.” I finish the movie and the laundry before going back out to the living room to confirm that the FedEx delivery has not yet arrived. It is 10:30 a.m.
I start putting away clean dishes, but the cabinets closing sound just like a knock at the front door, and what are the odds that the delivery person would knock at the exact time I close a cabinet? Extremely high, right? I rush out to the living room. Not a soul. I finish the dishes and put the kettle on to make more tea. I eat breakfast on the opposite side of the table than normal, to have a better line of sight to the front door.
I decide to watch something else, something low-key: the new season of the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. I have to keep pausing the episodes because I can’t tell if the knocking noises are diegetic or coming from my front door. Man, they sure love to go to each other’s houses and knock a lot in this show, huh? As the characters (see: real people who just happen to be being filmed for profit) meander through their storylines (see: their real lives), I start to wish I could do my real job today, because what is a remote worker without her laptop?
The reason I need a new laptop is a tragic one. On Friday, a link provided to me by our super duper helpful AI assistant opened the door for a malware attack on my device. Within about 10 minutes of opening the link, my laptop disconnected from the Wifi, closed down all my pages, and locked me out of all my accounts. I later learned the shut down was an internal company response to the security threat, but that my malware-infected laptop would still have to go. They would send me a new one on Monday—wait, was that a knock at the front door?
No knock, no delivery, just my ice machine doing what it does best: making loud noises. I finish my cup of tea and carry my reality TV spewing laptop with me to the linen closet and pull out the Swiffer duster. It is 12 p.m. I have company coming this weekend and nothing better to do today than clean. I’ll just dust the front rooms, where I can for sure see the FedEx truck coming. Afterward, I guess I’ll dust the hallway, but keep an ear out for any knocking.
When I first accepted my remote job almost two and a half years ago, they sent me several packages worth of tech, all through FedEx. Thus started the most stressful week of my life. I lived on the second floor of a Chicago apartment, where knocking on the street level door meant knocking to no one. We couldn’t hear it upstairs, and I’m sure my downstairs neighbor could barely hear it over his drum set, and I kept missing the delivery. I was able to redirect some packages to the FedEx pick up point at the Walgreens down the street from my apartment, but there was still another one, out there in the mail delivery system.
I enlisted my roommate (whose windows faced the street) to let me know immediately when she saw the FedEx truck. I was on the phone with my now-husband when she said, “Carlisle! The FedEx truck!” I flew out of the room and down the stairs. The delivery lady said, “Boy, am I glad to see you!” and laughed, but I felt the same way. This was the third attempt to deliver this package containing the essential tech for me to start my job, and according to the FedEx website, they only make three attempts before returning the package to the sender.
Hopefully this can shed some light on the fear that clutches my heart today. Although out of my control, I am still embarrassed about losing my laptop to a cyber threat and missing a day and a half of work. I told myself that once my new laptop is delivered, I can quickly run out for a coffee treat, maybe pick up the groceries I need to make some banana bread, then I’ll get back to work. I refresh the FedEx tracking website—after all, it’s 1 p.m. so the delivery truck is probably right around the corner!
“Arriving today before 8 p.m.” the updated site reads. I shake my fist at the sky, “Curse you, FedEx!”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The time: 9:30 a.m., the next day. The setting: my living room, slightly less dusty than the previous day. The characters: a 26 year old young lady with a broken laptop, now sporting an eye twitch and furrowed brow, an age unknown FedEx delivery person named Willard. The conflict: my FedEx “overnight” delivery is now over a day late. The only way I’m leaving this house without signing for my package is in a body bag.
Carlisle Patete (‘22) came to Calvin University from the mountains of North Carolina and graduated with a double major in film & media and creative writing. After brief stints in Los Angeles and Chicago, she now resides in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she enjoys sweet tea on her front porch and identifying every tree and bird she runs into on any hiking trail.
