2006 FEATURED SHORT STORY

Technology wonders by Andrey Prokopyev

2005 FEATURED SHORT STORY

The Elfking's Bride by Karen Bembry

2004 FEATURED SHORT STORY

The Phoenix Procedure by Scott W Roberts

Previously Featured Short stories:

Running... a thriller
A Devoted Friend .. A story about a dangerous friend and one woman's struggle to face her worst enemy, herself. It's a worth while story to take the time to read.
Vampyr ..A dairy based off the novels by Ann Rice..
Farewell ..Ever wonder how you would live your life if everyone was killed and you for some reason were spared to live out your days?
Lynn Warden's Secret .. There is only one way to find out..
INITIATION Follow Matthew into the darkness..
Bad Awake Karen is running for her life.. find out why..

MAGAZINES:

La Luna International Writer's Magazine

BOOKS ON THE SHELF:

The Library

There are no happy endings, because the story never ends

By Kimberly ShadowRose
Shadlep@yahoo.com
San Jose, Ca

Sara tapped the end of her ballpoint pen on the desk as she leaned back in her chair. She glanced around her small cubical and sighed. If she really focused, she could get all the work on her desk done within an hour, but if she did that, then she would have nothing else to do. It was only 1 pm and there was still a long day ahead of her. Sara thought about her last job, when the days were over before they began. She was kept so unbelievably busy that she often skipped her breaks and sometimes her lunch just to get all the work done on time. However, in her current job, the work was not very demanding. In each company, the culture of it is very different.

Sara opened a book sitting on her desk. She was taking a human relations class at a local Community College. She enjoyed the class very much, and felt she was learning a great deal about how to interact in the business world and why some ways worked and some didn't. In recent years, her job history has been stable, but in the past it was extremely unstable. As she read through the book, she recognized that a lot of that was due to her attitude, behavior and motivation. She knew part of her problem was the fact that she didn't have very high self-esteem. In fact, she had a rather low self -esteem. As she read through the book she saw herself fitting into nearly every characteristic of a person who had low self-esteem. She read that: You are not born knowing who are what you are, you acquire your image of yourself over time by realizing your natural abilities and by constantly receiving messages about yourself from the people closest to you and from your environment..

Sara grew up in a home life that didn't promote her self-esteem, or self-confidence. When her family first got a computer, she wasn't allowed to touch it if something didn't work right, even if the problem was simple.

" Wait until your father gets home to fix it! You don't know anything. " Her mother would say.

The problem didn't simply rest with the computer, but carried over to other things as well. Sara never learned how to do her own laundry or cook for herself until she was in her twenties and out of her parent's house. Her mother was always fearful that she would ruin the clothes or not wash them right. Her mother forbid her to make anything more then a sandwich or a bowl of cereal in the kitchen for fear there would be a mess for her to clean up. Sara grew up with a family pet, a beautiful pure bread golden retriever named Ginger. However every time Sara went to interact with the dog, her mother would yell at her.

" Leave the dog along, she will get hair everywhere. Don't you know how to leave anything alone? The dog does fine on her own and doesn't need you bugging her."

Sara was always fearful of making her own choices. Sara read that Psychologists have found that children who were encouraged to make their own decisions early in their lives have a higher self-esteem then those who were kept dependent on their parents for a longer period of time. Sara was even afraid to pick out her own clothes while shopping. She always felt her mother needed to tell her what she should and should not wear. Sara knew that it was this type of behavior that prevented her from excelling in the work force. There were few things that Sara felt confident in doing without someone sitting down with her and showing her step-by-step how to do something.

Sara leaned back in her chair and glanced at the clock. It was 2 pm. The phone had not rung once while she studied her text. She was really beginning to think that this really isn't the type of job she is suited for. She always felt like she needed to be out talking with people and interacting, but ended up with a job that keeps her quiet in her shell. Sara knew she was destined to be someone far greater then someone who just sits and wait for the UPS man to arrive everyday at 4pm. Sara watched her employers run back and forth, from one deadline to another. She admired their style on how to get everything done quickly and efficiently. As Sara watched her bosses everyday busy routine, she was afraid to ask them questions for fear that they didn't have time to listen or instruct her. Sara quickly finished up her remaining tasks of the day, and settled herself at the computer.

Sara sighed. She had a paper due in her Human Relations class. She had been agonizing over it for weeks. Her instructor asked her to write a story, to entertain him with a topic from the first seven chapters of the book. " How do I write a story without exposing my deepest fears about myself? What if I write about the wrong thing? What if my paper isn't good enough? I just don't have the experience to write about some of these things." She thought to herself. She stared at the blank screen. " Let see, Motivation can be defined as the reason people do what they do. It is an internal drive that encourages us to achieve a particular goal.(p. 173) Ok, So what if a person doesn't know why they do what they do? What if they don't even know the particular goal they want to achieve? Because that is me, but then again, I don't have to write about myself. I could write about someone else. Ok, so who do I write about?"

Sara thought for a moment. One of the things that she loved about work was the Internet access. Most of her friends were on-line all day just like she was. Sara glanced at her chat program to see who was on. She had been idling in her "room" all day and saw that her friend Ken was trying to talk to her.

"What's up cutie pie?" Sara replied

"Oh, nuffin much, working :)" he typed.

"ahs. :)" She replied, her mind off elsewhere.

"You? :)" Ken inquired.

" I am working on a paper about self esteem. motivation and attitude in the working environment. I am curious, has your self-esteem ever been an issue with employment? I mean you being manic depressive and all that." Sara asked with hopes that he could give her some insight.

"Oh, what class? Yeah, a lot" Ken replied

"Human relations, How has it affected you?"

"The mania doesn't really cause problems related to self esteem, but the depression tends to." He offered.

"How so? In what way?"

"It involves perfectionism too. If I don't get frequent feedback about my work, I assume I'm not doing a good job, even if I am. That causes a sort of a loop where I keep feeling worse and worse about my performance until it really does start to drop." He typed.

" I can sure relate to that"

Sara felt she knew exactly want Ken was saying. All her life it seemed her internal motivation was never enough for her, or it didn't mean much. Sara always needed that push by another. Weather is was her mother who constantly made her sit and do her homework the minute she got home from school, or her boss asking her where the reports were that she was working on. While, money was never a real motivating factor for her, Sara always sought feedback regarding her performance, whether is was her mother telling her that her answers were all correct or her boss telling her that she did the job right. If she didn't get that, she felt that she had failed completely at whatever she did. External rewards are rarely enough to motivate people on a continuing basis.

Sara moved around in her virtual world to a room at had more people. There were people she was familiar with and people she wasn't. On the Internet, it was a world of anonymity; she could be who and whatever she wanted to be without feeling that anyone really knew what she was like. Most of the time, she just stayed quiet until someone spoke to her.

Firedrak chuckles a little, "Staying a wake over there, Sara?"

You say, " Oh, I am just thinking. I'm having trouble doing a paper on self esteem for my human relations class."

Firedrak says, "Sounds like fun ;)"

You say, "I don't really know any examples on how self-esteem effects how you work in business"

Klio hmms "Well I think it can effect how you communicate with clients."

Firedrak chuckles, "Well if you have a higher self esteem you regard yourself in a lighter mood. You will enjoy the things you do, and also not really feel depressed when you have a hard time at work."

Firedrak requotes his favorite saying, "Always look on the bright side of life."

You say, "I am curious about something, has someone else's self-esteem ever affected you?"

Firedrak nods, "Yes of course, usually though it is a person with low self-esteem that made me a little upset to be around them..."

You say, "Why is that?"

Firedrak says, "I have a high self-esteem so others with high self-esteem don't effect me as much. Well, for one thing people with low self-esteem always mope around like life sucks..."

You say, "Does it affect their motivation?"

Firedrak says, "Yes, of course it does."

You say, "How so?"

Firedrak grins, "A person with low self-esteem tends to not like going to work, they don't enjoy doing jobs and they are awful for keeping a job."

You say, "What about the actual work they do?"

Firedrak says, "They will perform at less then 100% what they are capable of.."

You say, "For example, what if they are afraid of doing the job wrong?"

Klio says, "They won't put their all into it, cause they may not think it's good enough."

Firedrak says, "I don't think that has anything to do with self-esteem so much as a general fear Though I could be just interpreting it my own way."

You say, " This is quote from someone "It involves perfectionism too. If I don't get frequent feedback about my work, I assume I'm not doing a good job, even if I am. That causes a sort of a loop where I keep feeling worse and worse about my performance until it really does start to drop""

Firedrak says, " That is trueI know that when I first started a new job I was afraid to do things because I was new and thought I'd mess up and get fired..."

You say, "I feel like that a lot"

Firedrak shakes his head, "Why?"

You say, "Sometimes I am afraid that people don't want things changed or I am not going about it like everyone else was going about doing something. I had a boss once that constantly told me to "shut up" because she felt that my ideas were not relevant to what the discussion was about, or I didn't know enough to be speaking. She would say " Can't you just learn to shut up and do what you are told to do?" "

Firedrak grins, "A boss should never ever treat his employees as inferiors, because then they perform at a less then efficient work ethic.."

You say, " It was an interesting day when I kind-a told her that putting down her employees, specially in front of his or her peers, was not the most effective, or nice way to go about correcting their behavior. Oddly, that was the only day that she actually did appreciate what I had to say and she admitted that she was not perfect herself. Well, I have to get this paper done, so I will chat with you all a little later bye!"

Sara closed her chat program and returned to look at her blank screen of her word processor and sighed. Her mind was as blank as the screen in front of her. She looked around her small office as if the answers she was seeking were written down some place. Perhaps they were on the walls, or the floor, or the ceiling. She glanced at her book still open upon her desk and saw the words "Self-fulfilling prophecy". " Well, if I continue to think I am never going to get this paper done, then I guess I wont, so I better this that I can get this paper done and that I will get a good mark on it. In fact, I think I am going to get an A on it. Maybe even an A+. Ok so here's to positive thinking." She thought to herself.

With that determination Sara wrote the first line of her paper: Kimberly tapped the end of her ballpoint pen on the desk as she leaned back in her chair.

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