An honest mistake

“There must be some mistake. I only worked there for three weeks. This can’t be right.”

The finance administrator did her best to maintain the unicorn-perkiness expected in customer-facing service roles but Anita could distinctly hear the forced smile in that sugar-sweet soft tone.

“Look Anita, I’ve run it through the system twice and my manager confirms that this is what you’re owed as your tax rebate. I’ve been instructed to close this case as it’s fully resolved. Is there anything else that I can help you with today?”

“No, no. That will be all. Thanks for your time.”

As the call disconnected, Anita continued to pace up and down the short stretch of her hallway - shamefully the only area in her home where the carpet was still visible. This hall had become her sanctuary, safely separate from the nuclear fallout of clothes, dishes, and all manner of belongings strewn all over the rest of her apartment. Each misplaced item contributed to a breadcrumb trail of clues mirroring her mental wellbeing; an ocean-deep, cluttered chaos.

Staring down at her phone screen, Anita was still in shock as she tried to process what her ex-employer had just relayed to her.

After being fired from her corporate marketing job several months earlier, things had been tough. Selling furniture and giving up worldly possessions on eBay kind of tough. Deciding which meals to skip kind of tough. Startled out of her sleep at 3:00 am, heart pounding, mid-anxiety attack, urgently shaken from dream state to consciousness kind of tough.

…not wanting to be here anymore kind of tough.

As the options of household treasures to sell dwindled, Anita had been so desperate for work, any job would do. Countless job application rejections in the wake of Covid were well past taking their toll. So when the opportunity to pack boxes on the twilight shift in a local warehouse materialised, this could not have brought more hope and joy. Anita was elated to take that temporary shift work. It meant she had a chance of keeping the beautiful apartment she’d happily rented for years; parcel tape had quite literally pieced her life back together.

Looking back to that first shift, it was crazy to think how this had played out. With the best will in the world, the first four hours on the job confirmed there was no chance of Anita fulfilling the four-month contract she’d eagerly signed. The steel-toe cap boots were crushing so tightly into her ankle surgery scar tissue, she could barely stand. As she agonisingly hunched over the steel workbench that was far too low for her height, wishing the world would stop, there was an added delight to contend with. Her supervisor would periodically creep up behind her, barking inaudible angry rantings so loudly that the entire floor would grind to a halt, with all eyes on Anita, trying to decipher her latest crime. Only the staff working in close proximity could clearly see that Anita was being screamed at for simply following the instructions that her supervisor had given at the start of the shift.

With both her ankle and soul crushed for eight hours a night, the situation rapidly became intolerable. Yes, Anita was desperate for money - her house was on the line, as was the life she had spent years working so hard to build. Ultimately though, her health was worth far more to her than being able to keep her apartment. Ten days into the contract, Anita handed in her notice and used every last ounce of energy to survive her way through working her week's notice.

Anita had served her time.

Three weeks of her life that felt like three years.

Somehow, she made it out the other side.

Several months since resigning, a shed load of cash had been deposited into Anita’s bank account. Marked as a payment from the warehouse, $20,000 magically appearing was clearly an error. A peace offering gesture for the barking supervisor, perhaps? Unlikely.

Anita allowed herself to momentarily fantasise about what this could mean for her life – to be debt free, to keep her rental, to feel safe, to be able to sleep - $20,000 could do a lot. After this brief daydreaming indulgence, she dug out her expired contract to retrieve the Payroll department’s contact number and made the call to arrange giving the money back.

Was it her fault that the finance administrator thought it was $2,000 and Anita had a deposit with an extra zero on the end transferred into her account?

She’d honestly declared it. She’d tried to tell them that this most certainly was a mistake on their part. And yet the unicorn cupcake taking her call didn’t want to hear it.

Maybe in the lead up to Christmas, the Payroll team were a little lax in their attention to detail? With everyone working from home, maybe some of that team were dropping a few balls and adding a few zeros elsewhere? Anita had done all she could to alert them to their mistake and honestly tried to return the money. Met with disdain, what more could she do?

Her breathing was now a little slower and her heart no longer a contender for the drum corps. Anita clambered over an upturned laundry basket, half-read books scattered in her path, unfiled paperwork littering the floor, and the ironing mountain of doom, successfully navigating her way through the domestic wreckage to her desk. Without looking, she reached her hand into the drawer to retrieve a small black notebook that hadn’t seen the light of day in a long while. This was her dream book. The place she used to write all her hopes, wishes and desires for a future life she longed to create for herself. When real life had started to unravel, those dreams had seemed too painful to keep alive. Indefinitely putting her dream book out of sight had been a necessary measure for her own self-preservation but now that beloved Moleskin could be resurrected and all the things in that notebook could potentially become her reality.

Excited to remind herself of the forgotten pages of her future-truthing, as Anita opened the cover, a shiny red ladybug flew out and landed on her shoulder. This gentle creature, Lady Luck, felt like a nod from the Universe that the time had come for Anita to embrace her fortuitous abundance and use it to bring these dreams to life.