Untold Work Story
The room trusts him. He doesn’t
By eleven on Sunday night, Dev has said the same four words so many times they've started to sound wrong.
"Thank you for coming."
Again, "Thank you for coming."
Too formal.
He tries it with a smile.
Too eager.
Without one.
Too cold.
He looks down at the index cards in his hand.
He hasn't needed them for hours.
He rearranges them anyway.
Tomorrow, Dev will lead the Whitfield renewal.
It's the biggest client renewal his company has this year.
And he knows the account better than anyone.
He should.
He's quietly kept it alive for six years.
But always from three seats back.
Someone else presented.
Someone else answered the first question.
Someone else stood at the front of the room.
Dev made sure they knew exactly what to say.
Tomorrow, there is no one else.
"Thank you for coming."
He starts again.
At thirty-six, Dev is good at what he does.
People ask for his opinion. Clients trust his judgment. Junior colleagues take notes when he speaks.
Meera, the newest analyst on his team, asked him something earlier that week.
"How do you always look so calm?"
Dev laughed.
"Experience."
He told her that eventually you do something enough times and it stops feeling like such a big deal.
Meera nodded.
She believed him.
Dev almost did too.
At twenty-four, he rehearsed presentations in front of a mirror in a one-bedroom apartment.
Back then, he thought nerves were an early-career problem.
Something you eventually left behind.
Like cheap suits.
Or asking permission before speaking in a meeting.
The suits got better.
The job titles got longer.
The meetings got bigger.
The rehearsing stayed.
He didn't age out of it.
It just moved apartments with him.
A little after eleven, Priya, his wife, appears in the doorway. She watches him straighten the same index cards again.
"Bed soon?"
"Soon."
She doesn't ask if he's ready.
She stopped asking years ago.
Instead, she puts a glass of water on the table.
Then she goes back to bed.
Dev looks at it.
Then back at the mirror.
"Thank you for coming."
The man looking back at him seems calm.
Senior.
Prepared.
Exactly like the person Meera thinks he is.
And that's the strange part.
After twelve years, Dev has become very good at looking confident.
He just thought that by now, he would feel it too.
He puts the cards down.
Squares their edges against the table.
Adjusts his watch.
Then catches himself doing it.
For a moment, he smiles.
"Thank you for coming."
This time, he leaves it alone.
He turns off the lamp.
It’s Monday morning.
The meeting room is colder than he expected.
Dev places the index cards beside his laptop.
Squares their edges against the table.
Then moves them half an inch to the left.
Meera is already there.
She looks at him, then at the room slowly filling with people and says, “Big one today”.
Dev agrees.
The client walks in.
Dev stands.
"Thank you for coming."
The words come out once. No second version. No correction.
The meeting moves quickly.
A difficult question comes early. Dev answers it. Another follows. He answers that too.
At some point, he stops looking at the cards.
By the end, the client is leaning forward, asking what happens next.
Outside the room, Meera catches up with him and says, "That was so good."
Dev exhales.
"You didn't even look nervous Dev."
For a second, he thinks about Sunday night.
The mirror. The cards. The glass of water he forgot to drink. He could tell her. Instead, he smiles and says, "You'll get there Meera." Meera nods. She believes him.
Dev walks back towards his desk. His index cards are still in his hand. Without thinking, he squares their edges.
What’s your untold work story?
You don’t need to be a writer. You just need a story.
And yes, anonymous is absolutely an option.