To the dismay of her peers, junior analyst Gwen Dalton made an empty “does anyone need anything?” gesture before a client meeting, before going out to purchase her own cup of coffee.
According to co-worker Imani Davis, who could have really used an Advil, Dalton grabbed her purse and was already walking away before halfheartedly asking the room if anyone needed something from outside.
“She barely even made eye contact,” Davis reports. “So I could tell she really didn’t have the intention of getting anyone anything.”
“Yeah, she said it, but it’s the way she said it that made me not speak up,” states co-worker Will Leung, who hadn’t eaten lunch yet. “What’s she gonna do, buy me a falafel? Gwen’s just not the type.”
Fellow analyst Suni Mehta, who needed pocket-sized tissues, was in a nearby copy room when Dalton made the offer. “I almost ran out to answer her,” Mehta claims. “But since I wasn’t in the room, I don’t think it applied to me. Frankly, I don’t think it applied to anyone.”
“Honestly? I was about to take her up on it,” says new hire Minori Nakamura, whose bag lunch had been discarded in the weekly fridge purge. “But when I jogged over to her, I slammed into an invisible wall of ‘I Didn’t Mean It.’”
“I didn’t believe Gwen for one second,” says company vice president Sylvia Puckett, who was ready for a second cup of coffee and confirms her employees’ concerns. “This is why I have Seamless on stand-by.”
Intern Paul Lambert, who genuinely needed stamps for work purposes, rode the elevator with Gwen on her way out. “Gwen always gets lunch from some cafe ten blocks away, or bottled water from a gourmet food store,” he states. “There’s no way she’s going to spot any of us for a $7 latte.”
“Gwen wouldn’t even know what to do if we told her what we needed,” says Leung. “Does she even know if CVS is on the way to the Halal stand? I just don’t think she ever thought this one through.”
“I don’t like being toyed with,” Davis states. “It would have been perfectly fine if she just left without saying anything.”
Dalton could not be reached for comment, as she has still not returned to her desk.
