Mariko the Assistant

Mariko the Assistant is the tenth chapter of The Two Cats and was published on January 3, 2020.

Mariko's New Job
Expi goes to work one morning and goes to get a cup of water from the water cooler. While looking at the bulletin board in the water cooler room, she notices a flyer from her work offering a new "assistant" program for minimum wage. Expi takes this home and tells Mariko, giving her the idea to sign up. Mariko agrees, and she works on a resume before going to an interview the next day. Expi's boss is skeptical, due to Mariko's lack of job experience and her record of being discharged from the military, but Expi convinces her to allow Mariko to work with her. Mariko ends up getting hired, and the next day they begin work.

The First Day
The next day, Expi and Mariko both go to work, Mariko now serving as Expi's paid assistant. Expi explains what's going on, and sets her up a work e-mail on one of the company laptops. As the day progresses on, Mariko complains that Expi's job is boring and states how she is surprised that this is what she does on a regular basis. Expi then tells Mariko that sometimes she helps with the unloading of planes coming in, and offers to let her take her shift on that after lunch that day, but warns her to not lift more than one box at a time. Mariko agrees, and becomes more excited to do this.

Mariko's Accident
After lunch, Expi sends Mariko out, and Mariko meets up with other workers helping to unloading the plane, explaining that she is taking Expi's shift for that time. Mariko begins helping, but after a while becomes impatient to get the job done. She ends up forgetting Expi's warning, and proceeds to stack three boxes on top of one another, even as another worker calls out to her giving the same warning Expi did. This ends up being harder for her to handle, and in the process, she trips down the flight of stairs coming down from the plane, causing her to let go of the boxes, which leads to one of the shipments breaking. A bunch of the other workers go over, including the manager, who scolds her and fires her. Expi runs out, and is questioned why she didn't do her shift that day, and is told that her employment was being "reconsidered" due to her not showing up to help. Expi and Mariko both leave and head back home, in silence.

Trivia

 * This is the first "The Two Cats" chapter published in 2020, as well as the first published in the 2020's decade.