Office Hours - Chapter 1 - The Office

8/9/2019 Office Hours - Chapter 1 - The Office

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Life was never boring at Multicom Transnational.

This morning it was loud, astonishingly so and the more staff that arrived for their working day, the

louder the decibels clanged. Below the chaos, on the ground floor, the silence was excruciating.

Three colleagues stood rooted to the stylishly tiled floor as if suddenly confronted by a ferociousblack bear in the woods. They could not move, they did not blink and they dare not breathe for

three feet in front of them enclosed in the tastefully wood panelled of the lift well was their

ferociously reviled General Manager, the pelvically-challenged, balding black bear, Rodger Baxter.

Each of the three colleagues were fervently wishing they could transport oneself three minutes back

in time and place and one of them actually believed she could, given the right crystals.

Sofie Beaumont had swished into the building through the gigantic glass doors irrationally berating

her decision to wear open-toed shoes as if she knew the weather would abruptly burst into tears.

Her blonde ponytail was plastered to her back and soaking through her shirt, neatly trailing water

down her spine into the crack of her bottom, taunting and tickling her. She had rounded the corner,

still squirming with discomfort and was visually accosted by a sight least expected at this hour. She

had instantly started breathing erratically.

Initially Kevin Babbit had approved of his decision not to run in the rain but then regretted his lack of

haste. With every step, his trousers flapped wetly around his ankles sending shafts of cold air up his

shins. Kevin was so mesmerised by the flap-flap sound he had neglected to deploy his excellent

hearing elsewhere and detect the hyperventilation of a distressed maiden. Turning into the lift well,

his brain had stopped him dead in his tracks while his sight alerted him to the danger.

Courtney Chase, still delighting in Mother Natures (rather soggy) unexpected gift, had rushed for

the elevators and collided with Kevins broad back. Her hand flew to her smushed nose. Tears welled

up, temporarily blinding her. She stepped around Kevin, snottily berating the blurry human-shaped

blob and wandered right into Rodgers line of sight.

Hi guys!

Courtney had frozen in a comic pose and Sofie felt a bubble of laughter rise while Kevins stomach

growled. Now the three of them were stuck in No Mans Land with no wilderness skills to save them.

Nobody ever willingly wanted to tangle with a black bear just like nobody ever freely wished speak

to or occupy the same space as Rodger Baxter. It wasnt just one strike against him! Calculus had

been invented to study the limits of Rodgers function in life. What purpose could someone serve

when their most memorable attributes were laughing at awkwardly inappropriate times,

deliberately ignoring peoples personal space and unhygienically sticking his digits in the least

hospitable nooks and crannies of his body? He was doing this now and Courtney broke her street

theatre pose to gag.

Rodger Baxter, blinking myopically, beamed his demented smile in their general direction. At the

lack of response, Rodgers smile faltered, then brightened and he opened his mouth again. They


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flinched in anticipation.

HI GUYS!

At these words, Courtney actually whimpered. Sofie heard Kevin roll his eyes and sighed inwardly.

Sofie was pretty sure if someone didnt acknowledge Rodger soon theyd all be performancemanaged. Unless they could convince him they were figments of his imagination? Rodger was pretty

stupid. If there was a reverse MENSA, hed be a richly decorated member. She was just about to

signal to Kevin when their colleague Rudy wandered around the corner and cheerily greeted them all

by name. Defeated, Sofie, Kevin and Courtney all turned back to dejectedly mumble a greeting in

unison. Rodger looked utterly delighted and they all silently resolved to punish Rudy later.

The elevator ride was excruciating. Sofies wet hair continued to taunt her buttocks, Kevin could no

longer feel his ankles and his feet felt left out in the cold and both had to listen to Courtney, who

unable to handle the silence of the longest lift ride in history, attempted conversation with Rodger

and then couldnt successfully mask her expression of disbelief at his tortuously drawn-out response.

Rudy had his iPod on and was listening to KMFDM at an unreasonable volume with his eyes tightly

shut. When the lift stopped at their floor, no one bothered to tell Rudy. Before getting off, Kevin

leaned over and pressed the highest floor, 30 and they coolly left Rudy behind. The punishing had

begun.

They were all seasoned employees and with the sole exception of Rodger, knew the drill. So when

they walked through the internal glass doors, they quickly dispersed and happily flung themselves

into the bedlam. Today would be a day of challenges, testing ones mettle and seeing how much

corporate-condoned thievery they could engage in.

Over the weekend the office relocation of staff from sharing one floor to being distributed over

three floors had been carried out, impossibly on time and improbably within budget (in reality the

move had been delayed fifteen times and the budget had blown out months ago but the organisers

were keeping that to themselves).

Last Friday those that were moving either desks, floors or both had to pack their desks, box their

belongings and label their computers. They also fiercely guard the deluxe office chairs personally

snaffled during the last relocation until they were satisfied no one could make off with them. The

professional movers had started moving that night and over the next two days relocated boxes and

furniture, dispersing them at random in a pattern no idiot savant had a hope of deciphering.

Now it was time to undo the damage.

This level of the building was a recent acquisition for Multicom and a direct result of its bottom line

looking unfashionably plump. For many employees, this morning marked the first occasion to visit it.

Inevitably a small group of co-workers got lost along the way, punching in their previous homes

address on the lift panel and exiting before remembering they no longer lived there. When this

forgetful group eventually appeared at their new floor, still shaking off the rain, they stared with

frank amazement; the floor looked not unlike the demolition job they could sometimes hear being


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destroyed several floors above them.

Directly in front of the entrances internal security doors was a pod; made up of eight desks and

bordered on three sides by a waist-high partition. Today the pod was (almost) empty of employees

but full to the brim with office paraphernalia and rubbish. Archive boxes, in-trays, cables, suspension

folders, plastic inserts, a million paperclips, scraps of paper, an inflated beach ball, garbage bags,random pieces of coloured cardboard, numerousinkless pens, monitor stands, a coat hanger,

broken photocopier paper trays and at its centre a thin, bespectacled man with a dull personality

and razor-sharp hair taking inventory. A distasteful expression was plastered to his face; hed clearly

been volunteered for this unspectacular task. No one knew his name but he was the kind of guy with

a weapons collection hidden underneath the floorboards prepared for a zombie apocalypse. So it

was probably Eric.

A football whizzed past narrowly missing their heads and turned the groups attention to the rest of

the floor.

Anton Perky Perkins and Alfred Lim had their heads together. Perky was murmuring to Alfred Lim

in his seductively wicked South African accent, recounting his debaucheries from the weekend and

leaving no detail untold. Lims kind brown eyes widened on occasion and he responded with his

trademarked surprised grunt pretending he went through the same outrageous shenanigans Perky

seemed to engage in on a regular basis. He had to get some better stories, Lim told himself.

Their conversation was interrupted by the ball thrower, Brandon Price. Brandon stood with feet

planted shoulder-width apart, the sun lighting him up from behind, his brown eyes intently focussed

on the balls performance. His blonde woolly curls stood out from all angles contrasting with his dark

suit; he looked like an angelic surfer dressed for a funeral. Brandon had found the long-lost football

nestled between redundant filing cabinets and affectionately greeted the ball. It wasnow being

reintroduced to its purpose of annoying those hard at work unpacking their desks and arranging

porcelain animals or re-tacking baby pictures.

Lim!

Lim faithfully complied with Brandons implied request, hustling his bulk past those still crowding the

entrance and failing to catch the football which, from the disappointed heckling of his team mates,

wasnt the first time hed missed it. It seems Lim had talked up his skills yet again. Brandons disgust

was palpable.

Alfred Lim leaned over and picked up the ball. He gripped it with both hands and lunged, aiming togo long but his ability was clearly at odds with his intent. Instead of gracefully throwing the ball in a

low arc, he tripped and collided with a passing co-worker, the petite and gorgeous Maria Gonzalez.

Shed been teetering about in four inch heels, her arms full of a stack of suspension files so high she

could barely see over the dash, bound for her new filing cabinet when she was sideswiped by Alfred.

Her carefully organised files exploded into the air, their contents raining down upon them like giant

pieces of confetti as they lay sprawled on the carpet rubbing their bumped heads.


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Lim gurgled an apology and started to crawl towards her offering more apologies but succeeding

only in getting an unforgivable eyeful of Marias designer under-garments. Even above the

cacophonous din, staff on the opposite side of the building could hear Maria verbally slapping Alfred

for his perverted behaviour. Lims comment about seeing what she had for breakfast only served to

infuriate her further.

And so it was Perky, not Lim that gently raised Maria Gonzalez to her feet and sat her in a chair. And

it was Perky who massaged her aching stockinged feet and put a cool hand to her bruised forehead

and called for First Aid. And it was Perky who kindly rearranged her files and escorted her to her new

filing cabinet. And it was Perky three days from now, telling Lim of his latest conquest. Lim was foiled

again.

A woman stomped past and screeched instructions at no one in particular. Her name was Barbara

Lundy and she was the new office manager. Every day she looked the same. Always with a dark-

coloured Chinese-collared smock, her red high-vis hair was ironed straight and brushed back from

her non-existent forehead; she applied bright orange lipstick to thin lips and encircled her tiny eyes

with too much smudgy eyeliner. Hot stares of hatred from staff knee-deep in her mess followed her

progress turned to teary-eyed coughing fits as they caught a whiff of the cheap perfume she must

have bathed in that morning. It was predicted she wouldnt last long which of course meant shed

enjoy the fruits of a long career and celebrate her 10th Anniversary with a gift of some tastefully

monogrammed hand-luggage.

Office chairs were temporarily transformed and used to transport heavier objects, their drivers

navigating the obstacle course of corporate accoutrements strewn about the corridors, one hand

firmly gripping the computer monitor, the other pushing the difficult chair (which had never-before

seemed so closely related to a shopping trolley) into every possible impediment.

On schedule, Multicoms Next Top Models, the Polish twins walked by momentarily stunning the IT

department representative and giving Matthew Spinner enough time to vanish the trolley out from

under the IT consultants very nose. The IT department had generously provided one trolley for two

hundred staff and not only had provided a bodyguard (at least thats how it was being interpreted)

but had been so firm on the rules surrounding said trolley and its proper usage, weight restrictions

and expected return date and time, many staff seriously considered the ramifications of deliberately

being sucked into a destructive viral pornado just to teach them a lesson in manners. Hence the

necessity of the supermodel drive-by. Spinner wasnt called the Thieving Scoundrel for nothing.

Jog it in guys! Bart Paulsson cried as some staff returned to their desks triumphantly grasping their

boxed belongings. Despite the blood, sweat and tears they had expelled to retrieve theirpossessions, everyone had a smile for Bart.

Bart Paulsson, professional beefcake, had missed his calling as a WWE ring announcer and

fortunately started working at Multicom some three years ago. He was affectionately regarded as

the companys mascot and beloved by all. All throughout this very trying day when his colleagues

were on the brink and the idea of throwing someone elses cable-less monitor out the plate-glass

window seemed a distinct possibility, Bart would trundle by shouting encouragement, chalking up


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the wins and cheerfully raising their battered self-esteem.

This stop-start progress was followed by the procrastinators who couldnt decide between

unpacking their desks and finding them first. The most accomplished procrastinator of all, Colin,

minced into every pod to exchange pleasantries and trade gossip on the relocation. Everyone knew

his main objective was the new Sales Executive nicknamed The Cypriot with his dashing Rhodes &Beckett business shirts and amusing but classy cufflinks. The extremely efficient were already hard at

work blocking out Colins lisp and irritating those around them with their obnoxious quest for

constant over-achievement.

The small group at the entrance slowly drank all of this in, adjusted to the cacophony of sounds and

as if on cue, disbanded. They divested themselves of their jackets and hung them over partitions,

then made a mental note of the nearest landmark and embarked on their quest for their desk and

personal belongings.

The latecomers were barely given a second-glance, there was so much activity focussed on putting

to rights the havoc wrought but even those hard at work re-tacking baby pictures stopped to watch

the late arrival of Damien English, sunglasses still glued to his handsome face, gelled hair sprinkled

with rain, as he swaggered onto the floor and catwalked his way to what he assumed was his desk.

By lunch, the mayhem had agreed to cease and desist and equilibrium had somewhat beenrestored

to the Multicom universe.

A small group of tie-less young men in short-sleeved business shirts huddled around a man in the

recess to the right of the internal glass doors. The man had a bald spot that hadnt seen the cover of

hair in many a decade, what he did have was slicked back but doubled as a comb-over every night

between Thursday and Sunday when he hit the town in the eternal search for female

companionship. He too was wearing a short-sleeved business shirt except his tie was tightly fastened

against his neck so that the skin bulged out unattractively over the collar. He was the Relocation

Project Coordination Manager and was as serious about his time management as the rumours were

about his abnormal attachment to his clipboard; it was gorgeous and way too good for him.

At 12.00pm sharp the coordinators were all expected to giving an update. The removalists

Relocation Project Coordinator went first. He was a seasoned RPC and knew exactly how little to say

in order to imply a job well done.

Boxes have been delivered and allocated...

This translated to Boxes have been relocated and allocated miles off-course, if at all. It will take

days to locate and distribute correctly and some might never see their personal effects again. He

gave a cocky smile and congratulated himself when his superior made a check mark against his

name.

Most people have a LAN cable... the gap-toothed cable guy chimed in.


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He, of course, meant that everyone seemed to be missing a LAN cable which was a common mystical

event when moving employees from one desk to another. The same people were probably missing a

phone cable too despite carefully tying them together with the provided cable ties. Mr Gap-Toothed

had been taking pointers from Mr Seasoned RPC. The manager gave him a barbed stare and marked

his name with a question mark and Gap-Tootheds shoulders slumped.

During Gap-Tootheds update, phones rang intermittently and at awkward volumes. Were still

sorting the phones out but its a problem with the MDF...

The telecommunications expert had a hard enough time spelling MDF however he knew enough

about project management to know you ALWAYS deflect issues and blame some random technical

irregularity if you could get away with it. And he did, get away with it. A little tick went against his

name and he (inwardly) sighed with relief.

The consumables RPC guy was panicking. He had mistakenly ordered the same stationary supplies

three times. Hed been so terrified of forgetting and being the only RPC to fail the project. Of course

he now realised he should have seen Gap-Toothed for the weak link he really was and was regretting

his competitive behaviour. Now he had some explaining to do and was drawing a blank. His brain

seemed determined to stick with its non-compete clause.

There was enough paper to fulfil the needs of every office worker from the Eighties. If that didnt

paint enough of a picture, the rest of the paper that couldnt reasonably be stored in the office (for

fear of unbalancing the building and causing its collapse), was stacked three pallets high in the two

newly acquired executive car spaces kept permanently unoccupied for VIPs.

Every departments stationary requirements have been fulfilled. Did he imagine it or did the

managers eyes twinkle in approval at him? Emboldened by this he foolishly continued. There

should be no complaints from that quarter... He ran off recognising his mistake. He silently

repeated, will be no complaints will be no complaints! Tick. Relieved his knees turned to jelly.

The facilities RPC was sweating just a little. He had nothing good to report and was facing not a

question mark but a cross. No one wanted to get a cross. This Relocation Project Coordination

Manager was said to be pretty lethal with his beloved clipboard and the facilities RPC didnt want to

be the one to quantify pretty. He decided to risk being obtuse and hope there were no follow up

questions.

All printers have been relocated, which was technically true. He hoped he sounded as confidentas

he thought he faked.

There were no longer any printers on the lower floor where there should be some and on this floor,

were too many or not enough. One two-person department had been allocated five printers and no

desks, while the largest department found an ancient micro-fiche machine sitting innocently in place

of the brand-new, top-of-the-line Fuji Xerox Docucolor 9000 IV behemoth which had conveniently

gone missing and was probably on Grays Online like its predecessor. He held his breath as Mr

Manager opened and then closed his mouth, only when the tick was in place did he breathe again.


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The Relocation Project Coordination Manager said a few words that in no way shape or form could

be defined as encouragement nevertheless the young men all left with slightly smug expressions

contorting their faces. Almost as an after-thought, Gap-Toothed was ask to remain behind.

It was the most successful office relocation ever.

Documents

Office Hours - Chapter 1 - The Office