Oddly Office – Part One
Bloody mid-week meetings. Most meetings were a royal pain, but there was something about the halting presentation of this Wednesday morning meeting that got under my skin. It could’ve been the anemic coffee, caramel-colored water with a slight aftertaste of the real thing. If you took a firehose and aimed it at some coffee beans…
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Oddly Office – Part Two
The DocuMax 4000 had customers, which wasn’t surprising. What did alarm me were the people in line. It is an unspoken rule that those who manage, don’t copy. Ever. That is a job best left to eager interns and office toadies, fighting over scraps of administrative affection. I knew my place, and stepped back, leaning…
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Oddly Office – Part Three
The grey stairwell was quiet and unnerving. I tried not to take the stairs much, there had been an incident last year where a poor intern got locked in and ended up frantically beating at each door until his hands were a bloody mess. I looked at the walls, wondering if management had scrubbed all…
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Oddly Office – Part Four
Barnes had insisted I do this alone. Climbing back up the stairs, I wasn’t so sure. RONCIN, the subliminal incentive program embedded in the copier was more malicious than I had realized. I felt my pocket where the chip-puller poked into my thigh. Was I really going to do this? I thought briefly about the…
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Oddly Office – Part Five
Surrounded, I weighed my options as the elevator ascended to the top floor. My mental list consisted of 1) I’ve been rumbled, 2) My coffee is getting cold — damn it all. Perhaps I should cut back on the caffeine. Not that it would help right now, flanked by the stammering remnants of what used…
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Oddly Office – Part Six
I had no way of knowing if Barnes was still alive. Sitting on the landing in the stairwell, I took stock of the situation. My cell phone was ruined. No help there. I hastily rummaged my pockets. My overly soaked fingers found a sodden scrap of paper – a last line of defense. Barnes made…
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Oddly Office – Part Seven
The lobby was a buzz of activity. Large floodlights had been set up outside, casting harsh shadows and exaggerated silhouettes. I was a wreck. One pant leg torn, mostly wet. My shirt was spattered with bits of office grime, kicked up from the soaked carpet during my struggle. The stairwell door had barely closed when…
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