Wednesday, she thought wearily, the dreaded day where she had to justify how much time she had been procrastinating over due dates. For some reason, every manager in existence seemed to think that saying end of the week meant they were giving workers all the time in the world, even when said at 3pm on the Friday in question. The justification would be “I gave her until the end of the week!” each time something was late. She learnt that by not answering her phone, pretending she was on the phone and declining meetings on Friday afternoon, meant less likelihood of being caught up in someone else’s deadline after she had finished with her own. The deadlines annoyed her a bit, as the manager did not want the job to be done, it would then sit on his desk or in his email for two weeks without being looked at and suddenly as his boss asked him where it was would suddenly be urgent and needing revisions. Then the manager would blame the employee who had handed in the work two weeks previously for taking their time. She learnt to cc in their superior boss to ensure that the blame failed to fall on her shoulders after the first time he had mistakenly forwarded an email by mistake, where he had blamed her for the delay. Instead of alerting him to his mistake, she took the opportunity to teach him a lesson, which due to his lack of intelligence took him five other attempts to fail at to learn.
She sat at her desk waiting for a process she had designed to complete. She turned slightly in her chair and accidently caught the eye of the used car salesman. He was short and had thick brown hair and a middle aged face which begged for approval. She could feel the desperation dripping off him in great waves. While he tried to appear self-confident, it was a clear mask which she was sure could move him to tears in minutes. She actually pitied him as she knew the bosses saying he was a prime cadet for promotion to their high ranks was something he could not handle and would fail miserably at, which would make his manager laugh at him. He approached very jovially and used his number one tactic to disarm people with, “Hi, how was your weekend? Did you get those complicated stats done for tomorrow? Did you see Brendon on the other side of the office is now dating Marcia in reception? Did you get five results from the survey yet? Did they tell you Margret is moving to finance? Are you going to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers Concert this weekend?”
“Good, yes, no, yes actually twelve, it’s ok Margret needed the win, no I never really was that much of a fan, will catch it online,” she answered his question barrage. He did it to throw people off guard and try confuse them. She had learnt it early on and he seemed annoyed whenever she didn’t ask him to repeat something. Most made the mistake of ignoring the questions, but that made the little man seem to swell with strength and you’d not be able to get a word in edge ways for the rest of the day. Best thing to combat him with was speed and logic. One he was good at and the other made him slow down and realise he was an idiot.
She didn’t dislike him, he just seemed a bit weak and false. He needed someone to look after him or he crashed worse than a plane. He was married with three kids and had even struggled with that part of his life. He was constantly on the phone with his wife due to something she couldn’t understand or control and she remembered one occasion when he appeared to be explaining the word ‘condescend’ to her. So she assumed he didn’t exactly have too much opportunity to flex any intelligence at home. She would argue that at work he should try, but obviously he was skating by without thinking… So who was he hurting?
“Ugh, how bad is Shaun?” Brett asked with an exaggerated sigh. She turned taking his acting seriously and wondering how she could use his inability to spy, against him. Her mind went to the normal calamity first, like she had unleashed a computer virus that when he opened one of his emails, it would result in him losing all network drives and his hard drive being wiped. Then she decided to go with something a lot more fun.
“No problems, I hear that a few people have seen him doing shady deals and he’s on his way out,” she shrugged dismissively. She saw his greedy little eyes widen and he sat next to her almost jittering with excitement.
“Really? Oh, wow, who was it? Did they report him? Is he going to jail? Will they be advertising for his position soon?”
She turned towards him and patted his shoulder leaning in and giving him a secretive look, “that will depend on if the people closest to him will let them know where he put the money,” she looked over to Janet who had just gotten back from getting lunch. She was eating a roll and as she lifted it, was unaware of that middle aged fat jiggling under her arms almost hypnotically. She had often thought that Janet may one day become like a flying squirrel and be able to fly off the roof by stretching the skin under her arms.
“Oh right!” Brett said nodding with what he thought was a knowing look. She could hear the air of the air-conditioner blowing loudly through his ears with the almost blank look he was giving her. He moved over to sit next to Janet and was whispering to her.
She continued working and ignored the pair. While she could hear their insane babblings, she stopped really paying attention as Janet theorised about her being a robot. While dumb and dumber became background noise, she concentrated on her work and managed to get a minute of full focus time before her colleague poked his head over the divider to request her help. She waved her hand towards where Shaun was sitting and staring at her like a snake waiting to strike a mouse, “Ask Shaun, he told me not to help anyone anymore.”
Drew shrugged and went to Shaun’s cubicle without even needing to say anything as Shaun had heard her. He came marching from his cubicle and put his hands on his hips to try look imposing, “You know I didn’t mean Drew! You should know better.”
“Who did you mean?” She asked and saw his piggy gaze start darting around at the people he had named in the meeting with fear she would say something.
“You know what I meant, get back to work and don’t waste my time again.”
“You’re the one who interrupted my work.” She said as he shuffled off. When he was away from her desk, she swung her chair around and leaning back asked, “Drew, what can I do you for?”
“Um, the numbers in the fifth column are wrong. It doesn’t make any sense.” She went to the file on the network drive and found the file quickly, she then scrolled along and saw the formula was a mistake and she smiled at Drew.
“Shaun, did you want me to explain a mistake or would that be too intelligent?”
“Don’t be a smart arse, just get on with your job!” He growled.
“Ok, Drew, can you see this formula, which Shaun put in when the entire project started. Well it was incorrect, he was multiplying instead of subtracting, so all of the columns due to that initial error have flown through and the entire project needs to be redone,” she turned her chair as Shaun hearing this, stomped over to her desk.
“No, I’m sure I did that correctly. You must have changed it!” He yelled.
“Drew, you’ve been watching me right?” She asked as Drew nodded enthusiastically.
“There you go,” She watched as he huffed and went to his desk and dialled the phone, quickly whispering into it, “Don’t worry Drew, here, I developed something which will change it all without needing to do it manually again. Give me three minutes.”
Drew thanked her and went back to his desk as Shaun continued to splutter to whomever he was complaining to. She finished the correction and emailed Drew the fixed file. The executive CEO’s assistant came through and stopped by her desk, “Bruce Cadger had heard you disrupted a major project and needs to see you,” Melissa, his assistant said seriously.
“Hi Melissa, I have just fixed a project which one of my colleagues was working on. I wasn’t actually assigned it. Drew, which file was it, that I just fixed in three minutes?”
“The Caringdon account, which was started by Mr Bunion,” Drew replied.
“Oh, maybe the information was incorrect,” Melissa blustered.
“No, I heard Shaun call as I was fixing his error, did you need anything else, as I am pretty busy doing my own work?” She asked with glacial tones.
“Yes, well I had better get back,” Melissa made an embarrassing retreat.
Shaun again stood dripping his insecurities disgustingly over her shoulder, “You should have told me you fixed it!” He blubbered.
“Between fixing the problem and you calling the CEO, I hardly had time, did I?” She smiled sweetly.
“This is why no one likes you, you’re always so superior!”
“If only management could share my traits?”…
