Christian had just gotten back from lunch. He had eaten what appeared to be some kind of bean curd without any real texture or taste of it's own. It had jiggled when he poked it with his fork, and his coworkers had recoiled in unspoken horror when he first had bit into it.
Now his desk was a forest of post-it notes. The computer had eight different windows open, and not one of them was any fun. And on top of the whole mess? The Presido report sat open on his desk mocking him with it's incomplete status. He realizes that he has only thirty minutes to get it finished. He picks up the phone, and dials Janice's extension. Without the statistics package she was supposed to have put together, the report was just a pile of shit.
"Janice," Christian said in his calmest, most reasonable voice. "I'm looking at the Presido report, and I have only one question. What happened to the Annual Net Usage Statistics package? I can't complete the report without it. Where is my A.N.U.S. Janice?"
She picks up the phone. You can hear her chewing gum on the other side, and imagine her fat face just going up and down up and down. "Have you tried on your chair?" She hangs up. You hate your boss sometimes. Like, all the time.
The receiver in his hand creaks in his grip as he gripped it in his gripping... grip. Damnit, his internal monologue was still out to lunch. Probably eating a cheeseburger. Gaaaaaaaaaaawd he missed cheeseburgers.
No time for feeling sorry for himself. He hung up his phone, picked it back up and then started to dial another extension, but then he stopped. He could probably get it faster if he went to people in person. I was easier to put someone on the phone off after all. He got up and headed to Barry's cubical.
He knocked on the wall of the almost private workstation to get his attention from whatever he was looking at on the computer. His monitor is positioned so that someone can't look over his shoulder to see what he's working on without stepping into the cubical itself. Christian had tried that, but Janice had always written him up when he tried.
He idly wondered why Barry never got written up.
"Almoost....done!" Barry half shouts. You hear a rapid clicking of the mouse, and then "Oh, come on in Christian." Barry says. You always have wondered what exactly it is that he's just finished, but he never gives you a straight answer.
I'm looking for the Annual Net Usage Statistics package for the Presido, and Janice is being..." Bitchy? Asinine? Her needlessly antagonistic self? "Her usual self. You always seem to know who's got what, so could you help me out? Who's got it?"
"Did you check with Alena? She had some new idea about something for the ANUS." He pronounces it an us, the lone freak of the crazy office. Then again, you get to deal with crazy Alena. Last time you made it out without too bad of an allergy attack.
"Thanks Barry"
Alena, great. Christian reached into his pocket to make sure his inhaler was still there. Yep. She had the smallest office partly cause of merit, but mostly cause if they shut the door she'd be content with e-mailing out her memos and not wandering out to all the other worker's cubicals and pestering them with all her ideas for improving whatever it was you were working on at the moment. He headed over to her office, hoping that she would be busy with something else and that she would hand over the package without much fuss. He knocked on her door.
The door opens and the wave of flower pollen assaults you. Inside you only see 20 plants. Some must have died. "Christian! I've just been looking over this anus, and made a few suggestions." The file is covered in red arrows, yellow arrows, and blue arrows; all desperately calling attention to some insignifant figure. "And you know, if you move your chair back another 3 centimeters, it would be more ergonimic. And you should really try to brighten up your cubical. Here have a hydrangea." She hands you a dying potted plant. Its sickly sweat.
Christian makes choking sounds as the plant is shoved into his hands. He can feel his throat closing up already, but he chokes out "That's great, but I need it now. The Presido report won't make sense without it. Maybe you could bring up the changes with Janice at the next staff meeting?" He sticks the toxic-feeling hydrangea into a group of other potted plants when Alena wasn't looking at him.
"Oh fine." She closes the door, leaving you with your Anus and dying Hydrangea.
Irrational anger bubbles Christian's rapidly constricting throat, but he sticks his inhaler in his mouth and takes a shot of medication to clear it out. Then he scurries over to his desk to pick out all the little sticky arrows out from the A.N.U.S.
If he hurries, and there are no other interruptions, he'll be able to have the report ready to send up the line.
There is Janice, tapping her foot by his desk.
"Where is that Presidio report? I want it now." You marvel that the woman is even able to move due to her weight. There is also some powdered sugar on the side of her mouth. You suspect that the donut box is empty.
Deep breaths and count to ten, Christian thinks. That's supposed to help.
He clutches the A.N.U.S. to his chest like some kind of protective shield in front of him.
"I just need to clean it up first Janice, once I get that done I'll have the report sent over. I promise."
She glares at you, and continues to stare at you as you work, her foot tapping at not quite regular intervals.
In his haste to pull out all of the little markers while Janice looms over him, Christian gets no less than four papercuts. Tiny little things that don't bleed, but they burn like someone has shoved little razors coated with lemon juice under his fingernails.
But the A.N.U.S. gets fixed and put away in the finished report. He hands it to Janice, and for some inexplicable reason, he believes that this will be the one time she thanks him.
"Five minutes late." She says, yanking the report out of his hands and walking back to her office.
Christian's left eye twitches, but he has more work that he needs to do.
So much work...
Christians day ends. Finally he gets to go home.
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