A Working Vacation

Oh, I need a vacation. I really need a vacation. I’ve been running around the Worlds so much, Home doesn’t feel much like home. I’ve been stepping from the Waking into so many different places. Like now, for instance. One moment I was in my bed at home, now I’m wearing another business suit waiting to be called into the office of my new (temporary) manager.

“NOX! GET IN HERE!” I don’t flinch, but the manager’s secretary does. I raise an eyebrow in askance at her, but she looks down and refuses to make eye contact. I count to five, take a deep breath and open the door.

“FIVE HELLS, NOX! THAT’S HOW MANY I’M GOING TO SEND YOU TO IF YOU DON’T… Why are you just standing there like a fucking idiot? Get in here!” I enter the office completely, closing the door behind me. I note her desk is large, wooden, and heavy. Her chair is padded to make her appear tall despite it being oversized. There are no chairs for visitors to sit. Classic managerial intimidation techniques.

She watches me take in the visuals. When my quick scan returned to her, she was smug. I gave my Mona Lisa – Cheshire Cat smile in return. It angered her at once. “What the fuck are you smirking at, Nox?”

I wanted to say, “I outrank you, your boss, and your boss’s mentor. With one phone call, I can destroy you and dissolve your empire. If you lay a finger on me, I’ll have your arm. You’re nothing but a little yapping toy, spoiled rotten, delicate toy breed. All sound. No threat.”.

“Smirking, Ma’am?” My tone is not mocking. I’m just not allowing her to run over me.

She grunts in response. Picking up a paper, she read it while addressing me. “You’re here as an observer. Headquarters sent you here with explicit instructions. You’re to do nothing, except call in once a day before close of business. You’re not to work in the daily duties of this office. You’ll be paid your regular rate, but Headquarters will be paying for you out of their budget. Your only contact with me is a daily phone call.”

Yup, that sounded right. A working vacation, I was told. I was free to explore the area if I choose. Free to snore in the hotel room all day until 4:55pm, if I choose. As long as I call the office to check in before 5:00pm. If Headquarters needed me, they would get ahold of me. If not, well, flip-flops and sundresses!

“That’s a bunch of bullshit, Nox. A bunch of fucking bullshit.” She rips up the orders and feeds them, piece by piece to an oversized shredder by her desk. “Headquarters has no pull here. This is MY office, and everyone that works here does so by MY requirements. Or they don’t work. Understand?” She looks up at me smugly again. I know she is expecting me to bluster and protest the sudden change.

I’m still smiling the Mona Cat smile. This unnerves her. “I asked you a question, Nox!”

“No, Ma’am. I do not understand. Have my orders been changed?” I knew this game. And I refused to play it by her terms. I knew she couldn’t fire me, and the worst she could do was send me back to Headquarters early. Which would work against her. She had to keep me there for the two weeks I was assigned to her office.

She bangs her fists on the table and leaps to her feet. “DON’T FUCK WITH ME, NOX! I READ YOUR DOSSIER!”

“Have my orders been changed?”

“YES DAMMIT! YOU’RE MY BITCH NOW!” My Mona Cat smile widened a bit. I expected this from her. My response only unnerved her further and she demanded I leave her office at once. I nodded stiffly, and left the office smoothly. As I closed the office door quietly behind me, I heard the flutter of papers assaulting a wall. I chuckled a bit. Then noticed her secretary was staring at me in horror.

I hadn’t stepped into the hallway proper when the manager exploded out of her office. I guess the temper tantrum was over. “NOX!” I stopped, turned to face her, and nodded.

“When I call your name, you acknowledge it!”

“Would that be my given name of ‘Nox’, or your new pet name for me of ‘Bitch’?” She clenched her fists at my reply. I began to wonder if I had been set up by Headquarters after all. But who was being punished? Her, or me?

She began screaming obscenities in my face. I smiled the entire time. Unable to fluster me, she demanded I assist one of her office workers with a particularly distasteful task. Printing form letters, matching envelopes, stuffing said letters into the envelopes, and placing postage on them. A task that normally took the assigned worker up to three days to do by herself.

Brenda, the woman assigned to this task, began to weep silently after the manager left. “Even with your help, I’ll still miss the deadline.” It is currently 10:15am in the office. The mail is picked up at 4:30pm. I look around the mail room and find high capacity/speed printers with paper folding attachment, postage scale, electronic postage printer, and a computer terminal. Looking at them briefly, I find the gear in working condition.

“Oh, we’re not allowed to use those. I haven’t even been trained on it yet. The manager says I’m not smart enough to try.” I look at her in astonishment. Brenda hands me a notebook and a stack of envelopes. “Here, I’ll write the letters, you address the envelopes.” It dawns on me, the harpy of a manager is expecting Brenda to write out about 2,000 letters and envelopes. In one business day. By hand.

“If I can get the gear working in 15 minutes, will you allow me to train you how to use it?”

“I’m not smart enough! She said so!”

“Lemme guess, because she’s the manager, she has to know more than you, right?” Brenda nods. “Brenda, that’s bullshit. Absolute bullshit. Please, allow me to prove to you, you are smarter than she claims.” Brenda looks at the computer and blanches slightly.

“What if you can’t?”

“Then I’ll take the heat and say you tried to show me the right way. She can’t hurt me, Brenda.”

Brenda clutches the notebook tightly and nods. “Okay.”, she whispers. “Go ahead. Quick, before she decides to check up on us.”

Taped to the monitor was the username and password of the mail room attendant. I login and find the account has just enough rights to access the necessary gear. There are several mailmerge filenames. I find the one that matches the name on Brenda’s notebook, “Notification01”, and open it. The custom mailing software starts with a splash screen that reads, “Welcome Mail Sorter! Before proceeding, please ensure trays P01, P02, and P03 are filled with paper. Please ensure trays E01, E02, and E03 are filled with envelopes. The Postal Meter is not on, please turn it on. Click OK to check status again, or Cancel to quit.”

Brenda watched with wide eyes. “Oh no! Is it broke? What do we do?”

“We do what it asks us to. Come on, I’ll show you how to check the trays.” She watches as I open tray P01 on the printer, and point to the ‘Full’ level. “Now, your turn. Show me where P02 is.” Her eyes are wide in fear again. But as she studies my calm face, she gains a bit of confidence.

“Okay, if you think I can…” She looks all over the printer. “Here! I found P02! Now what?”

“Now open it. You have to turn the little knob…” I point but don’t touch it. Timidly, she turns it and the tray pops open.

“Oh!” She pulls it fully out. I can see the tray is not full, but I say nothing. She starts to push the tray back in when she catches herself. “Wait, you pointed at the full level.” She pulls it back out and points to the level. “Not enough paper! So… I have to add paper!” I step back as she goes to the paper cabinet and gets enough paper to fill the tray. The tray now properly filled, she points to the full level and closes the tray with satisfying firmness. “Wasn’t there one more?” I nod, but say nothing. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?” I shake my head and Mona Cat smile. “Well… if the screen told you what to check, then I can check the screen again!”

She whirls back in front of the computer and reads the first message out loud. “P01, P02, and P03 are filled with paper.” She stands up and glares at me in triumph and humor. “Aha! I have to check P03!” Which she does, and adds paper to the completely empty tray. She continues to the three envelope trays and checks those without any prompting from me. I double check after her, finding one tray not quite closed. She shrinks, expecting me to begin yelling and berating her. When she realizes I am merely correcting her, she relaxes and laughs nervously.

“Ms. Nox, do you really think this will work?” She is still scared.

“If it doesn’t Brenda, we’ve only wasted 30 minutes at the most, with 3 days of work ahead of us. But I’m quite sure it will work.” I smile at her, a genuine smile. She takes the smile to heart and smiles warmly back.

I show her where the power switch is to the postage meter, and where the ink supplies are. Brenda learns quite fast. I only have to show her once, and she understands it. I ask her how did her manager try to teach her. “She threw the paper at me and when I dropped it, the package burst open. While I was scrambling to get the paper, she kept stepping on it leaving footprints while yelling at me about how stupid I am.”

As she’s talking, she has checked the ready status, saw the system was ready, and had already started the automated process before she finished speaking. Once her voice fell silent, I started smiling my Mona Cat smile again. “Hey, Brenda, did you know the process is already 1/3 done? We’ll be done with this by 2pm.”

Brenda slowly blinked as she realized the truth of what I had said. She turned to the equipment, with its rhythmic clatter and hum, and watched as papers were printed, stuffed into waiting printed envelopes, weighed, and postage applied. At the far end of the assembly, a large mail bin was slowly filling with completed envelopes.

We were expected to work through lunch, so we enjoyed the peace and quiet of being left alone. As the machinery continued on, Brenda filled me in on the other ways the manager had hamstrung the office. After locking herself out of her account, the manager accused everyone in the office of hacking her system. She demanded everyone log into their account with her watching. Once she got everyone’s username, the manager went about trying to log into their accounts, summarily getting them locked out as well. No accounts have been reset. It requires her approval to call IT, and she hasn’t given approval. Ever.

Dumb terminals were installed as a temporary solution. Type a document, print it, done. Except there was no way to save documents except on a shared folder. The manager saw that as a security flaw and cut the keyboard cables to the dumb terminals so they could not be used.

No food can be brought from home, unless enough is brought for everyone. The refrigerator was removed because the manager refused to clean up after herself and the messes she made caused pest problems. Why didn’t housekeeping take care of the mess? She accused them of playing with her items because they moved them to polish the big fancy desk in her office.

Instance after instance, of incompetence and sabotage by the woman. All kept from outsider’s knowledge by her intimidating the staff into absolute silence. Some how, her office managed to complete enough assignments to be kept from deeper purview by those levels of management above her.

Some working vacation I was sent on. Cast into the mouth of hell.

“Brenda, just going off how you learned the mail system, if I were to get your account unlocked, would you be able to do your other duties?” Brenda looked at me oddly, then gave the question serious thought.

“Yes, yes I could. It will take me a while to get back to how I was when I arrived here. It’s more complicated than feeding paper and gathering envelopes, but I could.” She looks at me strangely again. “But it takes my manager’s approval to unlock the accounts…”

The Mona Cat smile returned. “It takes your manager’s approval… or higher.” Ignoring the unspoken question written quite clear on Brenda’s face, I picked up the phone. “What’s your username?” Stunned she tells me. I call a private number to the IT Department. “Hey, it’s Keri. Wanna help me start some shit? After you unlock and reset a certain account, drop a hint to your boss about the department I’m calling from. The magic phrase is ‘managerial incompetence’. Also, document every phone call you get from this department, me included. You ready? Here’s the username. Yea, changing the username would be a good idea… I’m ready.”

I copy down Brenda’s new username and password. After thanking the very amused tech, I hang up and pass her the keys to her kingdom. She looks at the slip and whispers, “The manager won’t be back until 5. Could you show me… us… a few other things?”

I smile at Brenda, and say, “I do believe, that is why I was sent here in the first place.”

By the time the manager returned to the office, tasks that normally took the office 3 days, were completed in 3 hours. All of the accounts were updated, with the employees being issued new usernames and passwords. While the dumb terminals had been disabled, all the original computers were still intact. They were able to log in to their accounts with ease. At my request, a restriction had been added. Each account could only login from the system assigned to the employee. The manager would no longer be able to surreptitiously login to their accounts in her office.

4:59pm, she walks in the door. She is greeted with the mail carrier wheeling out the bin of completed envelopes. Other employees call out to her, telling her of checklists to be finished, and what assignments had been completed. She looks around her in shock, as folks are typing happily away at their assigned computers.

I intentionally do not acknowledge her as she comes in. I’m staring at a particular phone, waiting for it to ring. I hear her scream my name across the office. Everyone jumps but me. I hear her bearing down on me like a charging bear. I do not move. Just before her outstretched hand touches me, the phone rings.

Now I look up at her, with Mona Cat smile. “It’s for you. I’d answer it if I were you. Might be your boss.” I walked away, leaving her to the ringing phone. As I expected, she stormed away from me and the phone. Entering her office, she slammed the door with enough force to crack the glass. The phone stopped ringing. I started counting down from five. As I whispered “Zero.”, her phone started ringing.

“It’s closing time, I have to go. … It can wait until tomorrow. … IT CAN WAIT UNT*… Yes, Sir. … No, Sir. … B*…. Very well, Sir.” There was silence in the office and in her room. Her door opens, and she steps out quietly. Her approach to me was slow and methodical. When she reached me and looked into my face, the amount of hate in her eyes gave her a fevered appearance.

“Who are you?” The growl in her voice matched her hate.

“You said you read my dossier.” I made sure to sound bright and chipper, if only because I know it will piss her off more.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“If you had read my dossier, you would know. But you don’t have the clearance to read it, not even the redacted version. So I guess that information is out of your reach.” I smiled and chuckled. “Now tell me. Just what did your boss… no, that wasn’t your boss, now was it. Tell me, what did the Division Head say to you?”

She swallowed hard before answering. “To stay out of your way and not interfere with anything you establish, or re-establish, in my office.” Her teeth ground as she spoke.

I smiled, and nodded stiffly. “I do suggest you take that advice to heart.” I turned away from her and addressed the other employees. “Safe travels home, everyone. Bring lunch if you want it tomorrow. No need to bring enough for everyone. Housekeeping isn’t set back up yet. Good night.” The staff stood stiffly in shock. The manager interpreted that as devotion to her.

“They won’t leave until I tell them to leave. Because this is my office!”

Brenda spoke up., “Actually, we’re waiting to see if you’re going to try and slap her or not.” Several giggles punctuated the statement.

I asked Brenda, “Who slap who, her or me?” To which Brenda merely answered, “Yes.”.

“Go home, you guys. I’ll see you tomorrow.” The staff relaxed, and warmly gave each other, and myself, farewells. To the manager, they merely waved and nodded.

By the end of the first week, I had undone much of her interference. Communication between her department and others were flowing again. It was no longer a mysterious black hole where information went never to be seen again. I knew her days as manager were numbered, but until that fateful time, she was still in charge of the staff.

The weekend came. The weekend went. Come Monday, I had nothing else to work on in the office. Brenda had overcome her timidity and was proving herself to be adept at looking after the others. I could easily see her becoming the new manager. Looks like I would have that vacation, after all.

“NOX!” The tone of her voice told me she found a new way to needle me. I didn’t reply, but did turn to face her. “Your duties are still assignable by me. Now that you’ve finished fucking up my perfect office, it’s time for you to apply your skill elsewhere!” Oh for fuck’s sake. What could she possibly find to sandbag me with?

The janitor.

I’m assigned to shadow the janitor of the parking structure. The one person she was not able to harass. He had no computer terminal to hack into. No complicated machinery to sabotage. He had a cotton rag mop and a 20 gallon bucket.

And a 9 floor parking garage with the footprint of 2 city blocks to clean. Every night.

A small man, he reminds me of the character of Mr. Miyagi. Not one for long winded conversation, I find I have a hard problem communicating with him. I’m flustered. I’m amazed that he is able to mop the entire garage every night with just a mop and bucket, but I can’t seem to ask him how he does it. Or if he needs my help.

Finally after several hours of futile attempts, I just give up and watch him. For a long while, there is no speech. Just the sound of his mopping, and the sound of my heels slowing following him.

When he does speak, he surprises me. “There is a place for efficiency and the use of tools to accomplish this. You brought that to the office. Well done! But there is a place for simplicity and focus. You do not have that. Be still, relax, watch.”

I do not answer, but just allow his words to sink into my understanding. He did have a point. I was used to the whirlwind of people, social interaction, politics, and machinery. I was used to being in the heart of the tornado. But here, in the garage, it is quiet.

Or is it?

I turn to watch people going to and from their cars. Most of them were dressed in sharp suits and fashionable designs. Most ignored his presence, and only noted him because I was there with him. To them, he was invisible, and properly so. Some would look at him, and intentionally make a mess on ground he had just cleaned. Some would look on him with disgust, with pity, with thankfulness that they did not have his fate as garage mopper.

Then, I realized, I was watching the wrong thing.

In the hour I had been distracted, he had mopped two complete floors, and was almost done with a third. Huge areas, that ideally, would require a specialized cleaning vehicle just to keep up with the litter. Yet, he did it with mop, bucket, and trashbag.

Again, I tried to study his technique, to find the trick to the efficiency. I knew better than to ask him directly. The answer would come, when he thought I was ready for it.

When he began speaking, he never broke from his movements. His voice was not strained but flowed around his actions, so that the very act of mopping helped him to speak. “I can’t do as many things as you can. But what I can do, I can do well. I can do well, because I practiced it repeatedly. Do not overlook the simple things. Sometimes it’s all you need.”

I understood. At least, that’s the lie I told myself.

He told me to enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasted. I propped my feet up on an empty bucket and relaxed at last. My head was filled with plans for flip-flops and sundresses.

The alarm clock went off, ending dream & vacation

Make of that, what you may.