Kick Me, Inc.

Oh this week. Yesterday I told my design partner, "I swear we are Charlie Brown with the rain cloud over him this week." "We are sooo Charlie Brown," he replied, his eyes lighting up for the first time in days.

I learned years ago to never ask, "What else can go wrong?" Because something inevitably will.

Long story for me. This week, Steve was out of town, the only bathroom in our house exploded, I had to miss a day during report season and my workload is ridiculous. I've dealt with plumbers, contractors, mad clients, family crap from someone I'd totally break up with if we weren't related, covering proofreading of financial and corporate reports because the proofreader is out, green co-workers overstepping or understepping their roles, experienced co-workers pushed to their limits, a nesting robin who's been attacking my sideview window and me when I try to get in my dirty car I can't wash because of the drought, and generally trying to do too many things.

Today, for the first time in almost six years at my day job, I totally lost it and had a breakdown. One interaction just pushed me over the edge. So I retreated to my cube in the back corner of a former conference room and gushed tears of anger and frustration. I couldn't stop, but I am not a cryer and tried to keep the sniffling and nose blowing down so my friend in the next cube wouldn't hear me.

Right about then, an admin came around to introduce a new employee...

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I came home soon after that. I knew I'd have to work over the weekend to catch up before the printing trip in the Northeast next week anyway.

I told Steve about my day, and when I got to the part about the new employee, I laughed for the first time all day. And I couldn't stop laughing. We started imagining it as a comedy skit. He said SNL, but I think it'd be way better as Monty Python.

The following is a work of pure fiction and folly. Any comparisons to actual workplace scenarios only prove that those scenarios suck and are unfit for human inhabitants.
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(Scene: A ubiquitous office with an early 90s color scheme. Two office workers are sitting in a cube over a pile of paperwork, but only one does the talking.)

Worker: Welcome to Damien Thorn Industries, Miss Sunshine. May I call you Suzy? Since you have half an hour before HR needs your pound of flesh, I thought I'd give you a quick tour.

(Two workers proceed down a poorly lit hallway dotted with cubicles. Open on a sinewy middle-aged man with Bryl-Creemed hair, wearing acid-washed jeans and a wife beater that exposes his amateur tattoos. His cowboy-booted feet are propped on his desk and he is picking dirt from his fingernails with a Bowie knife.)

Worker: This is Wendell. He's our director of pedantics, TPS cover sheets and time reporting.

(Wendell looks up, sneers, and removes a chunk of meat from the gap in his front teeth with the knife. Workers continue to the next cube. Open on a middle-aged woman sobbing into her hands in front of her desk, which is lined with prescription anti-anxiety medication bottles. A pile of books with titles including, "Stockholm Syndrome: How I Learned to Let Go and Enjoy the Ride," and "Groupthink: Goodthink!" sit beside her PC.)

Worker: I'd like you to meet Brenda. She's in charge of client relations.

(Brenda looks startled and slightly panicked. Her phone rings before she can speak.)

Worker: Moving right along, I'd like you to meet our project manager, Roy. Roy? Oh, he's up there.

(Reveal the bottom of a pair of shoes, shifting in the breeze. Pan up to mummified corpse, dangling by the neck from the ceiling.)

Worker: Let me show you our creative studio. Everybody gets a kick out of these guys.

(Reveal a group of people wearing identical black sweatsuits and Nikes, ladeling liquid from a punchbowl into Dixie cups.)

Worker: It must be someone's birthday, because they're drinking Kool-Aid. I won't interrupt them. So let's head back.

(Reveal an open space, covered with soft, protective foam. A group of middle-aged people wearing life preservers and helmets frolic around a conference table, displaying varying degrees of impairment. Some drool, some babble incoherently about "procedures" and "budget buckets," but they mostly seem harmlessly oblivious.)

Worker: Shhh. That's middle management. Just let them be. Asking them work-related questions sends them into hysterical, illogical rants.

Worker: Well that's pretty much our tour.

Suzy Sunshine: I'm sorry, but what was that fortified door with all the locks on it we just rushed by?

(Worker flushes, lowers voice)

Worker: Never, ever ask questions about that door, and never, ever approach it. Beyond it lie The All-Powerful Ones. They call themselves Ex-Hecutives. They practice the ancient, mystical art of Bottom Line and pray to the holy Cher Houlders. When they are disturbed or made aware of the workers, blood fills the halls. But you didn't hear that from me, and you must never mention it again.

(Workers arrive back at original cube.)

Worker: So there you have it! Welcome again. I know you'll be in mandatory diversity deprogramming for the next three weeks, but when you get back, we'll go over the bend-over-and-take-it manual and get you started! So just sign this form relinquishing your dignity and I'll direct you to the elevator.

(End scene)

See also: This video by my favorite band.

Copyright 2008 Leigh Ann Frink