Text copyright © 2010 by Nicholas Taylor
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious and are a product of the authors imagination. Any similarity to persons living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Chapter 1- First Day on the Job
I sat waiting in my car hoping that Ankle would get a move on. I didn’t want to be late to my first day on the job. Soon enough, I heard the low rumble of his Chevy Camaro, lovingly nicknamed The Maro, pulling into the parking lot. There was a light rain this morning, and I remembered watching the poor weatherman the night before try to predict the weather in Denver. He had looked almost confident as he promised partly cloudy skies, but by the end of the broadcast, he had promised sun. When I got up to go to the bathroom at two in the morning, I checked my phone and the weather said snow.
There was a yellow blur in my rearview mirror as Ankle parked his car. I got out of my car, feeling mist on my face and heavy air fill my lungs.
We were to enter the building of Riders Insurance on the north side. The lot here was just one lane with parking spots up either side. There was a complex of condos just to the other side of it. A woman glowered out her window at Ankle’s overly loud car. You needed a key card to enter the building, so that’s why I was going to be late for my first day. I didn’t have a card yet, and Ankle said he was going to be on time.
The Maro went silent and a six foot seven man stepped out of the car. Well, he didn’t look like a man; he still looked like he was seventeen despite being twenty four. Ankle had short, spiky blond hair and blue eyes. I suddenly felt out of place looking at him. I opted for a tie today, but all Ankle had on was a pair of cargos and a button up shirt that looked like it had been balled up in the back seat about ten minutes ago.
He walked toward me with a limp.
“Sprain your ankle again?” I asked without concern. This was how he got his nickname Ankle. He would go and play basketball twice a week and to his credit, he was good for a white kid from suburbia. But he was even better at injuring himself during games.
“No, I think I just rolled it. Sorry I’m late. I fell asleep in the shower. Don’t worry, I’ll tell Larry it’s not your fault. What did you do last night?”
“Thanks, I didn’t do too much.”
“Oh yeah, just looked at porn on the internet?”
“You know it; did you download anything good last night yourself?”
“I saw a video of you and your ex girlfriend on a horse porn site.”
“Do you look at a lot of animal porn?” I asked inquisitively.
Ankle was quite for a second. “Only when I’m with your mom.”
I knew I had won. As soon as Ankle was at a loss for something to say, he turned to the middle school your mom jokes.
We walked up to the three-story red brick building and Ankle hit his butt against a flat gray keypad. To my amazement, it beeped and the door opened.
“What the hell?” I asked, truly stunned.
Sarcasm oozed from Ankle’s answer. “Well you see, we need key cards to get in this building and so you have to—”
“I know that retard—that’s why I’ve been in the parking lot for twenty minutes. Do you have yours shoved up your butt?”
“Oh no, I keep it in my wallet, but its arse high for me.”
I shook my head. There would be time to make fun of that later. We entered the building which felt sweltering compared to the chilly morning outside. There was a short cream-colored hall with a dark brown door on either side. Ankle walked to the one on the right and once again hit his magnetic butt against the key pad. It beeped and not wanting to be stuck out in the hall, I followed closely behind as he walked in.
To my left was a large area of gray blue cubicles and opposite that to my right was an office and a conference room. On the wall facing the door was an off-white refrigerator that didn’t look like it belonged in a Fortune 500 company. The office that was next to me had one of those sliver windows next to the door, like the ones in high school that made to feel like you weren’t able to handle a full window until you were all grown up. On the window, a little silver placard read ‘Larry P’.
We entered the office to see a short plump man slumped behind a fake Cherry Wood desk. His hair, or what was left of it, was wispy white and matched a long mustache sprouting beneath his nose. He had on large glasses and a short-sleeved dress shirt that screamed ‘I’m in insurance.’ I almost expected to see a pocket protector. My eyes flicked to the wall and its assorted customer service awards and accreditations that Larry received over the years of auditing insurance.
“Sorry we’re late Larry, I had a slow start.”
Larry looked pointedly at the clock on the wall and then back at Ankle. “In truth, this is the earliest I’ve seen you in a month. Maybe you and Mr. Morison here should car pool.”
He gestured to me and Ankle chuckled. I don’t think that he realized that Larry wasn’t kidding. Larry dismissed Ankle and asked me to sit down in one of the waiting room like chairs that lined his office. He tapped a couple of things out on the computer and turned back to me.
“Ok, well your team lead will be here momentarily and she will show you around and get you all setup. You have a meeting with HR at one to sign paper work and that’s about it. Sorry, I would do this myself, but were having some issues with our fax machines that need attending.”
“Ok thank you. If you want, I can look at them while were waiting. I’m good at fixing fax machines.”
A painful smile crossed Larry’s face. “Sorry, let me add some detail to that. We’ve been losing faxes and we don’t know why. They’re printing; we know that much, but after that—well, I don’t know.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that…” I trailed off.
“That’s ok,” he said. I swore I heard him mutter something about Bourbon in his desk.
Before long, a woman entered the office. She was in black slacks with a long sleeved deep blue shirt. Black hair framed what looked like an Italian face. Her dark eyes looked warm and inviting and she wore a small smile that I suspected was always there. There was a soft waft of some expensive perfume coming from her. It was a sharp contrast to the musty sent of Larry’s office. She glanced once at Larry who didn’t seem to know I was there anymore.
“Hi, I’m Christen. I’ll be your new team lead,” she said enthusiastically. As she spoke, she flashed me a bright smile showing straight, white teeth. She held out her hand to shake mine. Her hand was soft and warm. “Thanks, it’s nice to meet you.”
It was nice to meet her. Larry seemed a bit off to me and Christen was bouncy and happy. She didn’t belong at an insurance company. She escorted me to my cube, which was against a window to an indoor garden. I heard the sound of someone chattering on the phone in the cube to my left.
I sat down at the L-shaped desk. Above me were stony gray cabinets that matched the desktop. There were two sets of file cabinets as well. The one closest to the wall and indoor jungle was two drawers tall and standard looking. The one on the other side of the desk was longer, a double wide so to speak. The air smelled dusty and stagnant and I figured the cubes made air circulation difficult. I looked at the blank, flat screen monitor in front of me. Christen sat down on the desk and held out of sticky note for me.
“These are all of your passwords and the number for the helpdesk.”
“Ok, thanks. Will I need the helpdesk’s number today?”
“Most likely. Managers aren’t allowed to call on password problems and IT usually doesn’t set people up right. In truth, you may not even be able to login for a week or so.”
“Ok,” I said, wondering what on earth I was going to do with the day. She smiled at me in an ‘I’m so sorry for you’ sort of way.
“Look, I’m in the cube at the end of the row. Let me know when you get all logged in, or if you can’t get logged in, and then I will take you on a tour of the office and later you can go meet HR.”
She looked like she wanted to say more but she got up and walked away. I flicked on the computer and heard its fan whirl as the computer came to life. Well, I thought it was coming to life. I saw script after script flash across the screen as it tried to bring up Windows. For a moment I thought I was going to need to call IT about the computer not working.
Ankle’s voice startled me. “Hey bro.”
I turned. “Does this thing always take this long?”
“Yeah, every morning. Just wait until it needs updates. So, I assume you met Manager?”
“Who is Manager?”
“Oh sorry—Christen. That’s her nickname. That or manager lady; either works.”
I chuckled and the computer beeped. I turned back to the screen. It was asking for my username and password. I typed in ‘bmorrison5’ and then tabbed to the password. I entered the long stream of numbers and letters indicated on the sticky note. The computer chirped telling me my password was wrong. I tried again and again. It continued to tell me my password was wrong. Ankle sighed.
“Sorry, you’re going to have to call the helpdesk. That sucks man.”
He walked away after giving me a look. I picked up the phone that was on my desk and dialed the helpdesk’s number. There were four rings and then an automated message. Eight selections later, a man with a thick accent answered the line.
“Tank you fo calling the Riders Insurance helpdesk, my name is Steve, is d’is a new or existing ticket?”
“New.”
“What office are you calling from?”
“Denver.”
“Thank you, one moment. Ok and what is your phone number?”
I gave him my number, also from the sticky note. Manager was planning on me having to call the helpdesk. Then he asked for my name and my department; then he asked for my date of birth and email address. Finally, he was done.
“Ok, Mr. Morison, what is the problem?”
“I’m trying to log in to my computer and it’s saying my password or username is wrong.”
There was a huff on the other end of the phone. “Sir you have contacted the wrong line. Please call back and pay attention to your selections next time. Tank you and have a wonderful day.”
Then there was silence. I sat dumfounded for a moment and then dialed again, this time paying closer attention.
“Tank you fo calling the Riders Insurance helpdesk, this is Bill. Is this a new or existing ticket?”
“New, oh wait it may be existing.”
The voice was the exact same as before. “Steve?” I asked.
“No sir, I told you my name is Bill.”
I knew it was the same guy. He was just using the name of the person he had talked to before. I gritted my teeth and gave Bill or Steve or whatever his name was all of my information again. When I hung up an hour later, my hand was trembling with nerves. I got up to go tell Manager I was done. When I got to her desk, she was on the phone. She handed me a thick green binder with a sticky that said ‘read this’. I went back to my desk and read about Riders Insurance the company until lunch, when finally Ankle came and rescued me.
We went to Wendy’s. Since Riders only gave us a half an hour, there wasn’t much time for talking. When I came back to my desk, manager lady was there writing a note on another yellow sticky.
“Hey manager, what’s up?”
She glared at Ankle. “Nothing. HR said they can see you as soon as you’re back from lunch.”
“Oh, ok.”
She lead the way though the maze-like building until we arrived at a small office with the lights out. There was a computer on a desk in the corner that had every ergonomic attachment conceived by man. The glare guard, the ergonomic keyboard, a little stand for the monitor—everything. It was like an infomercial gone horribly wrong. There was a man sitting in the room, but he was hard to make out in the gloom. He gestured for me to sit. I walked in and Manager followed me. She seemed a little uncomfortable. We sat down and waited for the man to talk.
“So Bill is it? How is your first day going?”
“It’s goo—.”
I was cut off. “That’s great to hear. I’m glad you’re settled in. Is your desk comfortable?”
“Ye—”
“Good!” He cut me off again. “Let me know if you need anything…” He let it hang out there like he was about to try and sell me drugs. “Maybe a glare guard?”
“I’m ok.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I have a keyboard, a chair, and a mouse; I’m fine”
“So you’re better than the people who need glare guards? Is that what you’re telling me?”
I spluttered, “No I didn’t mean to say—”
“Just messing with you. So, let me tell you a bit about Riders.”
It was as if I wasn’t there. He waxed on eloquently about the company’s history, and how wonderful of an opportunity I was getting, and that I had found my one true home. It was hard to listen to, but finally he was done. He turned back to his computer and started typing. I opened my mouth to talk, but manager placed her hand on my arm and mouthed ‘that’s our cue’. There was no paperwork to sign, nothing to fill out—nothing. It was as if he was a hologram from some sci-fi show and I wondered if he just starting giving his little speech at random times throughout the day. She pulled me from the office, and as soon as we were out of earshot, she shuttered as if she had just seen a car wreck.
“Yew, that guy creeps me out!” she exclaimed.
I had to agree with her on that. He was creepy and I was looking forward to reading more about Riders in my green notebook. Anything would have been better than that.
After more hours of monotonous reading, quitting time could not come fast enough. I rushed out of the door seeing my silver Impreza waiting to assist me in my get away. When I sat down in the car, I let out a long breath. Today was horrible. Maybe I wouldn’t come back in the morning. There was a rap at my window. It was Manager. I rolled it down.
“Hey don’t forget this,” she said and handed me a keycard.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t worry, it gets better. You look like I did after my first day.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“See ya tomorrow,” she said walking away.
“See ya,” I said as I turned on the car.
Chapter 2 – Training
I arrived ten minutes early just to make sure that I told Larry hi so I could show him that I wasn’t like Ankle, and that he could count on me to be on time. He grunted a ‘good morning’ to me, and I swear there was the slight smell of Bourbon in his office. I made my way to my desk, feeling the poorly filtered air filling my nose and agitating my allergies. The office was relatively quiet this time of morning as people were still waking up, and it was too early for the phones to ring.
I sat at my desk and turned on the computer waiting for it to load up. My log in worked today which was nice. I opened up my email to find that I already had fifteen unread messages. Most ended up being welcome messages from faceless mass address lists.
One calendar invite told me I had a meeting with the department trainer. From the looks of it, the meeting was three hours long. I wish I had brought some no-doze.
Soon Manager lady was in and she took me on a tour of the office, introducing me to various members of the staff. I didn’t remember any of their names, but tried to come up with nicknames for each. It was a trick I learned to remember people. One that I did remember was Adrian. She sat in the cube next to me. She was nice, one of those people who says ‘thank you’ when you ask them a question. It was also nice sitting next to someone around my age. Adrian couldn’t have been older than twenty six or twenty seven. Across from her was Star Wars, or at least that’s how I knew him. He was a rather odd man, in his late thirties best I could tell. He was tall like Ankle, wore his pants like Urkel, and sported a powder-blue fanny pack.
There was an assortment of spaceship replicas on his desk and a song in some language from the Star Wars movies on his wall. Maybe it was Ewok—I wouldn’t know. I didn’t linger long at his desk, and he bid me farewell with the traditional, ‘may the force be with you.’ At that same moment, Adrian had made a choking sound, and I was pretty sure she was trying to take a drink and had been caught off guard.
The morning dragged on full of nothingness, which in truth was kind of nice. It would have been better if Riders didn’t have their IT people remove Solitaire from all of the computers but hey, I was still on the clock. Manager-lady gave me a map of the building that was three pages long. On each page was a large box: that was the building; then there were smaller boxes inside the big box that were supposed to be conference rooms. There was nothing mentioning elevators, bathrooms, or stairwells. In short, no points of reference at all. It was more like modern art. All of the conference rooms had names that had nothing to do with what part of the building they were in. There was the Littleton room, the Aurora room, the Boulder room. All great names if you were new to the Denver metro area and wanted to know the surrounding cities and counties; but I was from Denver and lived in Littleton. At least I was represented. I could only imagine the shame the people in Centennial had to endure: they didn’t even get a bathroom named after them.
It was almost time for my marathon session with the department trainer. The meeting was to take place in the Glendale room. Our computers had AOL Instant Messenger installed on them so I was able to IM Ankle and find out which room Glendale was. Just my luck—it was the room next to Larry’s office. I marked all of the corresponding pages with compasses documenting the new insight, but I still didn’t think that map was going to be much help.
At nine, I grabbed a legal pad and a pen and started towards the Glendale room for training. I saw Adrian walking back from the fridge, or maybe she was coming from the department store, which was ingeniously called NWG for ‘need it, want it, got it’; at least that’s what people thought it stood for.
Adrian was cute, average height, and thin with shoulder length chocolate brown hair and matching eyes. She was wearing a light perfume, which I appreciated. There was nothing worse than sitting next to the perfume lady.
“Hey Bill, where you headed?”
“I’m starting training, should be lots of fun.”
She looked somber for a moment. “Look Bill, just stick it out and I promise it will get better.”
She reached out and squeezed my arm in an almost apologetic way, then walked back to her desk. I shook my head not knowing what to make of, well whatever that was. When I entered the Glendale room there was a slightly pudgy guy with spiked black hair and huge ears sitting at the head of a large conference table pecking away at a ancient looking laptop. I sat down and he looked up and held out his hand for me to shake. His handshake was firm but his hands felt clammy or maybe it was pomade. He looked like the kind of guy who spent most of the day running his hand through his hair in frustration.
“Hi there, I’m Chris. I’m our department trainer; people around here call me Yoda.”
As he spoke, he scratched his oversized ear. “Oh because of your ears; okay that’s cool.”
He looked at his hand a little confused and a little hurt. “N…no because I train everyone and know a lot of stuff like Yoda; um, not um my ears. Well let’s get started.”
Yoda busied himself with the laptop again and I kicked myself.
“Ok well you need to learn how to audit, so let me go over the basics. We do commercial lines insurance here and this class that you’re in now is for Workers Compensation policies, ok?”
“Alright, so that’s if you get hurt at work, right?”
“Yes. You will be learning how to classify employees and figuring out how much we need to charge people.”
“Classify?”
“See, depending on what kind of work a company does and more important what kind of work employees do, insurance rates are different, thus there is a classing system. For example, a door to door salesman in all but a few states would be classified as 8742. We here in a clerical job, we are 8810. Obviously there is a higher chance of a salesman getting hurt than someone in an office.”
That was only the beginning. Yoda went on for the whole three hours! I listened to him talk about classifications and exposures and rating and a bunch of stuff that went right over my head. When the three hours were almost up, he explained that I was going to be in class every day for two weeks until I was done with the course. Then Yoda was going to look over all of my audits for a month to make sure I didn’t jack them up too bad.
Don’t get me wrong, Yoda was a nice guy and he had a good sense of humor, but despite his best efforts, I was ready for bed by the time class was over. To my complete and utter horror, just as I stood up to leave, he gave me a book to read. Well, it was actually a three ring binder, but still—it was all about insurance and obviously written by lawyers. My life as I knew it was over.
Back at my desk, I had an IM waiting from Horsechick, at least that was their screen name. I typed, “umm, hi…who are you?” in the message window. Adrian popped her head around the corner.
“It’s me. How was class?”
She came around then sat on my desk. Right as she sat she popped up like something shocked her. “Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t just sit on your desk like that.”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t pay for it.”
She smiled and sat back down. “Thanks, so what do you think?”
“Well it was boring, but Yoda seems cool. How’s your day going?”
She nodded at Star Wars and grimaced. “He farts!” she said in a whisper.
“What?”
“He sits at his desk and farts, then fans it away. It drives me nuts.”
“Are you serious? I would never fart around a chick.”
“You’d better not.”
She looked over her shoulder at him and shuttered.
“On a different note, Ankle went to lunch already. He has his scheduled because he’s on the phones. So since he already left, do you want to go?”
“He told you his nickname?”
She laughed and I heard an exaggerated huff from Star Wars’s direction. “Yeah he did, so?”
“I would love to go to lunch, thanks.”
We went to a place called Black Cow. It was a small deli and pretty good. We had to make lunch fast. I think she wanted to get away from Star Wars, but I appreciated her taking me.
As a sat at my desk, I cracked open a Coke and opened the training manual. The rest of the afternoon passed in a haze, and I felt myself slipping into a coma. Come to think of it, I wanted to be in a coma; it couldn’t be worse than this.
I’m not sure when I stopped seeing the world around me or how long it took, but I felt my head bobbing lightly as I tried to stay conscious. There were pretty lights all around me and I felt light and wonderful. Then I noticed my mouth and chin were cold and wet. A dull pain erupted in my nose and I felt myself slipping out of my chair. I caught myself and rubbed my sleeve across my mouth wiping the drool away.
Adrian scooted around the corner. “Are you ok?”
She looked worried for a moment but after taking me in, she started to laugh. “You fell asleep, didn’t you?”
Star Wars harrumphed at her and she repeated her playful accusation in a whisper. “You fell asleep?”
“Maybe,” I said feeling my face getting warm as blood rushed to it.
“That’s priceless. I have to tell Manager-lady—she’ll love it!”
She flitted off and came back with Manager-lady close in tow. She was laughing. “Adrian just told me you fell asleep and hit your head on your desk.”
I tried to sound outraged but I felt the smile creeping across my face. “Well maybe if this place provided a safe work environment like is mandated in the workers compensation act of 1901 or something like that then it wouldn’t have happened.”
They both guffawed and Manager-lady spoke. “Do you think you can handle the hazardous work for the rest of the day?”
“Yeah, I think so. I only have twenty minutes left, but thanks for your concern.”
They both went back to their cubes and I checked to make sure my nose wasn’t bleeding. I did hit it pretty hard. I ignored IM’s from Ankle asking how my head was feeling. I was ready for the end of the day.
Chapter 3 – The Logo
All in all, I had to admit that the first month of my job had gone pretty well. The training was a nightmare, but that only took a few weeks and now I was on to “bigger and better things” as Larry had put it.
I was in the payroll services market group. That meant when people used a payroll company, sometimes that company would take care of their insurance and forward all of the audit information to us. I was picked for this honor because I had a background in payroll. They were supposed to be easy audits and for the most part they were, but it was the customers that sucked royally. As soon as I realized I was to be working with payroll companies, memories from my last job came flooding back.
These people were incapable of doing anything other than their trade; that’s why they paid payroll companies ridiculous amounts of money to do a simple task. Basically, they needed their hands held and didn’t have a clue how to fill out paperwork.
Our help staff compounded all of the problems with payroll services. Most of them were fine but the person that payroll services was assigned, Moleth, was a true nightmare. She was the female version of Milton from Office Space, but at least Milton was lovable in a way. It was to the point that when she came by my desk, I turned up my iPod and prayed that she went away.
Speaking of my iPod, now that I was listening to it all day long, I needed something new. I strolled over to Adrian’s cube. Our two work spaces couldn’t have been more different. Where mine looked relatively the same as it did the day that I started, Adrian’s was fully decorated and appeared to be feng shui’d. She had a bamboo plant that would die and be replaced every two weeks, so the living element was there. Then there were the pictures of family and friends: the family element. The computers ran hot here so that was the fire element, and there was a huge container of water, ergo the water element.
I wasn’t sure about what things were supposed to be elements in feng shui. My mom had a go at it for a while, but after the fire element serenely burned down part of the living room, the Littleton fire department put the kybosh on our inner peace.
Adrian didn’t seem to see me standing over her shoulder.
“Hey A,” I said.
She held up her hand. “Hold on, I’m in a good part.”
I waited for the good part to end, and after a moment she reluctantly paused her iPod. “What’s up?”
“I wanted to know what you listen to all day long. I need some new music.”
Her eyes lit up. “Books!”
“Books?”
“Yes, right now I’m listening to this amazing podcast novel I found on Podiobooks.com. It’s called Legon Awakening. It’s so good and the author’s voice—so hot,” she said breathless at the end.
I laughed. “Sounds like you’re in love.”
“Shut up; but he does have a sexy voice and the story is great. If you want, I can put it and a few other books on your iPod.”
“Yeah, that would be great.”
Manager-lady walked by telling everyone that they needed to go stand outside of Larry’s office for an impromptu meeting. I slowly started to Larry’s office like everyone else. These meetings usually meant that someone was getting some customer service award. I didn’t care. As we gathered outside his office, Larry was already waiting for us. He was smiling widely and holding a lurid green cowboy hat. He seemed to be growing impatient waiting for us, but it was a happy impatient; like a five year old on Christmas morning.
“Hello, hello, is everyone here?” he said peering around.
“Ok good. Well, today I have some great news. As some of you are aware in the recent merger Riders lost its logo. This logo has been the icon of the company for over one hundred years and is a symbol in the insurance industry. Sadly, before we could trademark it again, a bar in Austin purchased the rights. I’m sure you were all as hurt as I was when the news hit but we have been vindicated!”
We were talking about a logo? I couldn’t believe it. This had to be the biggest waste of time in corporate history.
“Well, we have been in talks with the bar for almost two years and I am proud to announce…” He placed the green hat on his head and raised his arms in triumph.
“We got it back!”
There was a cheer from the group and I looked around trying to figure out what the good news was. These people were actually happy about this. To my surprise, there was only a few who didn’t seem to care.
Star Wars chimed in. “So sir, tell us how we got it back?”
“That is a good question. It wasn’t cheap, but worth it. The Logo it self only set us back 400 million dollars and the company has popped for additional 30 million for all of you to get a hat of your own!” he said pointing to the stack of boxes in the corner of his office.
Larry was giggling with glee and I felt like I was in the twilight zone wondering when I crossed into crazy land. The company spent 400 million on a logo, and I couldn’t get a box of tissue? Oh, and I was not wearing the hat; there was no way.
When I arrived at work the next day, I was wearing the green shirt we all had been given to celebrate. Our office was going to be featured on the company’s home page. At high noon, we were all to put on our hat and stand outside. Then our building’s tenants would be arranged into the shape of the Riders’ cowboy hat in the parking lot. There were going to be photographers on site and we were supposed to turn in an essay about how happy we were about the return of the hat. As far as I was concerned, the world wasn’t turning anymore. To my relief Yoda, Ankle, Adrian, and I were all upset about it.
So was the other guy on my market group team. His name was Chester and the first time I met him I thought to myself, this has to be a joke; It wasn’t. Chester was what a pedophile should look like. Everyday, he wore khaki pants with a faded polo. His hair was short and sandy colored. He was a little over weight and always wore a tan windbreaker. He also wore prescription Oakley glasses which on a regular person would make them look good and en vogue. For Chester however, they seemed to add to the molester motif that he had going. It didn’t help that he ate lunch in the park with a bag of candy everyday either. I didn’t think he was a child molester but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him on “How to Catch a Predator.” In truth, most people would trust their kids with Michael Jackson before Chester.
Anyway, apparently the picture was going to be set in our parking lot. In the back of the building there was a single level parking garage. The top was level with the bottom floor of the building with one level below it. The pavement was painted in concrete grey. It was made of concrete but hey, why not paint it to give it that extra something.
As noon approached and we exited the building to assemble at our designated spots, I realized that I desperately wanted to transfer to claims. There was a rumor floating around the building that the claims manager only hired attractive women in that department. After some investigation, I discovered that this was an outright lie. They weren’t attractive—they were goddesses. It was highly unlikely that any of them could spell insurance, but who cared? Honestly, we made a lot of money and hot people needed jobs too, right? Rumor also had it that one was a former Broncos cheerleader. If that was just a rumor and one of them wasn’t a cheerleader, then they should be. To my great pleasure, claims was to stand next to audit and all of the guys from our department shuffled to be next to them. Well, all of the single guys did. The married ones just gave us dirty looks. Not that they thought we were pigs, but because they knew their wedding rings would put a quick stop to any flirting. I felt for married guys. Those rings were like giant neon sign that read, ”don’t talk to me home wrecker.”
Having the picture taken wasn’t as bad as I originally thought it was going to be. It was fast, too. Some prick stood on a wobbly ladder and pointed until we got it right. The claims girls seemed to light up when the pictures were taken and I imagined that most of the them probably wanted to be models…or maybe they were models. I decided to get to know the claims department a little better. I needed a partner. Chester was single; I mean he had a girlfriend but he still counted himself as single. At any rate, it would be nice to have a wingman when I went and talked to the claims girls.
The walk over was excruciating. It was only four feet but still. Chester was nervous too and I was happy he was there. I had to seem better than a child molester. The angels turned towards us and said hi with smiles that could have been considered weapons of mass destruction.
“Hi boys, what department are you from?”
“Audit,” Chester said.
“Oh, the Star Wars department with all those weird fans, right?”
Wait, we were in the what department? Oh no; they knew about Star Wars didn’t they. Of course they did; how could they not? He wore his Storm Trooper costume every time there was a convention in town. I had been warned about this!
I had to get us off this topic. “No, only one of us is into that. I mean, not one of us, but some other guy in our department.”
“Oh ok.” She seemed to say it with relief, then looked at Chester.
“I’ve seen you.”
Chester smiled at his perceived good fortune. “Yeah I eat lunch in the park a lot. You’ve probably seen me going over there.”
They all paused and I heard a ripple of “it’s that guy” float through the group. Ok, being with Chester was a bad call. Birds of a feather flock together, right? So now I was either a child molester or a Storm Trooper; what was it going to be?
“I like Star Wars,” I blurted out. Did I just drop that in conversation as if someone asked me? Yes, I did and I was nodding my head too!
The girls looked us both over with fake warmth on there faces. One scowled at Chester and the rest looked at me as if I was the Rain Man. I was still nodding; I couldn’t stop myself. My brain was stuck on “duh”.
“Ok well, we need to get back to work. You two have a good day and watch Star Wars for me, k?”
With those short words, the world stopped moving for the second time today.
Chapter 4 – How This Really Works
I rolled into the office ten minutes late. The city was closed in by dense clouds that made getting out of bed near impossible. That didn’t matter; I was late and I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want Riders to think I was a slacker or anything.
I thought hard and remembered some advice that Ankle gave me my first or second day: There are two doors into the office. Ankle told me that no one noticed if you came in late through the door next to the help people. So that’s what I did. I waved at Adrian as I passed by. She didn’t seem to notice me. Lately she was onto some horror podcast by Scott Sigler or was it a superhero story by Mur Lafferty. It didn’t matter much to me, but I had to admit that listening to books at work was the way to go. Right now I was listening to a good one called Seventh Son. I slid into my seat, my tardiness undetected.
I knew I wasn’t going to get much listening time this morning, as we were starting a cross-training program. Everyone in the office was to sit with each other throughout the day so we could learn what others were doing and supposedly increase our production and quality. We only sat with each person for an hour, so you didn’t learn anything from them, but it was nice to get a chance to talk for an hour without getting in trouble. This morning I was to sit with Mr. Fiasco, Junior. and then Chester. Fiasco was the office clown so his nickname fit, and Junior was his best friend. They played flag football together: Fiasco was a wide receiver and Junior a running back. They were supposed to be good, but I didn’t care much for football. Fiasco was average height but seemed kind of small for a football player. I didn’t know much though, so I wasn’t going to make any judgments. His hair was cut extremely short and his teeth were unnaturally strait and white. They seemed to glint in contrast to his dark skin. Within two minutes of seeing Fiasco and his smile, you knew you had met the class clown and he didn’t disappoint. Junior was slightly taller and thinner and his hair was pulled back into a pony tail. It seemed he always had a look on his face that made you think he was up to something. Usually your suspicions were correct.
When I got to Fiasco’s desk, I caught a brief glimpse of color flash across the screen and he turned his chair to face me.
“Oh Morison, it’s just you. Don’t sneak up like that, man. I thought you were Manager-lady trying to bust me for being on ESPN again.”
I laughed. “So is that what I’m going to learn today?”
“What, how to get on ESPN? Do you know ALT TAB?”
“Doesn’t that switch between apps you have up on your computer?”
“Yes, it does and it’s the best defense you have against management here. See, you need to get on and off the web fast, you know what I mean? It needs to be a flash because they are going to be looking, right.”
I continued listening to Fiasco tell me how to get around most of the company’s internet security so I could check my email and play games online. There were still a few sites that were blocked, but I was confident that I wouldn’t be as bored at work anymore. It amazed me how much he knew. He had figured out all sorts of short cuts and his production and quality were some of the highest in the office. Despite all that, the man bragged about being on six fantasy teams.
After Fiasco, it was Junior’s turn. When I got to Junior’s desk, he was ready for me. “Now, Fiasco showed you how this is done, right?”
“Yeah, he did.”
“Good. Now I’m here to show you how to find the time to enjoy luxuries like ESPN, ok? I mean, you spend all day gettin' PH’s don’t you?”
PH’s were stats in the system that we logged for our production credit. Each time we completed an audit, we would enter the PH stat. At the end of the day, if we had 18, we were golden.
“Yeah, I guess if you think about it, there isn’t much time.”
He smiled. “And that just don’t work. So here’s how this works; now understand I’ve been here a long time, so you should think of this as kind of an honor learning this after only a month.”
Sitting with Junior over the next little while, I learned more ways to cut corners than I ever thought possible. The beauty of it all was that none of these time-saving maneuvers actually affected any of the audits so our quality people would never find out.
Next, it was onto Chester’s desk. Chester did not have a whole lot to teach me, but I did learn that he was convinced that the world was out to get him. Apparently, he had discovered that management had a meeting every week. He thought it was solely about him and they just said it was a weekly planning meeting. But oh no, he was on to them.
“Don’t look at me like that. I can prove it, Bill.”
He leaned in conspiratorially. “You remember last week when I got all of those policies that I had to make phone calls on?”
I was surprised to hear myself whispering along. “Yeah.”
“Well that day I saw Pam and Manager-lady glancing at me and talking low and then…”
“What?”
“Then I got all those crap policies. Don’t you see? There out to get me. They want my production and quality to tank so they can fire me.”
“You mean Pam, the team lead over customer service?”
“Yeah.”
Granted, I had only been here a short while, but to my knowledge she had nothing against Chester. I shook my head. Pam and Manager-lady were longtime friends so I was sure they talked a lot at work.
“Chester buddy, I know that Conspiracy Theory was a cool movie but honestly man.”
“So what, you think that I’m making this up? Your one of them, aren’t you?”
I rolled my eyes. “You found me out. Oh no, now all of our plans will be ruined. What ever will I tell the Velvet Hand?”
“What’s the Velvet hand?” he asked looking suspicious.
I acted shocked. “You figured it out! The name of our organization, the one that’s plotting your down fall!”
Chester gave me the middle finger. “F you dude.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. I stood up, went back to my cubicle, and IM’d Yoda to see if he was ready for lunch. Yoda and I had become quick friends and we went to lunch most days. We invited Chester, but he brought his lunch and sat in the park. Sometimes Ankle and Adrian would come with but mostly it was just the two of us. Today, Ankle was busy for lunch but Adrian joined us.
There wasn’t much of a fast food selection next to the Riders building, which was a little astonishing to me. It was located right by a high way. There was food next to where we worked but we only took a half an hour for lunch. We worked right off of I-25 and Orchard but all of the good places were around Dry Creek, which was only two exits down from us. Panera, Spicy Pickle, BW2’s—all so close yet so far. I could almost taste the wings at BW2’s as I sat in Yoda’s car. Our only saving grace was Good Times, and we usually saved it for special occasions or when one of us was having a bad day.
“So where do you guys want to eat?” Yoda asked.
“I don’t care whatsoever. Bill do you have an opinion?” Adrian asked me.
“Today is a Good Times day. I don’t think I can make it though the afternoon without a Big Daddy bacon burger and some rings.”
They both guffawed. Adrian asked, “Did Fiasco and Junior give you a hard time?”
“No, but I think Chester thinks I’m in a clandestine organization called the Velvet Hand that’s out to get him.”
“That’s too funny Chester cracks me up, but is that all?”
“No, Larry told me I had to sit with Star Wars this afternoon.”
“For how long?”
“’Til three.”
Yoda almost jerked the car off the road as he held back his amusement. “That’s going to suck man.”
“Tell me about it. Maybe we should go to Taco Bell so I can get a bean burrito or something. I want to be able to fight back.”
“Oh that’s gross,” Adrian said.
Lunch was a fun and an enjoyable reprieve from my day. Back at work, I marched myself over to Star Wars’ cubicle. When I showed up, there he was on the phone talking to some poor customer. He was going on and on about the local Jedi Order that he belonged to and that he looked at Luke Skywalker as a personal hero. I was positive that the customer hadn’t asked anything about Star Wars.
I had learned through experience that most people don’t like talking to auditors; they always think of the IRS. In fact, a great majority of the time our customers disliked talking to us just about as much as we disliked talking to them. Not Star Wars. He made it a point to call every customer and if he didn’t reach them in person, he left them a long message ending with the spelling of his name—twice. They weren’t short calls either. He kept these poor bastards on the phone for eight or nine minutes before they would inevitably hang up on him, which just made him call back.
I stood in the cube looking down at Star Wars. He looked so odd sitting there. He was tall and I mean real tall— like 6’7”—with large aviator glasses. I took in my surroundings. On the coat hook was a fanny pack along with a thin greenish flight jacket covered in patches displaying different achievements in the Jedi Order. The Order had always confused me. He wasn’t a Jedi, not that anyone was, but rather a storm trooper, which was the enemy of the Jedi right? His cube was also littered with little models, some of the Millennium Falcon, TIE fighters, and of course the Death Star. My eye caught a piece of paper pinned to the wall of the cube. There were drawings of slug-looking things along the top of it and a strange language that I didn’t recognize. Of course, my inability to not recognize a language didn’t mean much.
Star Wars hung up the phone and noticed me looking at the paper “What is it?” I asked.
“Ah, funny you should ask. It’s a drinking song written in Huttese.
“In what?”
“Huttese, the language the Hutts speak of course.”
He turned back to his computer to enter his notes from his phone call, continuing to talk about the song the whole time. It was a good thing he turned around too; I was quite literally biting my lip.
“Would you like me to sing it?”
No, say no, I told myself, but I just couldn’t. “Yes, I would love that.” My voice cracked a bit.
He began to sing still looking at his computer screen. He was moving his arms like he was marching and he was getting louder and louder. I turned to look to Adrian sitting at her desk. She looked like a deer in headlights. She mouthed ‘WTF’ to me. Fat hot tears rolled down my face and I felt my abdomen contract with suppressed laughter. I bit down harder on my lip. I tried desperately not to laugh out loud. A salty metallic taste touched my tongue as my teeth cut into my bottom lip. I took long deep breaths, but the song was long and he was really getting into it. Adrian was doubled over at her desk. Star Wars hit a long high note lifting his hands above his head and Adrian’s knee jerked up hitting the underside of her desk hard.
I clapped my hand to my mouth, my body shuttered, and Adrian, still trying not to laugh, rubbed her knee with her right hand and flipped me off with her left.
I knew my lip would throb for the rest of the day but the pain was well worth it. Thankfully, Star Wars noticed only those things that had to do with him, like his lunch and his Jedi Order. I could have been bleeding to death and unless he would get some great glory from saving me, he wouldn’t even see the color red. I learned very little from Star Wars. Like when he completed an audit, it was as if he was writing a book. He covered the paperwork in notes that made no sense whatsoever and there were a ton of them. I remembered Ankle complaining about his work one time and now I understood why. He noted every action he took including walking to the printer. It was more of a journal than an audit.
By the end of the day I was more then happy to go home. I liked Fiasco, Junior, and even Chester, but sitting and listening to people talk about auditing insurance was tiresome at best. As I walked outside I was almost ran over by Moleth, one of our help staff. I had to jump out of the way to avoid the violently purple Honda. As she passed by me, time seemed to slow down and everything came in to sharp relief. My mind was still working at normal speed; it was the world that slowed down, not me. That being said, it felt like I had a few seconds to take in all of the dents, dings, and scratches on Moleth’s car. I wondered how many people hadn’t been so lucky. Was I destined to be one of those dents? Time resumed its previous pace and I felt myself toppling over. I hit the pavement hard scratching the palms of my hands on the asphalt. I got up cursing and looked around for any more assailants. Moleth was gone and it was highly unlikely she had noticed me. I rushed to my car and gratefully slipped into the protective steel cage and headed home.
Chapter 5 – Just Another Day
I hit the snooze button for the sixth time. I was going to be late no matter what I did so why bother rushing about? I turned my head to see the dim green numbers on my radio alarm. They read 5:45 a.m.. I was screwed. There was no denying it. But on the bright side, I did get an extra few minutes to lie around. Besides it was summer. You were supposed to relax in the summer time. But I didn’t think that Larry or Manager-lady would see it that way. I rolled out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I liked brushing my teeth first thing in the morning. The high tone and vibration of the Sonicare seemed to wake me up, and I had that dentist clean feel too. I hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights in the bathroom yet. That was always the worst part about the ordeal of waking up.
My bathroom was in two sections, or little rooms you could say. One with a sink, counter, and drawers and the other with the pooper and shower. The two rooms connected like a hall with the vanity room, as my mother put it, opening to the upstairs hall. I reached around the little half wall that separated the two parts of the bathroom and flicked on the light. This was the safest way of going about this: the vanity’s light fixture was seriously bright this early in the morning. There were four halogen bulbs in the long silver bar that could light up a runway. And while this light was great for picking your nose, it was excruciating after a night’s sleep. The light in the other room was a big ball light on the ceiling and wasn’t so bad in the morning. The light bulb in it was a pain to replace so three years or so ago I went green and installed a bulb that said it would last for five years. It was on year three right now but I was skeptical about the five year promise. After all, who actually kept a light bulb box and receipt for five years just in case they needed to return it? Ok, if I was being honest, my dad would have. He still had crap from the sixties. but not me, and that wasn’t just because I wasn’t born until the eighties.
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