The next day I had to go back to work as usual, I spent the previous day sleeping off the booze so it felt like my weekend was extremely short. I wanted to throw my alarm clock across the room as the beeping awoke me from a wonderful dream. The dream ended right as I was getting to the good part, I never saw the guy’s face but we were getting married, and just as I was about to say I do, it was interrupted. Feeling depressed at the thought of work, I dragged myself through the door right on time, grumbling good morning at coworkers trying to strike up conversation. I was so engrossed with avoiding conversation I was almost ran over from the women flocking to the lobby elevator, where a hoard already stood giggling and flirting.
Ugh I haven’t had any caffeine yet, but not touching that mess with a twenty foot pole. I hate people, and I hate being around people even more. I’m not claustrophobic but if you throw a bunch of people into a small room I’ll start to freak out, and that is way too many people for one small elevator. Talk about safety violation.
I yawned as I made my way over to the stairs, which unlike the elevator was on the side of the building as people don’t usually take them. It made me regret wearing heels to work today. I found my coworker Mason had the same idea as me.
"We meet again stairs! My mortal enemy!" I joked out loud using a deep villain type voice making dramatic gestures.
Mason wasn’t expecting that and almost choked while laughing. "Who are you kidding? You'll never defeat the stairs! Look at those love handles!" He pinched the sides of my stomach to highlight my fat areas. He gave his world famous grin that could make all the ladies swoon. It almost made me embarrassed for such a good looking man to point out my fat, but we’ve been friends long enough that I know he’s joking.
I swatted his hands away. "You're just jealous of my curves." Pretending to strut my stuff I slipped on the turn. Damn heels. Just what i wanted to do in the morning, make an ass of myself. After this weekend, I’m off to another fantastic start it seems.
Mason effortlessly caught me, his arms flexed against me and spun me back toward the stairs causing me to instinctively place my hands on his chest, which was just as ripped as you'd imagine. "Good thing you aren't a runway model, all the men would head for the hills!"
My face went red with embarrassment, I tried to play it off. "Har, har. Let's just get to work, I'm sure Geoff will have enough work for us as is." We started our descent down the stairs. We called our department the dungeon, being at the bottom of the building with no windows and a weird mildew smell. They locked the computer nerds in the basement. It was like straight out of stereotype, though some of the gaggle of women made an excuse to come down and talk to Mason, who ate up the attention. He's quite the ladies man bouncing from relationship to relationship. He quickly made a name for himself in the office, which was impressive given we have over four thousand employees at this location alone, I mean I’m not really sure of the exact number, just guessing.
“I’m guessing you saw the gaggle of women at the elevator too?” I asked, striking up conversation with Mason. “Any idea what that was?”
“What you didn’t hear?” He asked casually. “I heard from Geoff that the CEO suddenly decided he’s going to spend a few months here to run an audit or something. Probably just here to make everyone work harder, as if I don’t already have enough to do.”
“Uh. You don’t? I see you play computer games like half the day.” Luckily my desk is conveniently at the back of the room so I don’t have people spying on my computer screen. One good thing about being in the dungeon people avoid it like the plague, so we tend to have a little more freedom.
“I heard he’s a total stud. What a shame. I don’t want more competition, I was planning on trying to bang that hot new blonde chick with giant boobs on the eight floor. She’s totally got it going on.”
“The new administrative assistant?” I asked while Mason opened the door to the dungeon corridor. We’re supposed to keep it locked for security reasons and use our ID badge to swipe in, but no one ever goes down here so we don’t bother. We are smart enough to lock up the server room at least.
“Yup.” He replied. “I bet the CEO is totally your type, why don’t you seduce him so I can have blondie all to myself?”
I know he was joking but it made me stop in my tracks. “Uh I- I don’t know about that.” I stammered, trying to laugh it off.
He narrowed his eyes a bit, obviously suspicious about something. “What did you do?” He stared at me a little more. “Oh I get it, you pissed off another higher up, so you’re scared the CEO will fire you while he’s here doing his audit or whatever, right? Man you gotta stop giving people that attitude of yours, it’ll get you in trouble some day.”
“Yeah, you’re one to talk.” I slapped him on the back jokingly.
“Yo Geoff, how’s it hanging?” Mason called out as we entered the main room in the dungeon. It contained all of the engineer’s desks. Luckily the dungeon was big enough that we didn’t have to share this specific room with all of the other computer people from AV to programmers, even the help desk have their own room. We lucked out and got the biggest one in the dungeon, however it’s far from luxurious.
We both plopped our stuff down. “What took you guys so long?” Geoff asked, looking at his watch. “You’re late.”
“Since when do you care?” Mason joked.
“Don’t mind him, the elevator was over run by female zombies so we had to take the stairs.” I commented, logging into my computer.
“Well we have a high priority ticket so today I actually care. We need to go assist the CEO’s assistant with his computer. I don’t have specifics on what’s wrong.” Geoff pulled the ticket up on his monitor.
“Big deal, let the help desk handle it.” Mason waved it off. “That’s not our job.”
"That's what I thought too, but the CEO emailed me personally asking to escalate it straight to the engineers." He sighed, mustering up his best boss voice. "Mr. Green, I believe it's your turn to babysit."
“No way, it’s totally Ser’s turn.” He argued back.
“Whoa whoa whoa! It’s your turn!” There’s no way I’m going to go up there in case I see Tripp after what happened this weekend. Helping his assistant increases that chance greatly.
Geoff scoffed. “I need one of you up there now before I get chewed a new one! Sera you take this one, Mason you get the next high priority one.”
“Ugh!” I grumbled not wanting to agree but I can’t say no to my manager.
I headed to the elevator in hopes the flock of women had dispersed by now. I could take the stairs again, but Tripp is on the top floor, no way my feet will hold out that long in heels.
Luckily when the elevator finally came down it was empty. I sighed thankfully. I rode the elevator to the top floor. After the elevator stopping this weekend I found myself anxiously waiting for it to reach the top. Thankfully it did. Great, now I’m going to have a fear of riding elevators.
I walked up to the desk that was situated close to the elevator to greet guests who come up to the top floor, or turn away those who don’t belong. Only the higher ups in the company are situated up here. “Good Morning, can I help you?” Her voice was bright and cheery. Ew, how can you be happy to work?
“Erm yes, I’m looking for Mr. Cederic’s assistant. I’m the System Engineer he requested.” I tried to reply calmly, but there was no hiding my anxiousness. I swayed on my feet uncomfortably.
“Ah yes they’ve been expecting you, please continue straight until you get to the big room, that is Mr. Cederick’s office. They are working on a proposal so please let his secretary know, she’ll buzz him.” Wait so not only is there a desk right as you walk in with a secretary, but he also has his own secretary? Fancy. How do I get my own secretary?
“Thank you.” I replied politely. With any luck I can quickly fix the issue and get the hell out of there to avoid Tripp.
I did as instructed and continued down the hall to the biggest office, it was easily half the floor. The door was shut, but there was a frazzled woman at a desk outside. “Excuse me I’m here to see Mr. Cederic’s assistant. I’m the System Engineer they requested.” I couldn’t help but admire her desk, she didn’t have her own office, but her desk was more impressive than all of ours downstairs combined.
“Thank you for coming, I’ll let them know you’re here.” She pushed a few buttons on her desk phone to activate the intercom function. “Excuse me Mr. Cederic, the engineer is here.”
“Excellent.” He responded. “Send him in.” Wait, him? Were they expecting a male engineer? Talk about sexism.
“You may go ahead in.” She motioned toward the door briefly then dug back into her paperwork and clicked away frantically at her computer.
I opened one of the double doors slowly after knocking briefly just to be polite. “Excuse me for the interruption. I’m here to look at the computer as requested.”
The first thing I noticed was the shocked look on Tripp’s face. “It's you!”