The Company (contains swearing)

Slice my face with a razor blade make me smile. Gouge my eyes with a stiletto knife make me laugh. Pour petrol over my body and set me on fire, this will tip me over I will die hysterical. This is my morning sickness induced by thoughts of going to work in the office I’m about to step into to sit next to people who surrendered a long time ago. I don’t mix with these people, there’s no time. The pressure of making shit money for people who’d stamp on over your dead body for being run over by their car isn’t pleasant but when there’s not much work around you make sacrifices and leave your pride at home. The only reason I don’t hate my co-workers is because they hate themselves. I hate me too.

The lift to the 4th floor of this tired grey 1970’s office block can hold twelve people except at 9am when it fills up with at least twenty silent and lost souls. I’m at the front squashed against the door inhaling the sweat, smoke, stale breath and stench of human misery.  I thought about who’d be the first to panic if the lift broke between floors, it would be me I’m claustrophobic. Only two people speak, they are friends; both are managers in the office where I work. I hate them I hate their arrogance, their dress sense and how they look. The two men wear expensive suits one is slightly chubbier than the other. I’d guess their ages are mid-thirties, same as their IQ’s. They are loud and thrive on insulting their co-workers especially the temporary ones who float endlessly in and out of the company.

These two men (boys) giggle a lot, and speak of women as if they’re all blow up dolls. I guess familiarity breeds contempt and punctures. The lift opens I am first out and I head straight for the toilets just to say goodbye to my life for another day. I stand in front of the fingerprint stained mirror hanging loosely of a dirty white wall. As I look up I see the two managers staring at me. The chubby one speaks;

‘morning data dog’

Logic tells me this is their new nickname for me.

His friend giggles, I say nothing

‘morning data dog’ Said chubby again

I remained silent

‘morning dopey data doggy man’

I quietly admired the unexpected alliteration that swallow dived out of this illiterate man’s mouth looking for a place more deserving.

I dried my hands under the watchful eyes of the two bipedals who were encouraging each other to continue the childish goading.

They speak to each other

‘I bet I can get data dog to talk’ Said cunt number one.

‘ok £10 Said cunt number two – these were not their real names.

I had christened them with these names from day one, they never knew of course. I turned to face them and just stared….. and stared….. and stared….but said nothing.

‘yes! I win’ said cunt one followed by ‘oooh wrong side of the bed today eh?’

I opened the squeaky door and walked towards the office. The two cunts were behind me.

‘it’s ony a tenner’ said cunt two as he handed it over to cunt one.

 

The office is a huge open plan of death waiting to happen. The spent lives of lost years are worn

on the faces of most people caged in here. The room is dimly lit with what seems to be mood crushing pale yellow light. Everything seems dirty yellow the walls the ceilings the floors all yellow with streaks of brown.  The despair of it all reminded me of a Hospice I once worked in where the place stopped pretending that it was full of life. I look at the faces in the room and imagine a mass suicide pact where we all leapt from a window but being only four floors up there would be more broken limbs than fatalities. I’d pretend to be with them but wait for the fat guy who works in IT to jump first so I could land on him.

 

Desks are lined up like dining tables with grey partition boards preventing you from seeing below the neck of the person sitting opposite. On each desk sits a computer and a phone. There are posters on the walls full of motivational quotes. I have mentally reinterpreted them to pass the time.

 

Think Success and you’ll be Successful (think of breasts and you’ll suck some breasts)

 

Aim High and Reach the Sky (get high and eat a pie)

 

Losers never qualify for a company pension (losers never died at their desks in this fuckhole)

 

The Company I work for is American owned. They sell energy supply on the basis that they can get you a better deal. This is bullshit but they make money on the basis that people are stupid and always looking for a better deal. This is a short lived experience because there are no savings only short lived promises hiding underneath the small print that no one ever reads. I have been tempted on occasion to make a call and tell a customer not to bother buying energy because the world is running out of it anyway and we’re all going to die. The thought if this made me feel alive for a minute.

 

 I have no interest in the invisible product my employers sell. I also have no desire to make a career out of processing Data. This is a temporary job with a snare. My job is to compile data of the calls made by the battery hens (sales people) and categorise the responses from potential customers (suckers), logging calls that failed, calls that got to stage two and calls that got a sale. This is not a difficult task and I’m considered an IT expert because I can type quickly. I have found that only takes a few days in this job before you can actually smell the rot on your brain. At the end of the week the weak are dismissed. I usually know who is going because I can see the data on who has conned customers and who hasn’t. I’ve been here three months my soul left after two minutes.

 

The sacking process is party time for those who have become part of the elite club of cunts who are obsessed with money. The two managers, cunts one and two revel in this procedure. They regularly bet on who’s going to cry once they’ve been told to go.

 

Dismissal time is 9.30am on a Friday although there have been several times new starters have been dismissed at the end of day one. The wages are shit but managers are well paid because they swapped humanity for money. The high flying sales people are locked in to the company goals. The road ahead leaves the dead at the side.

 

I watch the battery hens picking up their phones, they have their scripts next to them. The two managers begin their walk down each aisle. They will spend their day clicking fingers at people, bullying the sales team into making a sale. They thrive on insults I think it gives them erections. I look across the office to see the fear of losing your job wafting across the room. Today is Friday I imagine all those fast beating hearts of people too scared to look up from their desks. Jobs are scarce money however small pays bills and we humans get to exist for another week.

 

The big clock with the US flag behind the ticking hands sits like a preying eagle on the wall. I watch the minute hand reach 6. It’s 9.30 the PA system erupts with the voice of Janice Tompkins the American fire eating bastard who squats in a small office with a big window that oversees the battery hens. She’s known as the zookeeper. She is also a cunt. The speakers across the office crackle with sound;

 

‘Could John Jones, Marie Bouvant, Jason Clewis, Savee Duberre and Frank Wild come to my office now please? She spoke with a whiney nasal New York accent.

 

Most of the office breathed a sigh of relief that their names were not read out, this confirms just how fucked we all are. It’s an empty hole of life when not getting dismissed from a shit job in a shit hole is something to cherish. Three of the four condemned walked to their gallows to receive their public humiliation. The two cunts were close to ejaculation as they exchanged handfuls of £20 notes after the names of those to be sacked were called out. I was wondering why the fourth named wasn’t heading towards the zookeepers den until I realised that Frank Wild was me. I could see people looking at me. The office seemed to fall completely silent.

 

‘Frank Wild to my office NOW’ Boomed across the room

 

The ‘please’ was missing this was big news for small minds. I got up and headed straight for the exit. I had no interest in the goodbye speech. There were gasps of surprise at my action. I could hear the two cunts muttering something about a lamb bleating for its mother as I neared the door. The other three sacked people looked shattered as they gathered their things. I felt sorry for them. I hated this world.

 

The zookeeper had run after me and now stood between me and the way out. She was power dressed for a power cut in her searing deep sea blue dress, pale blue shoes and a blinding Halloween orange cardigan. This attractive thirty something high flyer was not going to be ignored by a middle aged data entry man.

 

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ She shouted hoping the audience was hooked. ***

 

I looked her in the eye  ‘home’ I said

 

‘I called you to my office twice I expect you to obey’ I laughed

 

She moved closer to me I could smell her perfume it reminded me of a clean toilet.

 

‘you think it’s funny ?’  ‘moderately’ I answered

 

‘I will ask you again come to my office’ she demanded

 

I breathed a long deep sigh, then inhaled I moved my nose to eskimo kiss position. It was time to set free the prisoners of conscience.

 

‘fuck you, fuck you, fuck this office fuck your face, fuck the hair on your head fuck every word that crawls out of your mouth fuck your whiney grinding voice, fuck this company, fuck every boat you’ll ever sail in’

 

The entire room was trapped. I saw someone punch the air, hoping no one else had seen them do it.

 

Zookeeper said nothing. The silence in the office was closing in. But wait…. I could hear the sound of feet moving. Is it the cavalry coming? I can hear a bugle playing the two cunt tune. They arrived at the door and spoke in unison

 

‘You better apologise boy’

 

‘boy’? ‘BOY!’ I bellowed

 

They were unsure what to do next. I put my hand in my jacket pocket, pulled out a small revolver and aimed it at them. The office was crushed with fear and panic but oddly still silent.

 

The two cunts were paler than an anaemic in a white room wearing a white suit.  Time had stopped I pictured myself walking through a petrified forest of horrified faces. I took turns at pointing the gun between cunt one and cunt two.

 

‘Let me tell you about my life. I’ve worked in shitholes everywhere working for shit people. I’ve had more jobs than you pair have pubic hairs. I served seven years in the Army including two tours of Iraq. I’ve seen shit that would be cut from fucking horror movies because they’re too fucking gruesome. You pair of cunts wouldn’t get off the plane until it landed back in England and your shit would exit before you opened the door. You have no fucking idea what life is like outside of your pathetic money obsessed miserable fucking life. You’ve more emotional attachment to your cars than any human being.’ I was boring myself now although the entire room seem interested. Now I felt like playing.

 

‘get on your knees both of you’

 

They obeyed, cunt one was already crying cunt two was on his way

 

‘Put your heads on the floor’

 

They obeyed as  Zookeeper fainted. I opened the exit door as I aimed the gun at their heads. People were closing their eyes. I pulled the trigger

 

BANG followed by another BANG

 

I left the office and headed for the lift laughing at the power of a cap gun that looks like a real gun.

 

I could hear cheering in the room then rising voices of like a choir building up for its big moment

 

‘fuck you, fuck you all fuck the zookeeper, fuck cunt one fuck cunt two’

 

I smiled.

 

From small acorns a revolution comes.

 

I have never been in the army. I didn’t have a gun I never spoke to the zookeeper or the two cunts. What I really did was walk to the office collect my pay and left quietly without tears. Sometimes you have make shit up to keep yourself alive.

 

©JmcN 2013