Oink

“I want to hear you squeal.”

Adam said nothing, acutely aware of his new colleagues’ eyes on him. He pushed his snout back onto his face.

“Come on, buddy, give me a little squeal and I’ll give you ten points. Ten big ones for your team for one teensy weensy squeal. ” Gareth tapped his clipboard encouragingly. “For the team?”

Adam grabbed the clipboard from his hand and swung it in a smooth arc, cleanly slicing Gareth’s head from his shoulders, the detached head bouncing high over the tables and coming to rest in a dusty corner.

“It says right here in the task-book, ‘Dress up one member of your team as a pig. Extra points for realism.’” Gareth stood before him, distinctly un-decapitated. “You’ve got the snout, you’ve got the ears, but real pigs squeal, buddy. Why can’t you just give us one little oink, eh?”

“Because this is supposed to be team-building not ritual humiliation, you condescending arsewipe,” Adam thought, avoiding Gareth’s face and focusing on the words across his pink t-shirt: ‘HAVIN’ A LAUGH EVENTS’.

Why would they make him come to this moronic team-building event on his first day in the job? The first day of his first job. Did he really work three years to get a good degree to get a good job only to be dressed as a cardboard pig, having to squeal for some over-caffeinated twat?

Adam sniffed. His snout fell off and rolled under the table. Gareth quickly bent to pick it up, arse in the air.

Adam took one step and swung his right leg hard, his foot connecting solidly with Gareth’s behind. Gareth took off, arrowing through the air and embedding headfirst into the wall, his legs waving helplessly ten feet above the ground.

Gareth straightened up and pushed the snout back onto Adam’s nose. Adam flinched, fighting the urge to rip the snout off and throw it in Gareth’s face.

“Your team needs these points, buddy. You want to help the team, don’t you?” Gareth gestured at the group of strangers who he’d met just two hours previously and whose names he couldn’t remember. Did he really want to help these people? Was he being unreasonable by wanting to keep his dignity intact until at least lunchtime on his first day?

He had left the house that morning walking tall, confident, optimistic; ready to make his way in the world as a fully fledged adult. Now, he stood, cheeks burning, desperately trying not to cry. Why would this man not just let it go? Why was he persisting? Was he a sadist? Or just monumentally insensitive?

Adam stood at a crossroads. He could give in, give this cruel bastard the satisfaction of hearing him squeal and be known forever more at this company as Pig Boy, or he could just turn around and walk out and work out how to explain to future employers why he lasted less than half a day in his last job.

“Come on, Adam. Buddy. We all want to hear you squeal, don’t we people?”

The injustice boiled up inside him. Why should he have to put up with this crap? “Shut up. Just shut up, you stupid, babbling idiot. I’m not squealing for you or anyone.” He ripped the snout and ears off his head, dropped them on the floor and stamped on them. “How in the hell is this Mickey Mouse bullshit supposed to build a team? Teams stick together; they don’t hang people out to dry and embarrass them in front of everyone. I’m not going to stand here and humiliate myself to get pointless bloody points that mean sweet FA to anyone but you, you twerp. You can stick your fricking points and your shitting team-building right up your... arse. And if I’m going to be fired for that, then... so be it.”

He stopped, breathing hard, his heart pounding loud in the silence. Then, from across the room, a cheer, then another and another, building to a crescendo of applause and shouts. Hands clapped him on the back and ruffled his hair, he was swept on a tide of congratulations out into the street, down the road and into a pub. A pint was pressed into his hand and words washed over him, one phrase standing out above them all.

“You’ll do well here, son.”