Morning all and welcome to Friday. I hope everyone has a splendid weekend planned. Mine mostly includes all the household chores I let slide during the week and a sort of home spa like event. I have face masks, foot masks and even hand masks. While all are supposed to beautify, I suspect it will simply look like I tied plastic bags to my hands and feet for a little while. And somehow face masks always make me look like I either am planning a bank heist and didn’t think it through or that I was an a 1920s slapstick and took a pie to the face. Ah the not so glamorous side of beauty. But before then there will be chores. And before the chores, there is still Friday to work through. So lets get started on that with the Friday morning writing prompt. Ready? Then let’s begin.
I kind of like this one. Not sure here it is going but if feels like something I could slip into a story somewhere rather than developing into its own story. I just don’t know what it would be a part of at the moment
Friday, June 18th: It helps others gain an understanding of our systems.
“It helps others gain an understanding of our systems,” He said.
Those of us still left in the department fought not to roll our eyes and sigh at the statement. He turned stiffly and walked out. Being questioned about procedure was nothing he ever took well. Now, given current events, he was taking it worse than usual.
“You had to ask,” Cynthia said once his office door closed behind him.
Doug shrugged. I sighed. Our conversation such as it was seemed to echo throughout the space. Once there were seventy-eight people housed here, each working in their own little area. There were three departments. Technically there still were three departments, but each of our departments was whittled down until each of us managed to run our entire department individually.
One by one each of our colleges disappeared. Oddly I never spoke to Cynthia or Doug until it was just the three of us. I saw them around and when we gathered our three divisions were grouped as one department. Staff meetings and celebratory events were all done as one unit. However familiar their faces were, I didn’t know them. Each of us generally stuck to our own divisions. The divisions became even more pronounced as our numbers started dwindling.
Then we each hunkered down trying to get our work done as well as the increased work load that was handed down as others were dismissed. The only reason we spoke now was that as each of us came to represent our entire division, cross overs were necessary. The three of us working together ended up streamlining and integrating our systems so that everything could be completed. It was the only way the three of us survived.
The system we worked out kept all of us busy, but also kept all three of our heads above water. And if we didn’t drown the company stay afloat. Others had flashier job titles and more visible tasks, but if we didn’t keep things moving then their world collapsed. We were the corporate bedrock. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was necessary.
We ended our short conversation and each flitted back to our work stations in separate areas of the now vast work space. After all there was nothing more to say and if we didn’t get back to work the only thing our interviewers would see was a system in chaos. As I slipped into my chair in front of my console I wondered what would happen when the inspector arrived. Would they expect to see the systems that our supervisor still thought were in place or would they want to see the system we were currently using? Conversations with our supervisor were rare. He would stroll out of his office, issue commandments and various community bulletin board pieces and then retreat into his own space. If something was flubbed up then he would call whichever one of us he thought was in charge of it and issue threats about being let go if our work didn’t improve.
Since our ad hoc systems integration there had been fewer threats. I wasn’t certain if it was because once we adjusted the system there were fewer slip ups or because there were only the three of us left.
‘I’m pretty sure we all count as irreplaceable at this point,’ I thought. I was pretty sure that even losing one of us would cause the corporate ship to sink and take everything down with us. Actually we discussed that the afternoon before.
Ten til Midnight 