Good morning one and all. It is Thursday and I have to say, I am filled with excitement. I actually managed to get ahead of my schedule so if all goes well, then today I will get to spend a large chunk of the day just writing. And that is a happy dance worthy thought. So without further delay, we are going to jump right into the morning writing prompt and get going. Read, set, WRITE!
I actually kind of like this one. Admittedly the ever growing to do list is a common feature of my day so I feel Dan’s pain. I kind of want to find out what his job involves. Other than a predecessor who let things slide. Could be fun to come back to.
Thursday, July 15th: His list never seemed to end.
His list never seemed to end. Every time he turned around another item was added to it. In fact he was certain that every time he managed to check one item off his list, two more appeared.
“It’s like fighting a hydra,” he muttered to himself as he looked at the list. Not for the first time he wondered how his predecessor managed. He had been cool, calm and completely unruffled. It looked like he sailed into the office, casually chatted with a few of the people in the building, answered a couple of phone calls and then breezed out at the end of the day.
Dan anticipated no major issues. In fact his predecessor informed him the job was a bit of a lark that easily left plenty of time to practice his golf game. He then left the building for the final time. This seemed to be some sort of signal for the world to fall apart. In less than an hour not only had Dan lost his suit jacket to the back of the desk chair, but his cuffs were rolled to his elbows and his tie was loosened enough that the knot threatened to fall apart.
The phone rang incessantly and if he had any form of secretary to assist with the answering, that person managed to scuttle off somewhere to wait out the storm or office transfer in safety. In truth he never remembered seeing such a person before so he suspected he wouldn’t find an admin hiding in a supply closet.
“When I actually find the supply closet,” he added to himself.
Dan was beginning to think that was as mythical as his secretary. He tapped his ink stained fingers on the list sitting on his desk. Thus far today two pens managed to explode on him. One contained blue ink and the other black so his hands looked a bit spotty. He ran a blue black digit down the list, trying to take comfort in the items he already completed. He reached the first item that hadn’t been crossed off.
“Monthly report,” he read. He transferred his attention to the notebook full of notes about the job. He flipped pages and found monthly report listed. To his relief it didn’t sound too bad. The notes told him to find the weekly details and combine them into a singular one page report capturing the highlights of the month that his superiors needed to keep track of.
“Not too bad,” he decided. He had only been in the job for about a week. He could see what his predecessors weekly reports file looked like and might even find a few older reports to model his report on. This week was still very fresh in his mind so he had confidence that this could be an item easily ticked off his list.
Thinking the filing cabinet would be the perfect place to start looking, Dan stood, walked over to it and opened the top drawer. There were files all lined up neatly, but none of them were labeled. Thinking the most recent would be at the front, Dan started there. He pulled out the first file and found copies of the monthly reports. The headings as he flicked through them noted they were the reports for the last few years all lined up in one fat folder. He flicked through glancing at the reports. Dan stopped. Despite the month and year changing, each of the weekly reports was exactly the same as the one before.
Ten til Midnight 