Happy Monday everyone. I hope you had a fabulous weekend. Let’s kick off this morning with a brand new writing prompt and see what happens. Timers set for fifteen minutes and off we go.
No clue where this is going, but I kind of like it.
Monday, July 6th: He called security.
He called security. John wasn’t entirely certain what the protocol fo a mass of penguins wandering through the halls of the corporate offices, but he knew that as a very junior account, it was not in his job description. He doubted penguin wrangling was in the security department’s job descriptions either but he figured at a pinch they could be considered invaders as none of them had the guest badge security insisted must be prominently displayed by all visitors. He took several pictures before he made his call.
His call was nice and simple. He simply reported visitors without badges and left it at that. He thought if there were any follow up questions he could send the photo. However he was certain that starting off by reporting penguins would simply have him accused of wasting security’s time.
He was certain that the head of security a man named Guy Mc Mann believed he was some sort of military commander crossed with a police chief. He deployed his men and did not like their time wasted. John wasn’t entirely certain what charged he could be brought up on for wasting time, but had no desire to find out. He just wanted to go over the budgets he was given and possibly check over the next quarter’s purchasing orders.
The head of purchasing switched vendors claiming there was money being saved. There were complaints of inferior goods and he wanted to compared the cost and charges to see if there was a savings or if they had to purchase more often due to inferior product, thus deleting their own savings.
He had been prepared for a day of running long columns of numbers and comparing them to other long columns of numbers. It was why the coffee he held had an extra shot of expresso added.
He was not prepared for penguins.
‘I think they might be emperor penguins.’
He dimly wondered if being emperors they actually out ranked Guy and his men. Guy was very big on titles. They had a Baron once visit and Guy came close to genuflecting every time he walked by. The CEO steered him away from security for the rest of the visit.
‘I’m pretty sure he also called Guy ‘special’ when escorting him away.’
For a moment John wondered what Guy’s reaction to an Emperor would be. He couldn’t picture anything short of laying flat on the ground face turned to the tiles. As amusing and disturbing as that thought was, one thought trumped it.
‘What exactly are emperor penguins doing in an office building.’
Beyond that of course was the question of what they were doing in the city. That thought bothered him less. While the city was not known as their natural habitat, they did have both a zoo and an aquarium in town. At least they did when he was a child. He visited on a family visit when small and hadn’t been back to either. He assumed they both still existed.
They seemed places for families and as he had no small children he routinely took on outings he felt his presence as a single male in such family oriented places might not be entirely welcome. He did not want to look at dolphins while being followed around by security. ‘Being watched by Guy is bad enough.’
Ten til Midnight 