Corporate Tuesday

*record scratch*

    Yep, that’s me running from the two guards. You’re probably wandering how I ended up in this situation.

    It all started a few months ago when a service desk analyst, agent if you will, went to have a small chat with his line manager, team leader if that’s more familiar to ya. Both sides had their valid points, but a difference in opinion does have the nasty habit of putting a stop to any sort of civilized conversation. Rumor has it, Bobby was sitting at his desk when he heard from Johnny who was carrying the printer supplies, the 67G and not the 38G because everyone knows it’s the same compatibility of the 55th series, but at a much more lower cost, that Diego who was mopping the floor at the time has it on good authority how the engineers from the onsite support had to rebuild the manager’s laptop because of peculiar and undisclosed hardware issue. If you ask me, all that happened was just some voices getting raised, a slap on the wrist and nothing else. If it would have been more, a broken laptop would have been the last of our problem.

    But rumors are just that, rumors. Fake news before the concept of fake new. Can’t trust rumors. You know what you can trust? Access permissions. The permission to access any piece of information to your heart’s content. Numbers, calls, tickets, spreadsheets, photos, even those overlooked txt files. Basically everything. That’s the beauty of working in the IT field alongside domain admins and if you’re good enough with the lucky start to match, you might just end up on the problem management team. What we do? The boring version would be that we just schedule meetings, look at patterns and take note, but what we really do is fix problems and we make sure it’s fixed for good. Now you may be wandering why would I listen to rumors if I have access to everything. It’s simple. We have access to just what people are willing to write down and keep it on the record with a clear conscious. Rumors just fill in the blanks left in the picture. Only pain is having to verify every piece and see which one goes where or if it’s just fan fiction.

    Where was I? Ah yes, two guards. Since the two had the little incident, things got tense in the office. Security got too tight, and I was just at the wrong place, at the wrong time. I’m lying. It’s more of I wasn’t supposed to be there, but the regular guy couldn’t do it and I owed him a favor and if you know how everyone is here you would understand why it would have flown underneath the radar type of situation. Tuesdays is our normal printer shipment. More than 90 percent of our business is fully digital and we still use printers to make sure we don’t get finned for discriminating against small businesses that cannot afford more than the legacy systems, but I digress. Johnny wanted to extend his holiday with a couple more hours playing against the night crew in the finals. I owed him one for jury-rigging a 38G into a functioning 67G to finish printing the rest of the paperwork. Kid’s smart, but he should be spending less time on those MOBAs.

    Anyways, we switched places and that’s how I met Becky. I’m not sure if she was my type, but I’m sure she was my type.

- Morning, Johnny!
- Morning!
- How was the championship?
- It was, you know, it was well. Just like every other one.
- You, okay? You don’t seem like your usual self.
- Got the sniffles a bit. No big deal.
- Sniffles? Johnny, johnny. Tsk, tsk! You lost, didn’t you? You can be honest with me. I know how much it meant to you.
- Yeah, you got me. We lost so close to the end. Damn!
- There, there. It’s no shame in crying about something you’re passionate about. We all do it, even if we don’t admit it. But don’t let that get you down. You’ll get them next time.
- Thank! Oops, be careful there.
- Don’t you worry about me.
- But anything can happen. What if you choke on a grape because there was no pineapple at the store?
- If there’s no pineapple, I’m going to a different store.
- But that just contradicts the watermelon.
- But I don’t want watermelon.
- Said the coconut.
- Did you just call me a coconut?
- Takes a tangerine to orange one.
- Your fruit salad might be missing some bananas.
- That’s what the strawberry used to say back in the olden days.
- I can’t put my finger on it, but you seem different this morning.
- I started reading a book last night.
- Ah, I see. It’s all clear now. Okay, sign here, here, and here next to the purple arrow.
- Done, done and you know that’s violet.
- French violet, but close enough. Well, I’m off now.
- See ya next week?
- I’m off next week.
- Oh. What about the week after that?
- I’ll be here.
- See ya then. Bye
- Bye!

    I’m not sure what happened there with the fruit talk. I might have been channeling Johnny too much and had a small stroke to compensate for the difference in brain cells. After getting back to my senses I went to meet with him to switch back before I started my shift. Looking back, I might have overestimated Johnny’s sense of punctuality. While waiting, the guards passed by and that’s the moment everything went downhill. Becky was easy to fool, but they knew I wasn’t who I said I was. So I started running to Johnny’s place and got a brutal reminder to never skip leg day again.

- And that’s how I ended up in this situation.
- Lil D, why are you doing this to me?
- Don’t you dare call me that, Lex. Only friends get to call me that. Last time I checked, mister supervisor, we were not friends.
- Why are you so mad at me?
- You don’t remember what you did to Fred? You were supposed to protect him after I left from the main floor.
- He knew what was going to happen if he would continue with what he was doing.
- And you should have stopped him.
- You don’t think I tried? You know he’s always been stubborn. I even tried to convince him to join you in problem management, but he wouldn’t want to hear it.
- You didn’t try hard enough. Fell proud about yourself? You get a promotion and he gets the grave.
- Of course I’m not proud. This whole situation doesn’t sit right with me. It feels too rushed.
- They rushed it because they knew what happened and how close we all were. Maybe they felt you were vulnerable and tried to buy your grief.
- You might be right, but something still doesn’t add up. The process is to provide access to his belonging and accounts to the line manager. I didn’t get it.
- Maybe his views were too dangerous to make them available to anyone.
- Possible. Regarding your little stunt this morning, I convinced them to let you off with a suspension and community service in the Knowledge Base.
- Yeah, thank you for your effort.
- I need you to check something for me with Luthor from the KBs since your permission are suspended.
- Luthor? That wacko? Just kill me now. Did he go full cybernetic, or does he still have some human left into him?
- They won’t allow him to be less than a quarter human and he is the only one we can trust with this search.
- And why would I help you?
- Because I don’t think Fred is dead.