~~~~
“Finally, I can get some work done,”
David muttered as he sat down at his desk in the server room, piping hot coffee
in one hand and a stack of papers in the other. The hum of all the computers
surrounding him soothed the engineer. He took one look at his pile of
documents, each of them labeled “High Priority” in bold, red ink, and dumped
them in the recycling bin under his desk. David put his mug of coffee up to his
lips, finally ready to start the day.
“Hey, Davey!” A coworker burst into
the room.
“What do you want, Stanley?” David
sighed as he set his coffee down.
“Nothing much,” Stanley lied, “the
boss wants those progress reports on his desk before 7:00 pm.”
‘And by that, he means he means
four.’ David rolled his eyes, “Isn’t that your job?”
“Nah, man, I got to slip out within
the hour,” Stanley explained.
“Don’t want to miss that baseball
game,” David spat.
“Yeah,” Stanley agreed before
realizing the implication, “I mean, no. I got a doctor’s appointment. So, could
you be a pal and handle it?”
“No,” David replied.
“Thanks, Davey,” Stanley ignored him
and exited the room.
“Ok, now I can get some work done,”
David put his coffee back to his lips.
“David,” the boss entered the room.
“Yeah, boss,” the engineer
suppressed his frustration as he put the coffee back down.
“Stanley told me you’d handle the
progress reports, that was quite nice of you,” the boss smiled.
“I believe he’s mistaken,” David
explained, “I said I’d handle the process reports.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the boss apologized,
“could you handle them, though? Stanley has a doctor’s appointment, and
everyone else is too busy.”
‘So am I,’ David screamed
internally, “sure thing, boss, I’ll see if I can find time in the day.”
“Good sport,” the boss chirped, “of
yes, the CEO is coming by tomorrow. I’d like you to create a presentation to go
with the progress reports. Put in a lot of fancy slideshow effects and charts
showing increasing revenue.”
“Um, sir,” David began, “this is a
project to improve our internal processes to save money in the long term. It
doesn’t have any revenue.”
“Oh, well, I’m sure you’ll figure it
out,” the boss shrugged. “Get on it then, I want to see the first draft before
the end of the day, so I can supply revisions.”
‘Dear Lord,’ David screamed
internally, “I’ll see what I can do.”
“I knew I could count on your
David,” the boss nodded and left. With his superior out of the room, David
quickly jumped to his feet and locked the door.
“Now, getting work done,” David put
the coffee back to his lips. There was a knock at the door, but the engineer
tried to ignore it as he took a sip. “Cold,” he muttered as he set the coffee
back and sighed. The knocking at the door gave way to banging. “Christ,” David
stood up, walked to the door, and unlocked it.
“About damn time,” an angry man
screamed at David, leaving a nice layer of spit along the engineer’s face. “Why
is this door locked?”
“Who are you?” David asked the
unfamiliar man.
“This is getting in the way of my
work,” the man continued to vent.
“What could you possibly need from
the server room?” David inquired.
“Wait till your manager hears that
you locked me out of my office,” the man stomped his feet.
“Sir, this isn’t your office, it’s
the server room,” David tried to explain.
“Get out of my way,” the man forced
his way past, “the hell did you do to my office?”
“It’s not your office; it’s the
server room,” the engineer repeated himself.
“The hell is the server room doing
in my office?” The man yelled.
“Sir,” David tried to get a word in.
“That’s it, I’m getting HR involved,
they’ll tear you a new one,” the man thundered out of the room, slamming the
door behind him.
“This will be fun to explain later,”
David sighed. “Wait, I have an idea.” The engineer dug into a nearby closet,
filled with miscellaneous supplies. He pulled out a couple old caution and
danger signs from the back. “Haven’t used these since the server fire of 99,”
David reminisced. With all the elegance and grace of an exhausted tech worker,
he hung the signs all over the door to the server room and locked it tight.
David sat back down in his chair and
took another sip of his ice-cold coffee. The engineer let out a deep sigh and
stared at his computer, the login screen ready to accept his password. David
shrugged and drank more of his coffee.
“Sometimes, I wonder why I even
bother,” David logged into his computer and started his workday in earnest.
“Oh, right,” the engineer smiled as he opened up a document that displayed all
the members of upper management. It depicted numerous faces, from his boss to
the CEO and the angry man from earlier, and contained information about their
computers. With a few keyboard shortcuts and clicks of the mouse, he navigated
several programs. With one last click, a few changes were made to Stanley, his
boss, and the angry man’s computers. Being thorough, David noted the changes.
“Internet connection throttled, and
computer slowed to fix a strange bug,” the note read. “Update should roll out
sooner rather than later to fix the issue.” David smiled as he finalized his handiwork.
~~~~
Sometimes you must seek fulfillment in those small, petty victories, because your boss won't give you time for much else. Until next time, Read, Comment and Enjoy
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