The Definitive Indefinite Article

The Institute for Advanced Institutionalization is proud to present this theraputic reading material for all who have ever had the misfortune to work in an office larger than two people and a telephone.

All the Clocks in Midtown Are Ten Minutes Fast

When the Beadle came to my cubicle I was not surprised. I was twenty-three seconds late and I knew what the Beadle’s job was. Even if you did not know what his job was, the shiny black suit, the purple cloak and the watch chain going into the top pocket of his jacket would tell you that he was the bringer of no good news.

There was a movement last fall to have a female Beadle appointed. The activists went on a go-slow and presented their demands to Mr. Cairnage. He had the porters set fire to their hair. That was the end of that.

“Ahem hem,” said the Beadle.

“Screw him. If he wants me he can speak to me instead of ahem-hemming at me like some British Secret Service toady in a 50’s thriller,” I thought.

“Ahem, hem, Mr. Cairnage wishes to see you.”

“Wishes to see me! Like hell he ‘wishes to see me’. He is summoning me. Just say he is summoning me, you creep!”

The above went unsaid beyond the inside of my head and I limited myself to scowling at the Beadle’s tarnished silver buttons as I got up from my desk.

“OUR TEAM PLAYS HARD AND GETS WHAT IT WANTS,” said the motivational plaque on my cubicle wall.

“Piss off,” I told it.

“BE LIKE THAT. YOU’LL COME ROUND,” said the plaque smugly.

The Beadle walked ahead of me with his head hung low on his barrel chest. He was shamed by my shame and was making sure that all could see it. He took me the long way to the top floor. We walked all the way around my floor through every aisle between the cubicles, then paused briefly at each office door so that I might be better shamed and chastened by the disgust and disappointment of my superiors and betters.

We passed through all the departments, giving the righteous ample opportunity to tut tut their disapproval of my tardiness and apparent lack of repentance. Market Research was one of the worst. I even heard someone hiss: “Typical!” The Beadle perceptibly nodded his lowered head in agreement and lamentation at the unexemplary employee he had to escort to Mr. Cairnage’s office.

Such vehement company loyalty had become more evident since the first phase of downsizing. For that Cairnage had us all assemble in the cafeteria. The Beadle had given everyone two 14lb bowling balls and then everyone had to hold a bowling ball in each hand, arms outstretched parallel to the floor.

“Put some commitment into it,” shouted Cairnage as he paced around the cafeteria. “You know I could just spirit this whole operation off to Mexico in the morning. The only thing that keeps me here is the view from my office.”

The first fifty people to give up or drop a ball were fired. That was just the kind of sick pun that Cairnage relished: he was firing people for dropping the ball on the downsizing issue.

As we entered the Executive Wing, Read from Packaging passed us on her way back from Mr. Cairnage’s office. On her shoulder perched a filthy evil-smelling raven.

“A raven, how nice,” I thought. At Nadrack, Treadmill and Colon where I used to work they took off a finger for every day you were late so I suppose I had moved up in the world a bit. That wasn’t even why I left; when they removed the partitions between the crapper stalls and only provided one roll of toilet paper to “foster team spirit, cooperation and camaraderie” I knew it was time to go.

Outside Mr. Cairnage’s door there was an ornate ass-polished pew. On it sat Openshaw, Grind and Roberts. They barely looked up as the Beadle motioned me to take my place beside them. I sat beside Roberts who was last in line. Openshaw was the next to go in and listened intently to catch what was going on behind Mr. Cairnage’s door. There was a vague thudding and then the great oak door opened. Usherwood from Materials emerged unsteadily under the weight of the large wooden cone that had been clamped to her head.

“She sent out the wrong clearance forms to Shipping,” whispered Roberts. “What’re you here for?”

“Late again,” I replied.

“Oh.”

“You?”

“Came in the front door.”

I whistled my admiration for such an audacious act. I mean, OK, it was raining hard but even at that it was going a bit far to come in the front door. Roberts smiled a little in spite of the terror of the unknown punishment that awaited him. No one below a 4 had ever come in through the front door before.

Openshaw stood up and walked into Mr. Cairnage’s office. The Beadle stepped forward and drew the door closed behind him.

What’s Openshaw do?” I asked Roberts.

He shrugged and whispered in Grind’s ear. Grind whispered back in response. Roberts nodded gravely and turned back to me: “Eating in his cubicle,” he whispered. “Probably get the enema for that.” He shook his head sadly and stared at his feet.

The Beadle paced patiently up and down in front of us. He hummed softly under his breath. This was for our own good. This would make us better employees and people and he was very happy to be part of the instrument of our improvement. We would never get on in the world if we did not learn the value of playing by the rules. He was doing us a great favor.

Suddenly Keen and Rütter emerged from one of the executive chambers beyond Mr. Cairnage’s door.

“We need to get these uplinks out to the sales force as soon as possible. Otherwise it’s a zero sum game and we’re just pissing into the wind with our pants up a flagpole,” boomed Keen while consulting a sheet filled with graphs and figures.

“Blind Bowelcramp used a similar system of market tagging last quarter and there was a lot of fallout. I don’t want to piss on your parade here but don’t ask me to dance on the cracks in the floorboards with you on this one if it all goes pear-shaped.”

“That’s the strategy for this quarter so we’re going to make it happen. Get your people moving. We move product tonight.”

“But..”

Rütter’s voice trailed away as the pair turned the corner and headed towards the atrium. I noticed Roberts smirk a little.

“Absurd the crap they go on with, isn’t it?” I muttered.

“Silence, you two! You’re in enough trouble already,” bellowed the Beadle.

From behind Cairnage’s door came a muffled moaning followed by a sharp yelp and then some more moaning.

“Yep. The enema,” said Roberts to himself, almost pleased with his own clairvoyance. Grind said nothing and began to rub his hands together briskly.

“Stealing office supplies?” I asked Roberts nodding in Grind’s direction. Roberts shook his head: “Took a bathroom break without raising his hand to ask permission.” Grind had left the company only six months before to start his own business. He thought he had a brainwave. He bought a bunch of second-hand musical instruments and started renting them out to panhandlers in the subway. It took him just two months to lose all his savings and another three of near starvation before he could work himself up to ask Cairnage for his job back. Since then Cairnage had been making an example of him and Grind could do nothing but suck it all up.

Mr. Cairnage’s door opened and Openshaw emerged walking like someone who had just shat himself, which is precisely what he had done. Trying to keep the soiled seat of his pants from view, he scuttled down the corridor towards the stairs and the sanctuary of the Junior 5’s bathrooms.

Grind walked determinedly into Mr. Cairnage’s office. Before the Beadle could close the door behind him there was the sharp sickening thunk of the guillotine followed by the bigger thud of what was presumably Grind fainting from the pain.

“I hope it was his left one. He’s right-handed. If they take his right hand it’s the same as firing him. He’ll be useless.”

The Beadle rushed into Mr. Cairnage’s office while he blew his whistle to summon the porters. They arrived almost immediately and carried the moaning and bloodied Grind off to the infirmary.

“Left hand. Lucky,” breathed Roberts.

“You! In!” shouted the Beadle at Roberts.

Roberts got up and, with the supreme effort of the profoundly disturbed, lightened his step to a jaunty skip as he entered Mr. Cairnage’s office.

“Mr. Cairnage! So good to see you!” he enthused.

The Beadle hastily pulled the door shut on this distressing display. Roberts was really going for it. I had never heard anyone address Mr. Cairnage before. No one.

The Beadle shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. He was obviously much more at ease when dealing with an anonymous mass of deviant employees. Having to lord it over one lone miscreant seemed to make him very ill at ease. A huddled mass of wrong doers was much easier to deal with than a lone one who threatened to become a person.

Somehow emboldened by Roberts’ madness, I fixed the Beadle with a steely stare: “Don’t you have any more beadling you should be off doing?”

He gaped at me as if I had just suggested we ravish Mr. Cairnage’s ancient Yorkshire Terrier and then set fire to ourselves. He stormed off down the corridor with an air of urgently needing to be somewhere much more important, his Beadle’s cloak billowing out behind him as he went.

Soon it would be my turn. What had Reed from Packaging done? Why didn’t I ask Roberts when I had the chance? Was the raven today’s badge of shame for latecomers or was there something else in store for me?

He seemed to be taking a long time with Roberts. I glanced around the oak corridor. Concealed lights illuminated a few reproductions of less controversial paintings and some promotional posters deemed to be at least low art. “MANY COMPANIES MAKE PROMISES THEY CAN’T KEEP. WE JUST MAKE THOSE WE CAN!”

That was good one. Rumor had it that mission statement had taken four months to come up with. What was that supposed to say? We know our limitations? Well, that’s an inspiring thought. That should have us running out of our tenements to snap up Cairnage smokeless lamp oil.

There was still no sound from Mr. Cairnage’s office. Roberts had been in there longer than anyone else. Slowly Mr. Cairnage’s door opened a few inches. After a long pause that waited for something to happen that obviously was not going to take place, a voice that seemed to come from some dank evil corner of the afterlife croaked out: “Beadle, I’ve dispatched this one. Are there any more evildoers to be punished?”

Dispatched? Roberts went in and didn’t come out. There were few conclusions to be drawn from this and all of them were terrifying. Mentally donning my shiny black suit and purple cloak I did my best to boom back: “No, Mr. Cairnage. That is it for today.”

“Hmm, a pity, I was just getting warmed up.” The door closed again.

“Getting warmed up? He just threw Roberts out the window,” I thought as I tiptoed at high speed down the Executive Passage towards the Atrium. Once out of direct sight of Mr. Cairnage’s door I paused. Glancing around anxiously I saw exactly what I needed. On one of the side tables near the front door was a medium sized hour glass.

Bracing myself for the pain, I hooked it into my earring and gingerly released it. By carefully inclining my head I managed to get most of my weight onto my shoulder. As I ran out of the Atrium I ran into Groat the Call Center supervisor. He looked curiously at the hour glass and then smiled wanly: “Late again, eh? I must say the old man is getting more literal in his punishments. Must be losing his touch. Oh well, our team plays hard and it gets what it wants.”

“Suppose so,” I replied and hurried on out of the Atrium, trying to keep the movement of the hourglass down to a minimum. I went out of my way to go through Market Research to let them see my shaming and then back to the relative safety of my cubicle.

“WELL?’ cooed the Motivational Plaque smugly.

“Drop dead,” I hissed as I picked up the sheaf of transaction reports from Enhancement.

“You seen Roberts?” chipped Openshaw as he passed by. He had clean pants on and looked only a little shaken by the purging.

“I think Cairnage threw him out the window.”

“Ha! Ha! Good one. Nice hourglass. Do you get to keep it?”