Life imitates art...coming soon

From Accidentally in Love...the I Hate My Job series...

To deflect attention from the fact he knew nothing about building, Glen spent most of his days coming up with ideas like buying cake every day to make people happy or trying to do ‘fun’ things like seeing which of the men in the office could try and kick the ceiling. This latter idea had ended up with one cracked tailbone, a hole in the wall the size of a man’s foot, a lot of incident and insurance paperwork to fill out, and a huge bill to repair the wall. Then there was the big ship’s bell that Glen insisted they buy and screw on the wall near Amarette’s desk. The reason behind the bell? It was so it could be rung whenever anyone felt like they needed excitement. Seriously. It was an office. Not Disneyland. The other employees got that. Glen didn’t. Everyone avoided the bell.

As the office manager, the bell drove Amarette mad. No one but Glen rang it. And, if he wasn’t making noise, he was demanding pizza be ordered for the whole thirty staff members, but only if it cost no more than fifteen dollars. “We’re on a strict budget you know, Amarette.” She knew that. She doubted he understood what budget meant. His fine Italian wool suits and expensive leather shoes were completely wrong for a tropical, humid climate like Cairns. Not that she cared if he sweated away to nothing. At least it would stop his grating need to over analyze everyone in the office. As far as Glen was concerned, everyone was found to be wanting and he told them so. Some said this was what sparked the ‘I hate Glen Glenwood’ page on Facebook. Amarette couldn’t say. She suspected they weren’t the only office who’d been ‘Glenwooded’ as there were over two-thousand likes in Facebook.   

“I take it you don’t like birthday cake, Amarette?”

They had just had an intensely tedious discussion about the office bills, none of which Glen seemed to understand and she had been on the verge of suggesting she bring in sock puppets to maybe explain the situation of debt, and subsequent loss of utilities if he refused to make a decision and sign off on bills. He avoided signing anything unless there was no other choice. Like when the lights went out or the telephone was disconnected. In essence he was a coward who was scared to be responsible for anything. “What?”

“I notice you’ll phone up and order one in but you won’t leave the office to buy it.”

She piled all the unsigned bills together and held them tightly against her breasts. It was that or throw them at him.  “What’s the difference?”

“Well, Amarette, leaving the office and finding the cake is important. It shows the birthday person you care. Ordering it sent in indicates cake means nothing to you.”

“Uh-huh.” What a total fuckwit. It was the whole Nero fiddling while Rome burnt thing. A discussion on cake when the construction business, a small off shoot of a large corporate giant, was slowly dying off. That he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, see that was scary. Not to Amarette. She was looking for another job, but others in the office wanted to believe they were secure. She knew there was no such thing. At thirty-five she had walked away from several workplaces that were on the verge of financial ruin due to their own ineptitude.

.....And then all sorts of stuff happens....