Trouble in The Office

Notice - Change of Address

Marni was sitting very comfortably in her ergo chair, ear plugged to the end of an iPod. She was tending a bit, here and there, to emails blinking red on her computer screen. Suddenly, Christie comes huffing around the corner, pushing her own ergo chair which was filled with a Filex, a desk telephone, a box of documents, and her desk calendar.

"Resigning?" Marni asked, wry smile accompanying.

"No, not yet. On the contrary, I got my promotion, hence the moving out of the old cube," Christie beamed as she was coaxing the stuff on her chair not to fall off.

Marni couldn't believe her ear (ear singular, because the other was listening to a track from Aegis's Greatest Hits) that she had to swivel round, tip her head, and knot both eyebrows. She was on the brink of screaming until she checked her self and realized she was still in the Office. "Wasn't it last week that we were discussing this thing? 'Our resignation'? It was going to be a mass protest for the sh*tty salary increase they were giving away this year! You were going to head this pharma company, while I was going to find new boylets in the call center across the street?!"

"Marni," Christie replied as she slowly wheeled by her, "we can't hold a mass protest with just two of us resigning. I didn't think you were serious about it... And besides, I just got my first ever Leadership Award last Friday. It's a shame to leave a company which has reformed its ways," she chuckled.

Chuckled. That's one thing she hardly does, Marni thought.

Christie parked her makeshift trolley at her new cubicle near the Makati Ave windows. She pulled out the telephone and began plugging it to the port near the floor. She was dressed very "bossy" today -- smart gray pants, paisley blouse with an off-green blazer, two strands of pearls and silver shoes. With that kind of get-up, it didn't fit to see her on all fours, trying to do something close to threading a needle.

Marni stood at Christie's new cube entrance. It was 4 times the size of the box Christie used to toil in. This one had teak-colored furniture, a wide L-shaped table and floor-to-ceiling blinds shielding the area from the morning sun. She noticed the view from the window held Makati Ave in all its traffic-jammed glory, and the amorphous swimming pool of The Mandarin Oriental. There was a bit of jealous odor mixing with the perfume emanating from her. She didn't see that this once-vacant cube had this brand of charm when she and the other office girls were using it as their lunch room.

After Christie was finished with the telephone, she grasped her Leadership Award plaque with both hands, lovingly looked at the thing and then at the cubicle walls. She was probably finding a good spot to hang it on.

"Look at this," she says to Marni, who was already put off by the cavernous cubicle. "I can't believe they would mess up something like this. Impelementation (sic) of effective concepts and merchandizing plans that keep (sic) the dealer's (sic again) focused that (sic) resulted to (sic) a double-digit net sales growth. I had a mind last Friday to get this proofread by Carlos and reprinted. It's hard looking at it without cringing. "

If Christie was in any way irritated, it didn't show on her tired, puffy face. She actually looked really, really happy. At least the time spent working furiously on her nightmare Christmas campaign paid off.

Marni wanted so much to burst Christie's bubble -- she was losing her one and only ally! But she gracefully backed away after kissing her friend on the cheek and congratulating her. Back at her work station, she thought hard what kind of document she was going to do next. Pressing lightly on the ESC key, the screen automatically flicked on and showed a blank Word document.

She began to type...

"TO: Human Resource Management
FROM: Marni XXX
SUBJECT: Resignation "

posted by Elyss @ 3:10 PM