Rainbow Factory Quality Control

Chapter 5: Working Conditions

"And this will be your office Mrs Boubble," Wally pushed a door open into a reasonably sized office with no windows.

Mrs Boubble, the Rainbow Factory's new head of accounting, stepped in and swept her bespectacled gaze along the bare walls, freshly mopped floor, and single ancient desk set in the middle. "Not much to look at is it?"

Wally had to agree. It was one of the cleaner spaces he could have given her. Mrs Boubble had been hired by Frank, and the little old lady Puppet was a charming one. She had powder blue skin with a green nose and curly soft pastel pink hair. She had a round body covered in the typical old lady clothes and walked with a slight shuffle. "Think of it more as a blank slate. We are the Rainbow Factory after all, and its no fun painting on someone else's canvas."

Mrs Boubble chuckled. "True, true! Well, I have always wanted an office I could paint the walls in."

"Oh? What color would you like? We have literally all of them."

"Pink, a nice cheery pink color to brighten up the space. And I'll need equipment of course, I don't even see a computer in here."

Again Wally nodded. "I will speak to Housekeeping and see if they can have the office set up to your liking by the time you come in tomorrow. I know it's been a boring day full of filling out forms and paperwork. You go on back to your home, pet your cats and I'll see you tomorrow."

"How did you know I had cats?"

Wally grinned. "Just a hunch."

Mrs Boubble cackled and shuffled past Wally. Wally opened a shortcut for her to return to the HR office to save the old Puppet some walking. Mrs Boubble looked around. "Oh my this place is confusing, I know I will get lost."

"You get a feel for the layout after a while. Have a good night Mrs Boubble." Wally bid her goodbye then shut the door. For a long moment he closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He had welcomed three new members to his management team today, and his own to-do list was steadily growing. He thought that by getting more people in here his workload would lessen. Oh how wrong he had been. Today he had filled the vacancies in Accounting, Sales, and Purchasing. Before Mrs Boubble there had been Ms Capri, a young female bird Puppet with long blond hair as his new sales lead, and Mr Buzzworthy, a dragonfly based Puppet for a Purchasing Agent. Puppets had the most interesting names.

Wally made his way to his office and looked at the piles of papers on his desk along with all of the sticky notes with reminders of things he had yet to do. This was the last place he wanted to be, but there was work to be done. He picked up his radio and pressed the switch. "Housekeeping, come back."

"Go ahead for Housekeeping."

"Mr Clayburn could you meet me in my office."

"10-4."

Wally shuffled a few stacks of paper around and found his notepad and pen. He heard a door open in the hall and soon Clayburns shape darkened his door. "Hey, thanks for coming. I have a favor to ask."

"Sure thing Mr Walden."

Wally wrote down the lists of requests his new employees had made for their offices and gave it to Clayburn. "I know it's short notice, but I would appreciate it if these could be done by tomorrow."

Clayburn studied the list and nodded. "I've got a full staff now, I'll have the kids knock this out in the next few hours. Won't be hard to get the bookshelves and paint, but uh, you'll need to talk to IT for the computers. He's gotta come in and set them up."

Wally knew he would have to email IT to set up the new accounts, but the thought of actually visiting the IT department was suddenly the more appealing one. He had been here for what felt like months and he had yet to set foot in the Rainbow Factory's information nerve center. "Where is the IT department?"