The day seemed long, and while it was only it was only 9:30, John MacDonald felt good. Only moments ago he was promoted, he could still feel the conversation replaying in his mind.
"Come into my office John" his boss said, a cool steely man in his 50s. John looked at him and he entered and nodded, feeling confident.
"I've been seeing the work you're doing John, I really like what I'm seeing. Keep up the good work, and head yourself over to Office B1."
The thing was, John couldn't find Office B1. The entire building was composed of floors, numbered A1-A40, and there wasn't a 41st floor. John felt very strange, and wandered the corridors, the whole buildings in fact, looking for the fabled B1. He couldn't go back, as his old office had been given out already and he had no where to go, he had to make the trek to B1.
Starting on the first floor, he wandered through the first 20 floors in about an hour, making good time. Deciding that he was doing well, John took a break. He sat in Office A20, in a room near the centre. A labyrinth of cubicles encased the room, and John felt a little lost.
Looking into the cubicle maze, John couldn't remember which way was back to the stairs, and he couldn't see a sign anywhere. The cubicle maze was too high.
He wandered through a corridor, into the foreboding beyond and started taking turns, and soon he was thoroughly lost. John wandered in the maze for another hour or two before he finally made his way out of the office and into the stairwell. However this stairwell seemed different, the paint was older and things were off.
John took the stairwell up a floor, and entered a floor without markings, in contrast to the usual stairwell floor number.
He felt a little strange and the air smelt strange. He wasn't quite sure what smell was in the air, but it was stale and vicious, quite offensive to the nostrils.
Walking into the strange floor, everything else seemed the same. Sprawling cubicle maze, check, front reception area, check, and central crew room, check. As far as he could see from the entrance, everything was the same. Wandering into the cubicle maze on the strange floor, John found himself in the central room. In the room was a man wearing a yellow rain poncho, a striking image against the drab interior of the room.
John approached him. The rain ponch'd man was looking at a stack of papers, covered in sheet protectors. John looked around the room, seeing nothing that could indicate rain.
"Expecting a storm are we?" John said, laughing a little.
The man looked at him and eyed him suspiciously before continuing to read his stack of papers.
John kept looking at the man and frowned. This man was clearly an odd duck, and a tough nut to crack. John felt a little strange, should he have brought his coat? He hadn't anything to protect him In case of rain. John was at a loss when the man said
"If you need a coat, I can get you one."
"Sure" John said
"I'll be right back, should be enough time to avoid the downpour"
John nodded, pretending to understand.
The man left and 10 minutes later he was back with a second poncho. He gave this poncho to John. John put on the poncho, feeling quite silly but only agreeing out of friendliness.
Moments later a light downpour began, and the floor was soon soaked. The fire alarm, while not blaring, had activated the sprinkler system, and a hail of water pelted John and the strange man.
Feeling a bit embarrassed, John decided to introduce himself.
"By the way, my name is John, John Macdonald"
"Well John, nice to meet you, I'm Eric" the strange man said. The name didn't seem to fit the portly man, and John felt he might be lying but didn't want to press things further, considering the acquaintance like nature of their current relationship. Deciding that things had taken a satisfactory turn, John had remembered a key thing to ask. Where he was.
"So Eric, what floor are we on?"
"John, well were in Office B1 of course, did you miss the sign?"
John felt confused for a moment.
"You must've missed the sign. The elevators been broken for sometime but there's still the stairwell. Mind yourself to take note of the staircase, the cubicles can be quite difficult to navigate."
John felt even more confused by these developments, he felt he was in another world, somewhere far from earth. Feeling alienated, John continued to listen to Eric.
Eric started to blabber on about this and that, spinning a yarn from the whole ball of string. John felt a little strange and decided to interject
"I've been recently promoted to B1, would you be able to give me a little tour?" John asked
Tripping on his words, Eric found himself agreeing to this strange person.
"Sure John, sure. If you'd follow me?"
They stepped outside of the commons room, back into the cubicle maze, and looked around. John couldn't really make heads or tails of the place, being notoriously bad with directions. He did feel lucky for finding the place by pure chance,
John followed Eric through the cubicle maze, stopping periodically for Eric to elaborate on something important, or seemingly important, as most of this was rather mundane to John. He felt rather odd still. Until they reached a row of offices along the side of the rather large room.
"This is the reason for the rainstorm, Martha"
Looking inside, the room seemed hazy.
Martha stepped out, with a cigarette in hand.
"It's a none smoking floor but that doesn't stop her, nor does the boss. He seems to have adjusted."
Eric pointed to a tall man wandering nearby in the cubicle maze. The man was also wearing a raincoat, albeit something more inline with the neutral of the office environment. He was almost camouflaged due to the coat.
"That's the floor manager, Greg."
John nodded, he would have to get used to seeing him, lest he sneak up on them. Eric continued the tour, and they made a few more stops before stopping at one last office: Johns. It was near the stairwell, luckily, and only a few turns into the overall maze. John was lucky to have a spot, and to have been taken through the maze but he didn't feel any more secure in navigating it, besides the small corner that he was assigned.
John wondered if this was truly a promotion.
Maybe his boss was playing with him, being promoted from A1 to B1. He was already at the top of his department, at the top of the building (metaphorically), and this seemed a strange place to be nestled in a corner of the building somewhere.
John went back to his office, and Eric departed, heading back to his own office. John placed his box of soggy things next on the desk, and turned on the lamp. The room was damp but he wiped off the chair and sat down. It was home now, and he'd have to get used to that.
---
Sometime passed and soon John had to head home, he left for the night and came back the next day, feeling rather refreshed. He climbed the stairs, wandered through floor A20, until he found the stairwell, and then walked back up to his office. This whole process took an hour or two, faster then last time when taken as a whole but still utterly slow.
Reaching his office, he sat down and got down to work for the day, beginning the slow grind of reports and audits that his department was responsible for. There was a neat stack of documents in the inbox when he entered, and steadily through the day, those files switched to the outbox. John felt good.
He was doing good work, until the fire alarm went off and that outbox was soaked. His neat stack of documents fused together and inks ran between and through pages. He felt a little at a loss, forgetting about the fire alarm. The coat still sat on his desk and he quickly put on the coat, but was still fairly soaked by the time he managed to get the coat on.
Now he had to restart his work. He sort of remembered where Erics office was, and had to wander there, taking an hour or so, to get sheet protectors. His way back was faster, and he was soon back in his office and working on the files that were destroyed in the previous rain storm
Sitting in his office, he steadily got to work. The work took a few more hours, and he was soon working after hours, like a dog. It didn't take too long to for him to finish the work, seeing as how most of it was still fresh in his mind. After he was finished, he carefully put the packages of sheets into sheet protectors, just enough to incase everything in a thin layer of plastic. John felt pretty good now.
He decided to head home for the day. He wandered over to the stairwell, to floor A20, through the cubicle maze, to the main stairwell and down down down the stairs until he was walking out of the building.
The walk home was uneventful, save for a few dogs that tried to chase him, but that was usual for John. He was used to seeing the shite side of everything that you could imagine, all manner of unfortunate and shitty experiences. This was par for the course for John, and rather then getting angry of fighting against all of this, he simply resigned himself to this. There was no used fighting the inevitable, at least not in his mind, not at all.
John was soon at home, sitting in his modest flat, drinking a cup of tea. He lived alone, and while this sometimes bugged him, he had also gotten used to this facet of his life. It simply was. He had no other way to explain it then simply with a shrug.
---
John arrived at the office today at 8:30. Then he went into the building, through the stairwell, into the cubicle maze for an hour until finally he reached the second stairwell, from which he found his way to Office B1.
Finally sitting down at his desk at 9:30, the floor manager was waiting for him.
"You're late, I'm gonna have to write your supervisor and let them know. You'll be docked points here."
"Points?" John said, incredulous.
"Yes Points, P-O-I-N-T-S, you are familiar I'm sure?"
"No, I'm not" John said
The floor manager continued with his strange spiel.
"Well of course, Points are issued as rewards and deducted as punishment for infractions within the office environment. The employee with the most points gets a month of paid vacation, usually the next month available. The points then reset, except for those in the negative. You are now in the negative"
John still felt rather confused, even more confused that he was in the so called negative. He didn't feel negative, he was rather positive, in fact, and often told his psychiatrist about it. Most days he felt positive. Now today he was negative. How sickening John thought.
The floor manager was still standing in Johns office when he came out of his haze of confusion. John wondered why.
The floor manager was looking at Johns office, inspecting the interior.
"Hmm, well this office isn't too bad, not too conducive to productivity I see, or easy to find, but the interior isn't garish. I'll see that you're awarded points John, good job."
The floor manager promptly left after that remark, seeming pleased.
John was evermore confused and didn't understand the need for a trivial point based merit system that was clearly detrimental to employee health if not satisfaction. John would be writing to the floor managers manager over this, up the indecent chain and towards a better answer. At least he'd hoped so.
By the time he sat down to write the letter, all of his terrible purpose had seem to have fled. He no longer felt as enraged as he had before, and was soon wondering if he was in the positive now, which made him feel good and successful, in a pleasant sort of victorious way. John hadn't had a month of paid vacation off in awhile, and could do with some. He was detemined to win the contest.
At that moment, he put on his rain coat, and began his work for the day, covering everything in sheet protectors that he'd brought from home. The alarm went off at some point, a down pour happened, and the office was soaked again. John was prepared however, and steadily worked through the disruptive force of nature.
He made good progress by lunch and decided to take a break. He headed to the staff room in the middle of the cubicle maze on floor B1, getting a bit lost for some time before climbing up to peer in what direction h e was. This helped him get there a little faster, but not really by much.
When he arrived in the staff room, Martha was there, smoking. She seemed kind of distracted and was almost lost in her own world.
John didn't say anything, and went about eating the lunch that he brought with him. He hadn't said anything to her, when she walked over and sat down at the table he was at.
"Hi" she said
"Hey" he replied
she looked at him, kind of bored, before saying
"You know its polite to introduce yourself?"
"Oh, sorry, I'm John."
"Right right right, John, and I'm Martha. Nice to meet you"
She held out a hand in courtesy, John shook the hand and felt a little pleased. She was kind of rambunctious but also fun in a way.
Feeling rather soother by the development, John steadily ate his food in silence. Martha didn't say much else, and went on smoking her cigarettes in silence, the steady rhythm of her breathing and inhaling becoming a sort of musical piece that contrasted the silence.
After finishing his lunch, John walked back to his office, through the cubicle maze, and back to his office. He didn't get lost this time and had an easier time navigating the cramped floor. Arriving in his office, he sat down and got back to work.
He worked steadily throughout the afternoon and come around 5, was ready to leave for the day He wandered through the cubicle maze, to the stair well, through another cubicle maze, into the main stairwell and finally down the steps to the front lobby, below A1. He walked quickly, and was starting to get a handle on the place. He had an idea of leaving sticky notes that would point in the direction of where he was going.
But he decided not to do that, on whim mostly, and out of aesthetic minimalism, as if it were to catch on it might clutter the already difficult to navigate mazes.
John walked home and was soon back at his apartment. He flicked on the lights, turned on the television, put a pizza in the oven and sat down on the couch. The night was uneventful and he was soon growing tired enough to go to bed. John was determined to win those points, and would show up early tomorrow as to not be late.
---
John arrived an hour early, and after getting lost, was right on time at 8:30 as he entered Office B1. He walked into his office and felt good that he'd managed to make it on time. The previous few days of tardiness meant that he had some catching up to do, in a sense. At least if the floor manager was to be believed.
John felt kind of embarrassed and realized that he forgot to ask how one might go about earning Points. He hadn't the slightest idea of how to do so. John decided that he needed to speak to the floor manager and would look for him at lunch.
John started to work on his work for the day, sorting through the volume of mail in his inbox, and getting everything pushed towards the outbox. He poured through reams of reports and documents, giving his eye over to the simple duty of auditing other peoples work.
After he'd finished going through the stack of documents on his desk, he relaxed for a little while. John still had 30 mins until lunch. Maybe I should go track down the Floor Manager, John thought. Seeing that this was a good plan, John got up and looked over the high walls of the cubicle maze, to see if he couldn't see the tall Floor Manager.
He spotted the man, and started to work his way through the maze towards, at least he thought he was, until he realized he was lost. Then he looked up over the maze, and saw the Floor Manager, a little closer now. He wandered off in his direction, and got lost again. Then he check over the maze one more time before wandering off towards the Floor Manager. He eventually found him, as the manager had circled back and cut his way towards John.
Almost bumping into him, John was surprised to run into the Floor Manager. The Manager was equally surprised.
"John" He said
"Hey, I wanted to ask you a question"
"Well, what is it?" the Floor Manager said in a vaguely posh British accent.
"I wanted to know how Points are earned"
"That's simple of course, there won in the office Games."
"Office games you say?"
"Yes, every night we hold a set of games after work from 5 until 7. I'm surprised you haven't witnessed them before. The winners and runner ups are awarded points based upon the game. Tonight is Hide and Seek"
John was slammed by how silly all of this was. He began to laugh a little, not out of anything being funny, despite all of this being at least somewhat funny. He was laughing out of sheer desperation. The Floor Manager looked at him as if he were mad.
"Are you alright?" he asked
John looked at him and recomposed himself.
"Yes, I'm fine" John said
"Alright then, if that's all, I'll be on my way" the Floor Manager said.
The Floor Manager wandered off, and John headed back to his office. He became lost again, and then found himself, due to a particular ink stain on the wall that marked a path for him. He found himself back in his office for the afternoon and got back to work, a fresh stack of documents in the inbox. He worked for some time before he was finished with the rather menacing stack of documents. After finishing, he checked his watch. 4:30. Either he had less work then usual or he was getting faster, as he was finished already and still had time to spare before the games.
Deciding that he should set up his sticky notes for hide and seek, John placed a series of numbered stickers, from 1 to 100. The smaller the number, the closer you were to the office. This way he could have some way of knowing where he was. He wandered through the maze, placing them at key corridors and setting them up to avoid dead ends. Although he could hide in a dead end, it'd be better to stay moving or find somewhere that was a little more accessible, somewhere you wouldn't get cornered.
John headed back to his office after this, feeling rather good about his plan. He was pretty close to his office when he heard a horn being blown, somewhere close to the staff room. He headed over towards the sound.
There was a crowd of employees gathering, and John couldn't really see towards the front, where the Floor Manager was standing. He knew the Manager was up there atleast, as he was tall enough to careen over the crowd, but there was a missing sense of depth due to the breadth of the crowd.
John stood at the back of the crowd and waited, not sure exactly for what, but for something. The manager began to speak.
"Hello, thank you all for joining us for this evenings game. Hide and seek. I hope you are all well and prepared as this is going to be an exhilarating game. Now if everyone would take a number, we'll begin drawing for who's it. There will be a few of you, considering that there's quite a crowd today but I'm sure most of you will be fine with this."
John walked up and took a number from the number dispenser near the front, and then returned to the crowd. He felt rather good about his prospects of being on the hiding team and wondered if he might not be alright all together.
The Floor Manager soon began calling numbers. Some were startlingly close to his. He remained calm but still felt an urge to panic. Doing his best to fight this feeling, John was soon looking around, seeing if he could see anyone. He spied Martha, who surprisingly was without a cigarette. But he knew no one else yet and couldn't see anyone else that he knew from the other floors.
This must be a B1 thing, John thought, considering the games were happening on the floor. He was surprised that he never heard about them beyond the previous few days. This all seemed rather strange, he decided. But he was determined to win those vacation days, and was ready to win hide and seek.
The game soon began, and the Floor Manager signaled the start with a loud ticking clock that could be heard nearly throughout the floor. He said they'd have enough time to hide and a bell would ring when the time was up. The crowd dispersed and John ran off into the cubicle maze. His plan was to stick to what he thought was the southwest corner but was in fact the northeast. However this made little difference, as the effect was practically the same, John was lost again, but perhaps to his benefit.
The clock continued to tick as John made his way through the maze and to a spot that he thought would be good to hide in. As John neared the spot, a bell was heard. John waited around a corner of a major intersection, peaking out every so often to see if anyone was coming. There was no one for the first five minutes or so, until someone wandred past. He didn't dare say a word, as to not alert a potential seeker. He was much too cautious for that. John was really good at hide and seek, so good that he once spent several hours hiding during a game in his youth, not because he wanted to win, but because he felt so good in the spot. It was like a space of his own.
He hadn't understood what that exactly meant, but he knew that he felt good about the memory. That's all that really mattered to him in that regard, that he felt good.
A person shuffled by, calling out.
"Hello? Friendly, I need to hide. Help"
They brought there tone to half whisper, as someone else made loud thumping noises nearby.
John continued to hide and let the person hide on there own. Another person could be see a little while away, towering slightly over the mazes high walls. The person scurried off in a panic and John felt a little bad for the person that he could've helped. What was he supposed to do though? He couldn't help everyone if he wanted to win.
John hid in a corner around a bend from a main intersection for an hour or two before someone decided to head his way. He could see them just over the maze, and they were getting closer and closer. John decided to make a run for it, and sprinted down one of the corridors, hoping to lose the person while heading to another corner of the maze.
John narrowly avoided running into his pursuer when he took a wrong turn, but was soon back on track after finding a wayward sticky note. Number 61. He was far from the center of the maze, and far from his office. He was also not in the Northwest corner, but the southeast. John was terrible with directions.
The game went on for some time, and hours passed. John felt weary in the darkened room, where only the central lights surrounding the staff room were on.
John decided to hide in the southeast corner of the maze, keeping hidden in a dead end that was really obvious, as there was a clear route through the area.
John hid and hid for much longer than anticipated, and the game kept going on. The Floor Manager soon called out.
"3 contestants remain! Keep going!"
by now the maze was swarming with people and hiding was getting more difficult. John had to keep almost totally in the dead end, and almost had someone walk in, but at the last second they decided against checking the dead end, for who knows what reason.
John felt extremely lucky to have stayed hidden for long and wondered if he might not win the game.
The game soon ended and John was declared the winner. He stayed hidden for awhile, until the Floor Manager called out.
"Game over, winner would you please reveal yourself?"
A crowd waited near the staff room, and John walked over. The Floor Manager was waiting pensively for someone to come along and was surprised to see John.
"John!" He said
"The very same" John said.
"You are the winner, congratulations. You're prize is 10 thousand points."
John felt surprised, very, very surprised. He hadn't expected to win and was now in quite the state of shock.
"10... thousand?" John said
"Yes, that's right. 10 thousand" The Floor Manager replied
John was still very surprised, his head caught halfway between fatigue and a biting sense of victory. He hadn't the slightest idea of what to do in that moment, clouded by weariness, but simply let out a cry of relief
"YES YES YES YES"
The Floor Manager was quite amused by Johns display and started chuckling a little.
"Yes exactly John, excellent work."
The crowd had begun to disperse by now, a litany of groans and pleas filling the air but ultimately falling on deaf ears. John was totally engrossed in the win.
He had total victory and was rather pleased.
"How many points do I need to win?" John said.
"Well there's a good chance that you'll beat most people now, but there are a few winners out there who can stack points pretty easily. You might need to keep winning for the week."
"The week? That's... a lot."
"I know, I know but those are the rules and we simply can't have anything else, none of it is written down! Those are the rules you know."
John was flabbergasted but resigned to the chance that he might not win. He felt a rising sense of defeat and wondered how people got by in Office B1. The week had barely begun and John already felt haggard, run down by the odd events of the week and that composed the office environment.
He felt weary and headed home for the night, back to his humble apartment. It was rather late by the time he got in and he went straight to bed. Unlucky for him, he couldn't sleep, sick with worry and was soon up later then that. Although he eventually slept, it was for so little an amount of time to be almost crippling. But he was determined to get to work to win the free month of vacation time.
Getting up and feeling groggy, John headed to work. When he reached the office he headed through the stairwell, into the cubicle maze on floor a20, got lost, then into the second stairwell and into Office B1. He was on time atleast, having left early as before, but being so tired, he had difficulty navigating the maze. He felt sluggish.
He began his work for the day, and worked for some time, moving documents from one box to another. He was soon finished and onto lunch. He was quite hungry and ate quickly, his tiredness growing. He felt rather weary and decided to nap. After napping for 20 mins he got back up and continued with the day.
John sat back down in his office and started working on a new stack of documents that had been placed in the outbox. He made his way through them, and was soon finished. The next days game would soon begin and he was eager to get there early.
He arrived and played the game, a type of paintball. The game was intense and John was eliminated rather quickly in the game, having not really been one for combat sports. He was able to get a few "kills" in, but felt overall that he did rather poorly. This bit into his self esteem, but he was excited when there was no winner declared due to a mutual tie.
John went home again for the evening, to his apartment. This cycle continued for a few weeks, of going to work, playing the office games, and then going home, rinse and repeat, for a few weeks, until near the end of the month. John by now had won several games and was a contender for the lead. The points of other lead players was rounded so there was some amount of uncertainty in how many points a player had.
John continued to play in a final game of hide and seek, his bread and butter, and was again declared the winner after a 5 hour bout that lasted well into the evening.
Still he felt rather pleased when come the end of the month, a winner was declared. John was declared the winner of a free month of vacation time, and opted to take that time off immediately, for the next month. He was also given a bonus for breaking a point record.
He took his time off, and booked a trip to Europe, deciding to vacation around different countries for a few weeks with the generous bonus check that he had.
THE END