10 January 2009
Corporate Cavemen #3
Most days at work, Dick encounters behaviour so awkward, strange or downright repulsive he spews in his mouth a little. These are his stories.
Dr Octagon is a senior partner with mischievous boy features and a soul-crushing mean streak. The Doctor is so anally retentive he couldn’t take more than one shit a month. This leads him to micro-manage even the simplest tasks and demand his own highly particular spin on perfection with caustic nastiness.
The first time I got instructions from Dr Octagon, I felt like I was in special-education. In the Hitler Youth. Basically, he wanted me to put a bunch of documents in a file in accordance with a list. A typically soul-destroying junior’s task in litigation, I’d done this kind of rubbish work enough times that I’d occasionally dream about it, proving that it is possible to be bored shitless (no pun intended) in your sleep.
ANYWAY. It was a Friday, about lunch time. The doctor spoke clearly, enunciating each word and watching me closely to ensure that I understood.
“I need you to collate a brief to counsel based on this list” he started.
“Sure” I said.
“Now, these documents are located in various files.”
“A-ha.”
“So what I propose you do, is grab four orange files. Put dividers in them up until…” He flicked to the end of his list, “Up until, at the moment, 324.”
“Ok.”
“Now, our dividers only go up to 100. So what you’ll need to do is grab three sets of those and then delineate where the 100s and 200s start and etc.”
“Yep. I know what you mean.”
“Then, locate the documents from the list and tag them for photocopying. Make sure the existing files stay intact.”
“Will do.”
“When you get the documents back, put them behind the requisite divider. I think that’s the only way to avoid confusion.”
“Ok. That’s fine.”
“The list is likely to change so we may need to do a bit of shuffling once you’re done.”
“Um.”
“Is that all straight?” Dr Octagon asked.
Jesus Christ, I thought.
“Yep,” I responded. “Thanks. Oh… when do you need it? I’m just doing an urgent advice at the moment for X.”
“You’re going to have to dedicate some time to this. We have to get it away by the end of next week…”
“Oh, ok… Is Monday afternoon ok then?”
“Monday morning would be better.”
In other words, come in over the weekend and shuffle documents to satisfy a false time constraint.
Fuck, I thought.
“Ok,” I responded. “I’ll have the files on your desk Monday.”
Dr Octagon thought about this. “No,” he said. “Put them in my tray.”
I returned to my desk. My phone rang. It was Dr Octagon.
“Actually,” he said, “Put them on my chair.”
…
I shuffled documents all Saturday afternoon and left the files on Dr Octagon’s chair.
He didn’t look at them until Wednesday.
No related posts.
Where’s Cavemen #4? Surely there aren’t only three…if so, make one up!