Employee of the month

We were talking together next to the water cooler when my friend Gregory got taken to the side by one of the managers. After a brief chat, they asked him to follow them down to the Boss’s office for something. Greg nodded in nervous compliance, continuing in the opposite direction from the water cooler, passing the office cubicles where our colleagues worked in moderate silence. I sipped my cup of fresh water staring back at the cooler, thinking nothing of it, taking my time just relaxing for around 2-3 minutes slowly sipping the cool water on this hot day. We had fans around the office in strategic places, but I was more thirsty than hot, and the water bottle was still in the fridge cooling down. We'd both planned to have our dinner together, as soon as we finished drinking our water when he got taken away by management halfway from sipping our drinks. Undeterred by this slight setback, I concluded that I should wait for him and continued working until he returned (or at least pretend to look busy for a little while). Heading back to my cubicle, treading on the ugly red and bright orange carpet. I sat down at my desk when Phillip showed up with a concerned expression,

“Hey Paul,” He spoke like he didn’t want to bother me but I could tell he had underlying frustration in his own formal tone, “Um… I thought you were going for dinner like you’d promised me. I really need to have my dinner break around 1:30 with Spencer.”

“I am sorry, Phil; it is just Greg has been called away for something and we'll need to work together for something later this afternoon. I think I’ll have to stay here for a bit until he comes back. I’m sure you’d understand.”

“Uh-h okay,” he said looking more embarrassed about his inquiry, but like a true champion of his awkward craft, and in desperate need to get his point across to me, he continued trying to mitigate his abrupt attitude, “how long will it be? I really need to phone the retirement home about something.”

“I am sorry but I don’t know. Perhaps somewhere between 5 - 10 minutes. I mean, if you really want, you and Spencer could go a little earlier and we do the 1:30 window instead, it is just I’ll work on a little bit of what I’ve been ordered to do a little earlier.”

Phil looked a little more adamant about the idea, but Spencer, seeing the opportunity of an earlier break, intervened with great confidence to the suggestion, “I think it’ll be better if we go first. I’ll just tell the manager at the far end near the entryway about the swap.”

Saying a slight, “yes” as I nodded, both men left; one more relieved and the other smiling back at his friend and co-worker. Focusing on the new plan, I logged back into my computer to look at the files designated for our afternoon schedule together. Scouring the files and reading into the ones with the highest priorities, I noticed that six minutes had passed already since I began the new task and my friend and colleague was still gone. I sat back from my chair, wondering what was taking him so long. Did he go for his dinner break earlier without telling me? I couldn't imagine him doing that since he did seem eager to relax together with me. I quickly checked my emails to see if he sent me any messages, similar to what happened two weeks ago that he had to change plans over a private matter. Seeing nothing recently from him, I had no choice but to try and go to work with the articles.

Fifteen minutes had passed, and I was still sorting out the files with no sight of my colleague when my office phone next to my computer rang. I picked it up and started with my professional tone,

“Hello, this is Paul, how may I help you?”

“Paul”, that voice was my wife’s, “It’s me Hellen, I’ve been trying to call you three times in a row!” She sounded annoyed with me. She really needed to know. I couldn’t have left her a message since my personal phone was in my locker. It was clear she’d had to go through customer services before finally reaching me.

“Hellen I’m so sorry,” I said. I had completely forgotten that I was supposed to call her about booking the two-week holiday. I said I would give her an update about it, “The holiday has been booked. Sorry I didn’t call you sooner, I would have gone to dinner at the cafeteria and called you but Gregory got summoned by the higher-ups, and I had forgotten about informing you at my break that I let two other guys have their break earlier.”

“Okay. Thank you for explaining,” she calmly spoke, then she paused for a millisecond, “Danny’s got into another fight at school.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. I thought we’d already had this conversation with her about being in that group.”

“Well, she’s still in that group. That girl Melissa is a bad influence and we need to further discuss this with the headmistress. I don’t want it that we have to change schools. Especially since we are going on holiday in less than two weeks!”

“Okay, I’ll further discuss this with you later. I’m running low on time and I need to keep working on this very important task; I’ll need to get it all done preferably before eleven.”

“Fine. But we need to organise a meeting with Ms. Stevenson to nip this in the bud!”

“Yes. Love you dear.”

She sighed and terminated the call. I just got back to working. Three minutes had passed since the call I still had nothing about Gregory, but I still had to get this errand completed. I had hoped that with the two of us we could have sorted out this task easier and that either of us wouldn’t have to stay longer – especially since I was going on holiday in a week and a half. I smiled at the thought of relaxing on the shores of Pompei with Hellen, Danny and Grace; then us going around and seeing the architecture there and just enjoying ourselves like a normal family. I would finally have the chance to cook my special ribs and salad.

I really needed Gregory to help me out, the guy was practically superhuman. I simply couldn’t compete with the guy: always on time; helpful when I (or others) needed him; clearly, he had been studying how to effectively use Microsoft Office would instantly know how to show the frequency function on Excel and set up pie charts. He had great industry and practically served as the spare hand of the department - more than that, he was the hero of the department helping all of us with his expertise, possessing this astonishing glow that shone out of him working in this job, seeking any opportunity to help out or find something he could do for the company despite the workload he was often given being drastically different from ours.

As I typed, I noticed on my computer that it was already 1:28 PM, six minutes before I would have to go for my dinner, and Gregory still missing from the department. I could have asked someone else to do their break earlier than intended, and then I could have waited to see if Gregory would return sooner than leaving him behind, but I think I needed to eat something as clearly, I was going to try and complete the task alone. I saved anything I needed and logged out of my computer, stretching my legs once more and headed to the water cooler to drink a plastic cup worth as part of my brief calculation to register myself out of the office by the intended time since I only got paid hourly with breaks unpaid, it wouldn’t matter if I only started my break at 1:31PM, because it would take me typically twenty minutes to eat my dinner and an additional five minutes to do anything else essential like going to the toilet. Since the beginning of this month, I went on my own for the first time.

My break had passed, and I had just begun to continue with my work when I began to ponder where Gregory had gone. I quickly asked Spencer passing by my work area if Gregory had been seen since I was on break,

“Hey Spencer”, I said trying to keep it more professional than it was, “I was wondering if you’ve seen Greg around the department whilst I was gone?”

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“I see. I admit I don’t know what to do now since I don’t think I can do this task on my own. Could you get the manager to find someone to help me split the work load in two since we need to get this done before midnight tonight.”

“Is it really?” He remarked more sarcastically, rolling his eyes to signal his disinterest in the situation. Probably because the situation might be brought back to him in the end, cause clearly, in the opinion of his own colleagues, he should do further work. If anyone was to be fired it would probably be him.

“Welp,” I remarked, trying to still keep it professional but clearly expressing and mild annoyance of his tone, “either you could take his place instead and help me with the work if you’re not too busy — at least we can cut down a significant amount by eleven, because personally I’m not staying until two keeping the night janitors company — or you could find someone else to help me out. Cause I need to get this all done by the end of the shift.”

“Fine,” he responded annoyed waving his hand away once past his face as he moved motioning him not willing to argue, “I’ll go to the manager and ask if they could find someone who’d give you additional help. I’m too busy to help you out and I got a dinner date at half-six.”

He walked off muttering something under his breath. I knew what he said, but I decided to let it slide and proceed to continue with my work. That was when I saw a group of managers come in. Following them was Gregory who looked more flushed with joy, bashfully smiling. The leading manager walked around the long middle length of the cubicles telling everyone that we had an important announcement we needed to hear. Standing up from our computers we stared at our deemed latest intern who smiled more the more we looked at the crowd standing in front of the wall far east of us, behind the giant screen that flashed by a roof mounted projector above different slides that had been on repeat since this morning. The small department projector was switched off by a small black remote controller as big as a box of paracetamol the leading manager held in his hand as he returned back to the standing members of his rank. I could tell that it was very important because a lot of these managers were all from different departments which would indicate something big was about to happen, my conviction became clearer as I saw Gregory had been placed into the middle of the screen, and from what I then noticed, he was holding a small red goody bag in his hands. Standing aside of him, the leading manager began to speak,

“Hello, everyone. Thank you for turning your attention to me for this brief moment, I understand we are still doing a busy work day, but I wanted to make an important announcement. We, the team are happy to announce that we have decided that the employee of the month should be our latest colleague, Gregory, here, though he has only been here for a month, he was wasted no time to do any excellent job every day of this month and we wanted to show that appreciation for his effort. So, everybody please give him a round of applause.”

We all clapped for Greg with some people cheering him on. I was relieved that he wasn’t fired and that he was fine, and I was also smiling at his work was appreciated so early. The small celebration ended and Gregory returned to me. His expression changed to look more like he was embarrassed by what had just happened. Smiling, I shook his hand and personally congratulated him,

“Well done new guy! You really impressed them. Employee of the month!”

“I am terribly sorry that I had to leave you. Some department needed someone who could teach them all the ins and out of excel during some talk. I’ve already had lunch eating from the vending machine.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re going up in the world, the higher ups clearly see you as a valued worker!”

“Okay,” he said relieved that I understood his reason for his absence, he continued, “we should continue with the task given to us originally this morning.”

“Yes, I think we should do that. I’ve managed to look through what we need to do so I can help you catch up and fix up this mess.”

“Sure. That’s a good plan.”

“But hey, again well done. I’m really happy for you, man. I think you deserved being employee of the month,”

“Thank you. Though I was wondering if you have ever been employee of the month yourself.”

“I have once, but to be honest It wouldn’t matter if I never got it in the future,” I said, “I used to really want to try to get employee of the month, but ever since I got married and settled down, I decided to go with the flow and enjoy life as it is; I am comfortable as I am.”