A Cubicle Of Ones Own

Dale’s office was small, but in many ways, this was his home. More than the one-bedroom he shared with his half blind tabby, Sergeant Furry. More than where he had grown up in a run-down split level beside the mega mall. It was where his computer was, where he had the picture of himself standing beside the Matt Damon look alike he had met at Comic-Expo. It was where he hung his singing fish. Of course, he had to take the batteries out because, Don’t Worry Be Happy got on his colleagues’ nerves.

Dale had worked at Crane and Borsham for twenty years. He had started in the mailroom and worked up to office administrator. He hadn’t moved any higher, but he was happy there. He knew every worker in the office. He knew their strengths, their weaknesses. Sure, no one shared stories or jokes with him…or remembered his name. But he was a keen observer. So he heard the stories and jokes. Normally on Tuesday morning, Paul from accounting, would be at Aisha’s desk bragging about last night’s bowling exploits, but today he just tapped her on the knee and said “get over to the water cooler asap”.

The water cooler wasn’t in fact a water cooler at all, It was the office kitchenette. There was a fridge, a microwave, a couple of tables and chairs, but no water cooler. Paul from accounting had started calling it the water cooler because that was where everyone talked about last night’s episode of Game of Thrones.

Dale followed them to the water-cooler. As he passed mister Cranes office, he saw that the boss was behind his desk talking to a little man, with jet black hair, grey at the temples. While mister Crane spoke to him, the man scribbled notes into a black notebook.

Dale’s mind was reeling with questions. Who was that man? Why was mister Crane at the office on a Tuesday morning? Shouldn’t he be at couple’s therapy? He turned the corner. All of the office staff were crowded around the tables opposite the microwave, furiously engaged in discussion.

Kamar was saying that he heard from a buddy at Banner and Duskins, that there was going to be a corporate takeover. Aisha spoke next. She said that when Martins and Fletch, were taken over, that within a week they had sent in a corporate hit man to assess redundancies and the company had been gutted. Paul from accounting, who always disagreed, disagreed saying that Martins and Fletch was still a going concern but they had just been gobbled up by Masterson holdings. Silence. Masterson Holdings was a mammoth multi-national. They ate companies like Crane and Borsham for breakfast. The crowd was almost as shocked as Dale when he broke the silence. “C’mon. Mister Crane wouldn’t just sell out like that. Would he? We’re, we’re like a family to him. Remember the Christmas, sorry the um...” He made an awkward smile to Amir. “…the holiday festivity party…Look the point is, this company is about more than just money.” Beverly interrupted and pointed out that this was an investment firm and that it was in fact, literally all about money. They had to be wrong.

As he made his way back to his desk, he saw the man with the book walking down the hall towards him. Dale, beside the Xerox machine now, turned, pressed random buttons as an excuse to stay close and observe the man’s movements, he looked back and the man opened his book and made a few notes. The machine made a whirring noise and spat out page after page. Madly jabbing at buttons, he finally got it to stop. The man had disappeared down the hall.

Looking at the pile of P2-79 transfer forms he had inadvertently printed, he was struck with an idea. He grabbed a file folder, shoved the pages inside and strode into mister Crane’s now empty office. He placed the documents on the corner of his boss’s desk and looked for anything out of the ordinary. There it sat on the desk. A lone business card; Stanley Jasper Grint Corporate Efficiency Expert. If anyone were to be named Stanley Jasper Grint it had to be the tiny man with the veiny hands and the little black notebook. Dale went in search of the diminutive mole. No, the weasel. With his sinewy little hands, with his salt and pepper hair and pointy nose he looked just like a weasel. They were right. There was to be a takeover and this man was sent to see who would stay and who would go.

The weasel was in the accounting room now, watching, taking notes. Dale waited until he had his back to him, then crouched and sprinted toward the accounting room to get a better vantage point. He peeked over the cubicle to his right. There he had a perfect view of the accounting team. Shoot! the corporate rodent had spotted him. He needed to find something to be doing to continue his counter-intelligence assignment.

Dale rifled through a file-cabinet, grabbing random folders and replacing them in the wrong drawer, all the while keeping track of who was the target of the weasels’ poison pen. Paul from accounting knew the spy’s eyes were on him, so he was feigning hard work. Dale was a bit jealous of Paul for having climbed higher and faster than him. But darn it Paul got the job done. It just didn’t always look like it. Then the weasel was outside Beverly’s cubicle, notebook in hand. Dale grabbed a stack of files from an open drawer.

The weasel had spotted him again. Dale took one of the files from his stack and handed it to Amir who was sitting in the cubicle to his left. Amir opened it and stared at Dale, puzzled. This repeated itself, a useless file here, an obsolete account there, all followed by bemused looks as Dale stopped at every partitioned office space on his way closer to Bev. He thought of Bev’s first day of work about five years ago. About how much help she had needed. About how many times she had been late and…He stopped and thought, Bev’s only been here five years and she’s risen above me too?

The weasel was on the move again. He went from area to area, jotting notes in his little spy book. Watching this worker and that, Dale always somewhere close by, inventing tasks as he went.

Something clicked. Every single co-worker on the floor that he was making it his mission to defend, had somehow advanced higher in the office pecking order than he had. He had arrived at Crane and Borsham a half hour early every day for the last twenty years. He had never called in sick. He founded and wrote the company newsletter The Crane Paper, a playful nod to the fine art of origami that seemed to have gone over everyone’s head. He had volunteered to organize their yearly charity drive even though he never understood why sick children would even want see a clown in the first place. And everyone else moved ahead, year by year but not him. That was it. He was done being the patsy, if someone was losing their job because of the weasel it wasn’t going to be him.

He knew what needed to be done, but the little rodent Grint was watching him. He watered a plant, he erased the white board, he reorganized the bulletin board. Inch by inch, task by fabricated task, nearing his computer. At each of his bogus work sites Weaselman scrawled damning words into his little book. He made it to his cubicle and set to it.

He could feel the weasels’ beady eyes on him as he typed, but he didn’t care. Dear mister Crane, he wrote, he went on to list every single flaw and secret that every one of his colleagues had kept from the boss. The fact that Beverly took rolls of toilet paper from the office rest rooms. That Paul from accounting had never run the five miles he said he had for the Run-A Thon for life. That Amir only became catholic to get ahead. That Dale was the only person here worth keeping no matter what some creepy weasel in a shiny suit wrote into a stupid little book. He was shaking. He stared at the computer. Twenty years he thought. He heard Paul from accounting whisper to Aisha “The boss called a meeting at the water cooler. Big announcement.” With that he was gone.

Dale inserted two batteries into the back of his mounted fish, and pressed its belly. “Here’s a little song I wrote” sang the fish. As the song played, Dale calmly added every last email address in the office to his letter. If he was going to go out, he was going to go out with a bang. “Don’t worry, be happy.”

At the water cooler mister Crane was standing there smiling, as was the rodent.

“ So…Masterson Holdings has made an offer to buy us out, and I must say it was quite an offer, and I’m sorry to say….It was very close to happening. But I thought, no! This office is more than an office, it’s a family. And that got me thinking that I don’t tell you that often enough. Then the missus had a grand idea. She said we should have a contest. She loves a contest. So long story long, I hired Stan here to do a quick look see around the office and tell me who the strongest worker is. And the individual he decided was the most gung-ho, regardless of station or position would get a one-time bonus of twenty thousand dollars.” Dale took in the room, everyone was smiling, relieved, and more than that, proud and joyful even. “And I can’t tell you how pleased I was when he came back to me and said that hands down, the hardest working most diligent member of our staff is none other than Dale Macelwane. He’s been here forever it seems, and I could never bear to promote him because I couldn’t think of anyone running the day to day at the office better than he has. Come on up here Dale”

The room exploded in cheers. They rubbed his head in celebration as they shoved him up to the front of the room to accept the oversized check from a beaming mister Crane. Dale stood there silent, ash white as Grint shook his hand and with a toothy smile said: “what a worker, what a worker!”.

The revelry faded and Dale was left alone, clutching the twenty thousand dollars. What had he done? Was there any way for it to be undone? Every word from his letter was being typed and retyped in his head. Aisha stole from petty cash; Randy was the one who broke the espresso machine; Celeste was sleeping with Paul from accounting and they were both married…to other people. And geez mister Crane, do you not think that being in marriage counselling for over twenty years might be a sign that it isn’t working? His finger on the mouse moving the curser and hitting send was running in a loop now. Click, click, click, click. If only there was an unsend button. His heart sank. He put the cartoon sized check down and grabbed a chair. He walked to the door of the kitchenette, yes kitchenette because gosh darn it there wasn’t even a water cooler in here, it was a kitchenette. He placed the chair just outside the room and stepped up onto it. He could see into each and every cubicle, office and conference room. He was crying now. He took one last look at what up until this very moment had been his home, as every employee at Crane and Borsham sat down to their desks and checked their in-boxes.