Season: Summer
Weather: Sunny with blazing sunshine. Mesmerising blue skies with not a cloud in sight.
Day of the week: Wednesday
Date: 24th January, 2024
The day started off as usual but took a drastic twist partway through. My early morning cleaning job was where I worked up a sweat and sore arms, cleaning the office and toilets of another office building two blocks away from my usual day job. Someone or multiple people in this office building either had really bad hygiene, didn't know how to use a Western sitting toilet properly or had gastro. It was also possible that multiple people had irritable bowel syndrome from stress or something.
The toilets were awful and disgusting. No one needs to have what a dirty toilet looked or smelled like described to them. Everyone has seen one before at some stage in their lives, either by their own doing or by someone else's doing. It was no wonder the staff left a note in the cleaning communication book to please give the toilets some extra love and attention. Seriously, you'd think that a person who makes a mess in the toilet would think to clean it up for those who come after them, but no. Most people think they can just leave it to the cleaner. Cleaners are not omnipotent, you know. People should clean up their own messes. Seriously.
This person or persons definitely didn't care about anyone who came after them or even if they needed to reuse the toilet again later. It was hard to tell if they were male or female because all the toilets were unisex. The toilets were coated and having been left overnight, the stuff had also dried.
I had needed to wear extra protective gear including a face mask, head cap and surgical gown thing, just in case whatever had caused the massive spray of liquid brown was contagious. The super strong cleaning chemicals had to be brought out for disinfection.
The toilets weren't the only things that had needed to be scrubbed and washed. The walls and toilet buttons, sinks and taps had all needed to be too. How the stuff got on the mirrors, I have no idea.
Whoever had the medical problem, they really needed to see a doctor.
You can understand then, why I had needed a good shower and to change all my clothes after the early morning work had been done. I hadn't had much time to do the vacuuming because of the issue with the toilets, but I had at least wiped down all possible contact surfaces with a good disinfectant twice, and had even sprayed all the office chairs. I had even aerolised the place. The mist would have settled and the chairs have dried by the time the usual office workers started coming in.
When I got to the office of my usual day job, I arrived in time to wave to the early morning cleaners who were just leaving the building. After that, I got stuck into work so that my direct line boss would have nothing to accuse me of when he came in. But even then, knowing the pig face, he would still somehow find something somewhere to nitpick at so that he could further reduce my already meagre and at minimum wage fortnightly pay. I wouldn't put anything past him. He was an extremely stingy boss whom I would only ever wish upon my worst enemies.
At morning tea time when I went to get a drink and go to the toilet for a break, I had to stand in front of my teammates to be chatised and berated by the pig face for skiving. I'd skive him if I could and show him what skiving really was. I'd skive him with a sharp knife. My teammates just kept their heads down and my team leader later muttered to me to make myself as scarce as possible today.
At lunchtime, with the new reforms on our floor, everyone was forced to leave their desks in order to take a break and eat something. Although the pig face wasn't pleased about it, there was nothing he could do when all the work computers flashed warning signs for us to take a lunch break and then went to sleep. They would all sleep for the duration of our lunch break.
Having run out of bread in the staff freezer where I had been keeping my food, I had to run down to the café. There, I had planned to purchase the cheapest 60 cent bun of bread, which they might butter for me if they were feeling kind. If not, I would lather peanut butter on it when I got back to our floor's tea room.
Either way, the main thing was that everyone would be able to see that I was eating something and not just drinking a cup of tea like many of us used to. Our team leader had set up a system of mutual accountability where we had to make sure everyone had eaten something at some time during the day that was considered a staple food and wasn't snacks or lollies.
I was 5th in the line awaiting my turn at the café counter when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder, making me jump.
"Miss Brown, what are you doing at work today?" asked Stony Boss, that irritating Anthony Duin, who had picked on me during Monday's meeting. That same big boss who had told me not to come in yesterday only for my team leader to call me in for a 'perdormance review' where I had been told I'd have Wednesdays off, but resulted in my direct line boss deciding to blame me for getting himself into trouble and order me in to work like usual today in retaliation. That Anthony Duin.
I told him that my direct line boss had confronted me in the elevator last night and insisted on my presence today or else I would lose my job. I told him so in as concise a manner as possible which was something along the lines of, "Because my boss told me to."
Surely there was no need to go into details.
Needless to say, Stony Boss was not pleased and told me off for calling him 'Mr Duin' rather than 'Stony' as he requested. My subsequent utterance of 'Stony Boss' had resulted in him nearly face palming and stopping at the last split second to rub his cheek instead and pinch the skin between his eyebrows.
"Stony Boss it is," he nodded with a deep breath and a sudden expulsion of air from his nostrils, "if you can't seem to make it even more informal."
"I don't want to be rude, Mr Duin - I mean, Boss Stony Boss," I had stammered when he had yanked me out of the café line despite me having finally gotten to second in the queue.
I could see my bread roll flying away.
At least, I managed to save a few cents?
"Come with me," Stony Boss had said, dragging me towards the nearest set of elevators and bringing me up to the frighteningly silent boss level where fire breathing dragons slumber.
Holding my wrist firmly so that I wouldn't be able to run away, not that I would have run away despite desperately wanting to, Stony Boss led me down the quiet corridors.
He pulled me into the office of the big boss who had been present for the 'performance reviews' yesterday.
"Look who I found. Someone loves our company so much."
"Miss Brown, what are you doing at work today? Aren't you meant to be taking a time-in-lieu day today? Did you forget that it was a Wednesday?"
"I am well aware that Wednesdays follow Tuesdays and that today is meant to be my time-in-lieu day. However..." my voice trailed off and I swallowed, wondering how much I should and was meant to share with the bosses. I mean, talking bad about your direct line managers in front of a bigger boss was frowned upon anywhere in any world, not to mention a direct line boss.
"However, what?"
Despite my great reluctance, the two bosses insisted on finding out what happened, interrogating me to tears. And then, they dragged me before the operations manager of my branch, Seally Fluid.
Operations Manager Seally Fluid had me repeat my story in detail, interrogated me further, passed me a tissue to wipe my tears and then had me take a seat. He typed some things on the computer. I guessed them to be notes and maybe an email or two.
I just do what I'm told, you know? Did they have to make such a big fuss?
My mobile phone rang. It was my team leader.
"Janey, where are you? The boss is here and noticed you missing," my team leader said in a low and stressed voice while I could hear heavy breathing in the background. The pig face must have been listening over his shoulder. "Please tell me you have a good excuse for not coming back to your workstation on time."
"Tell them you'll be right there," Operations Manager Seally Fluid said, pressing his lips together. "Let's all go together."
"I'm on my way," I promised my team leader.
"Hurry," was the terse reply.
"You go in first," Anthony Duin told me. "We'll be right behind you."
The moment I stepped into my team's office face, I saw pig face sitting on my office chair at my workstation waiting for me. In his fury, he threw a stapler, followed by a hole punched at me. The stapler hit me in the forehead, thankfully not stapling me in the process, while the hole puncher was dodged, falling heavily to the ground.
The sound of heavy objects falling to the floor brought the big bosses who had momentarily paused in the corridor to discuss something running in. They were then able to witness just how the pig face liked to intimidate me and the others on our floor, and how he talked down to us females in the team. The pig face didn't even notice them. He was too busy ranting and poking his hammy finger at my forehead hard enough that I knew it was going to be red and swollen for the rest of the day.
The rest of the office was silent. All my team members had stopped working at the sight of the bosses walking in and had turned around, watching with bates breath. Nobody wanted to warn the pig face. They all wanted to see him dig a hole so deep that he would be buried in it.
A bark and a blast of combined flames of fury and icy anger formed a mini tornado of tension within the office.
The pig face immediately turned his head and upon seeing the bosses, stood up, grabbing my wrist and yanking me behind his bulky body, as if trying to protect me from the other bigger bosses. His grip on my wrist was painful and bruising.
Stony Boss took what seemed like one handsome step, yanking me out of the pig face's grip and with the help of the other bosses, brought me a safe distance away.
Operations Manager Seally Fluid looked at the pig face in a semi-detached manner.
"Would you like to take this somewhere else or would you like us to settle everything here?"
The pig face could only stammer, making up excuses on the fly, hoping that the bosses above him hadn't seen or heard anything.
"Let's go," said the Operations Manager, turning on his heel with a seething breath.
"We should have someone investigate and talk to the entire department," suggested Stony Boss. "I doubt Miss Brown is the only worker who has been abused. Now I'm starting to see why this department is so unusual in their work ethics."
"Good idea," nodded the big boss who had interviewed us all yesterday. "I'll go get that organised. You take Miss Brown to be seen to and take her home. She's so pale. She doesn't look well."
My colleagues helped me pack up my things and my team leader patted me on the shoulder with silent reassurance, nodding at me. I put on my jacket, put my bag on my shoulder and followed Stony Boss out toward the lifts.
And then everything went blank. It felt like my body just shut down on me.
When I came to, I found myself in a hospital with a line in my arm, feeling awful and weak. A doctor was speaking to Stony Boss to one side of the curtained cubicle in a low voice, gesturing at a piece of paper in his hands.
"Miss Brown, you're awake," the doctor turned her head to see me watching them.
I stared silently at her and Boss Stony. And then I slowly began to get up. I didn't have the money to pay for all this nonsense. I'd be fine once I got home and had a good rest.
I was fine, no matter what they said. There was nothing wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with me.
"Lie back down," Stony Boss was immediately by my side, bundling me back into bed. It was at that moment that I realised that the hospital gown was backless and I had nothing on underneath. The man didn't seem to notice.
All the moving and effort made my head spin, and I could only lean into the man when he almost effortlessly scooped me up and returned me back into the bed, tucking me in.
"You aren't well," he told me. "Don't worry about anything. The company will be paying for your medical fees."
He explained that the pig face had been fired and the doctors were concerned about my health. Apparently the stress from this afternoon had knocked me out, but in doing so had probably been a good thing for me, as it allowed a whole heap of medical issues that didn't really exist to be discovered. The doctors were imagining things. I was fine.
"There's nothing wrong with me," I repeated stubbornly. I could only speak in a weak voice but it was at least enough to be heard.
None of them were willing to accept my statement and I got a sound telling off, which resulted in me passing out again. When I woke up later, I was pleased to find there was silence in the ward. Night had fallen and I had found my journal in my bag. After taking myself to the oilet and back, I decided to write up the day's events.