One of the things that still bugs Steven at work is that one of his good friends at the company isn’t there anymore. Has it really almost been two years since Josh got his walking papers? Those were the days. Steven could look forward to lunch possibilities such as doubles ping pong, or maybe basketball, when the weather was cooler than it is now. Best of all, he might anticipate a series of Lord of the Rings RISK over the course of months of lunches.
Things just didn’t ever seem to work out for Josh, the big lug. He never learned the art of scurrying. The theory goes something like this. When you have paused to talk to someone at their desk and your manager comes around the corner, the correct thing to do is scurry back to ones desk immediately. “Do not pass go; do not collect one hundred dollars.”, Steven would say. Josh never seemed to get concepts like this. Another example would be if you are talking leisurely on the phone to a loved one and the manager comes over to your desk with an “I need to tell you something right now” look on their face. Josh in this situation would just smile at the boss and keep talking to the loved one, when clearly the proper thing to do would be to say something like “Sorry, I gotta to go, talk to ya later.” and hang up the phone to give the boss the proper feeling of respect. Steven tried to teach Josh the fine art of scurrying, but it was like teaching a bull to sneak around a china shop. Sadly, Josh’s termination was written on the wall.
Now Steven doesn’t enjoy eating in the cafeteria or trying to pick up a ping pong game. Something seems to have shifted in the spirit of the place. Nobody seems to play games anymore, at least not anyone from the downstairs crew. Now most of them eat lunch at their desks and work more. This is probably not the best situation for a creative staff to be in, at least not in Steven’s opinion. He tries to take a break every once in a while to at least stretch his legs and he wishes that someone would at least unlock the cafeteria’s outer door so he could stroll out side for a minute. Strolling around the rose garden always makes him feel better, especially when they are in bloom. The smell of the roses reminds him of his home near Tyler, Texas the self proclaimed rose capital of the world. Steven has lots of sketches of roses in his newest green covered sketchbook, from many lunches spent there last fall before they were pruned back for the winter. Occasionally Steven clipped a rose or two to bring home to his wife, though he hasn’t done that in a while.
Today he sits tensely in his ergonomic chair, staring into the flat panel screen, practically immobile except for the moving of the mouse in his right hand and the index finger of his other hand which enable function keys for his computer applications. His brain really wants to focus on the kinds of things he has been studying of late. Last Friday he purchased several domain names to host the website he feels compelled to work on at some point.
