Cubicles (3,4) (777 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.72 on 13 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Impassive-Digressive (View user info) at 2004-12-22 19:03:24 EST
There is a connection, but only a loose one, between this and the other pieces in my little collection. They are not required reading to make sense of the writing below.
If you do want to read them, go here:
Cubicles (1,1) - http://www.ubersite.com/m/52685
Cubicles (2,3) - http://www.ubersite.com/m/52983
Cubicles (3,2) - http://www.ubersite.com/m/53182
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Zack settled back in his cheap office chair, striving unsuccessfully for comfort. Heaven forbid the company splash out and purchase something with armrests and lumbar support. Procurement probably asked two questions when ordering the furniture:
1. Is it the cheapest available?
2. It is a dull and unemotional shade of gray?
He noticed that the Office Supervisor encountered no trouble ordering in a nice, leather executive chair - which was pointless really, as the man spent a total of fifteen minutes a day in his office working.
As if on cue, the Supervisor left his office - (Halliburton Zero) briefcase in hand - no doubt hurrying off to a company-funded lunch 'meeting'. He would be gone at least three hours. The Supervisor walked past the cubicles that he was supposed to be supervising, giving nothing but the slightest of smirks to his charges as he wandered out the door to abuse the company credit card.
'Smirk away.' Thought Zack, returning his attention to his email inbox. There were several messages from his broker, and a promotional email for an investor's seminar in three weekends time. Zack skimmed through the mail, jotting down several company names and statistics on the back of a round piece of paper that someone had printed a memo on.
Since he first realized how easy it was to pursue his own interests on company time, Zack absorbed all he could about the stock market, share trading, currency exchange and an array of associated fields. After spending months unfulfilled, watching his reports, ideas and recommendations wither and die in the scaly hands of middle management he gave up on the company, and focused much of his time on online trading.
His position conveniently afforded him opportunities to order and read the annual reports of other companies (generally those of interest to him, not the company) without raising so much as an eyebrow at the office. The ability to send simple 'buy', 'sell', 'hold' messages to his broker from his work desk transformed him from seemingly loyal company man to online trader in a matter of weeks.
After two years, he was growing adept at picking stocks; analyzing things like PE ratios, liquidity and debt to equity with increasing accuracy, and all the while watching the value of his portfolio grow. All while enjoying an average salary along with associated healthcare and insurance benefits.
Having invested a healthy proportion of his savings, this year Zack was expecting to earn as much from his trading as he would from his real job. He had considered retiring, trading from home, but could hardly see the point when he was paid to do it from his cubicle. Soon, his combined incomes would see him earning more than the Supervisor. Zack looked forward to the day he could smile smugly as the paychecks were handed out, knowing that the amount contained within didn't really matter to him anymore. He had been working on his smug grin of late, and when the time came, he would stand tall, a beacon of smugness for the entire department to see.
NASDAQ charts and FOREX trend graphs hung on the walls of his cubicle, a neat stack of annual reports rested by his keyboard. If one were to look at his workspace, it could be assumed that Zack was a model, hardworking employee keen on following market trends. Granted, he was relatively hardworking - he did the work the company required of him, as well as his own trading, a combined workload that tended to keep him busy for much of the day. Because of the time he devoted to researching stocks and reading market analyses he certainly had no time spend sleeping, like the guy two cubicles down always seemed to be.
Zack smiled as he typed an email to his broker, ordering a sale that would bring him a tidy profit. He had found fulfillment at work, it was easy once he figured out whom he should be working for.
User Reviews
Submitted by Impassive-Digressive (user info) at 2004-12-23 18:29:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Thanks guys, another chunk of this series should be up in the next few hours.
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2004-12-23 12:14:40 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Good stuff, as always. Really good.
Submitted by AshK (user info) at 2004-12-23 12:10:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I am really enjoying this series and I always look forward to seeing it or Unlife.
Submitted by Impassive-Digressive (user info) at 2004-12-23 00:35:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Thanks for the +2!
(Insert smile here)
Submitted by Davros (user info) at 2004-12-22 22:55:46 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked this, as I have the rest of the series.
I do agree with LP on the "crisis of confidence issue" but you explained that already so just take your +2 and smile.
-Dave
Submitted by Impassive-Digressive (user info) at 2004-12-22 22:38:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I will do my best to make sure the next one has at least the minimum 15 pieces of flair.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2004-12-22 21:35:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Oh right, there was a round paper. I like this series- this one just needed a bit more flair.
Submitted by Impassive-Digressive (user info) at 2004-12-22 21:10:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Yeah, this is all based in the same office. In the first one, I briefly mentioned that the office is 4 cubes x 4 cubes. The little numbers in each title denote the position of the cube. I will probably work that back in later, somehow.
There are a few threads linking them at the moment, I try to mention the round memos (from the first one) from time to time, and the Zen guy from the previous story got a passing glance in this one. I guess as I add characters to the office, I will probably throw in more references to past stories.
I don't want to make any one story dependent on any other though, because one of the problems with writing dedicated chronological series' (that I have found) is that by the end of it, you are down to only a few readers. There is potential for 16 stories here (maybe 17 if I do one on the Supervisor), but I will see how I go. I don't know if I will be able to muster enough imagination to do that many.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2004-12-22 20:57:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Hahahahaa. That's reasonable. Do all of these people work in the same office? In the second one, there was a reference to the guy from the first one, but I wasn't sure about the others.
Submitted by Impassive-Digressive (user info) at 2004-12-22 20:50:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Fair point LP. I think part of the problem was I wrote much of this yesterday, and edited it this morning, while in two completely different frames of mind. Poor Zack got a bit of an identity crisis.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2004-12-22 20:30:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Hmmmm. Not as... Visceral is the word, I think.
Not as visceral as the others were. I liked the way you told it, but the whole thing was just a bit too dry. Zack's smugness didn't seem to color the entire story- only bits of it. And from what I now know about Zack, he is *very* smug. It just seemed like he would have been more smirk-y about everything. Then again, what do I know.
Submitted by melkorthedelerious (user info) at 2004-12-22 20:11:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Masterful series, sorry it took this long to run across it.
Submitted by DamienX (user info) at 2004-12-22 19:12:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Shhhhh.