Office Furniture Giveaway

OFFICE FURNITURE GIVEAWAY!!!

The title to the energetic fliers flying near the coffee machine was enough to entice my three coworkers to take a trip to the back building and see what they had to offer. Although I�ve been working full-time at my client�s office for nearly six months, I�ve never been to the back building, whose ominous lonely girth looms over the main office building from a hill in the near distance.

We ran through the rain on a muggy, hot, and humid day when the expected relief from the mugginess promised by the drizzling rain failed to materialize. The distance to the back building was just far enough that we drove with our air conditioners on and parked at the building in one spot of thousands available. We entered the building to the semi-snoozing guard, whose young and promising eyes rose from his comic strips to view the three beautiful women and the skinny faggot who accompanied them. Although she had forsaken her ID badge because it didn�t "go with her outfit", our leader flung her blond curls over her shoulder and pretended like she belonged here, and the guard passed us through.

We left the bright foyer and entered a dimly lit elevator and traveled to the second floor, which was equally as dim. Only the emergency lights remained on, every 5th florescent square in the ceiling shining brightly as if unaware of the devastation around it. The hallway was dark and empty, the hustle and bustle of office life and fax machines and telephone rings and whirling electronics and whispered gossip was gone. We pushed through the double doors and entered a sprawling expanse of half removed office cubicles, clumps of desks pushed up against each other in odd angles, and large piles of office chairs ceremoniously upturned with their wheels dangling in the air.

As the girls excitedly rushed to view all of the furniture and equipment available for the taking in preparation for the client�s sale of the building, I slowly wandered the maze of the building's demise and contemplated its meaning. My client was dying.

I�m a pension analyst, and for the past six months I�ve calculated the pension benefits for the thousands of layoffs and terminations that came in so fast the pension staff couldn�t handle them, especially after most of the pension staff was also laid off. After quietly returning to my temporary office at the client�s main building, I was struck by the results of my efforts of just the last few weeks, and I viewed hundreds and hundreds of blue employee files, neatly lined up on my bookcases, on my desk, and on the floor, each with my calculation of termination benefits donning my signature in red at the bottom right corner. I mourned their existence as the full realization washed over me that these were not calculations I was doing, these were people. These were people with job skills and families and cars and aspirations, enough to fill an office building with life.

My client is dying. I have successfully completed the calculations of the costs of its death, and am now forced to leave it to return to Satan. The client will continue to cling to existence as it operates with less than 1/3rd of its original workforce, desperately waiting for an economic turnaround, with my once boss holding onto my resume and promising to call me if there�s any change. Until then, I am returning to Satan, with a lump in my throat as I prepare to face him in the recent discovery of my poor failure on the last actuarial exam, even though I�d felt so confident that I�d passed. I prepare to face him on Tuesday, my first full-day back, after dishonestly quieting a growing rumble of rumors that I was planning to quit and work for the client. I plan to face him on Tuesday, ever hoping for a miracle as I quietly prepare for my job interview with a new firm on Monday. As my client dies, I'm doing everything to ensure that my career with Satan dies along with it.