Bobby Brigsby was overweight, over stressed and overworked. He couldn’t remember when he last had a day off. Even if I had a day off what would I do? His life you could say was his work and that, worked for him.
It didn’t make life any easier. Certainly not. His days were spent under constant pressure of deadlines and missed commitments. Pressures that he couldn’t meet. He’d asked the men in the white jackets if he could have more help but they never answered him. Sending emails to HR was useless as well because he wasn’t sure if HR even existed. Sure they had a link to HR on the Cyborg Inc. Intranet page but all of the responses he’d ever received seemed to be written by robots. He thought about that for a minute. Maybe they were.
It was 8:15am and he waited, looking at the door into the warehouse. That’s when the first sick call came through.
Two hours earlier he’d received an email that they had 20 shipments going out today. He had laughed to himself when he’d read it on his tablet while on the toilet. He got another email a few minutes later saying ‘We’re serious!’ This would probably alarm most people he thought. Emails like that. It was like they knew what you were thinking. Bobby supposed he was just used to it. Another deadline I can’t meet.
By 8:45 Cedric Hamm, Navid Driskel, Antoine Bryson, Nick Caruso and Tony Deoliveira had all called in sick. This wasn’t particularly surprising. After all it was a Tuesday and all of them had gone to Hennessey’s Bar and Grille after work the night before. This is what they’d always done. He was never invited to any after work events or activities but he didn’t mind he supposed. After all he was the boss. No sense in messing that up too right? Always keep work and friends separate. Had he read that somewhere?
Still no word from Tyler Jordan though. He wondered if Tyler would even bother calling in sick. Usually he didn’t. Though did it really matter? The man did what he wanted anyway. Tyler was he first person that Bobby was able to hire. After a rather busy day of shipping and missed deadlines he’d thought his calls for help had been answered. The email had come through on a Friday afternoon scolding him for not hiring more people. It had said that if there wasn’t someone hired for the inspection job by Monday morning they would deactivate his key card and he would be fired. Inspection position? We don’t have an inspection position.
He knew Tyler from High School. He thought they liked each other enough. Perhaps not friends but he knew Tyler was a decent enough human being. He also knew that he needed a job.
He had sent Tyler a message through Facebook that Friday night. When he hadn’t heard anything back by Sunday morning, Bobby went looking for him. He found him just after 2PM watching the Patriots game at The Squires, a hole in the wall bar just outside of town.
“What do you mean inspection job. Inspecting what?” Tyler had bought him a beer which he didn’t bother drinking. Bobby often thought back on the exchange, like he'd looked back on a lot of things in his life and wondered if it had been rude not drinking it.
“They’ll tell you. You don’t really need experience.” He wasn’t sure if that was the truth or not.
Tyler thought for a minute then shook his head. “I dunno man. That place gives me the creeps. He yelled at the tv in front of him. Bobby wasn’t sure what had happened but supposed the Patriots had done something wrong. He really didn’t follow sports programs.
“What’s the pay?”
“The pay?” They hadn’t said anything about the pay. They said nothing actually. Not even the work hours. Only that if there wasn’t a new inspector by tomorrow morning he was fired.
“Yeah man. I don’t work for free.”
One thing that Bobby did know was his bosses had money. He was making $115,000 a year when he’d started 9 years ago and without even asking for a raise they, someone, had increased that amount to $680,000.
“150k” he blurted out. Tyler nearly spit out his beer and was now coughing uncontrollably over the top over the bar. The next day a hung over Tyler Jordan started his career with Cyborg Inc.
It didn’t make life any easier. Certainly not. His days were spent under constant pressure of deadlines and missed commitments. Pressures that he couldn’t meet. He’d asked the men in the white jackets if he could have more help but they never answered him. Sending emails to HR was useless as well because he wasn’t sure if HR even existed. Sure they had a link to HR on the Cyborg Inc. Intranet page but all of the responses he’d ever received seemed to be written by robots. He thought about that for a minute. Maybe they were.
It was 8:15am and he waited, looking at the door into the warehouse. That’s when the first sick call came through.
Two hours earlier he’d received an email that they had 20 shipments going out today. He had laughed to himself when he’d read it on his tablet while on the toilet. He got another email a few minutes later saying ‘We’re serious!’ This would probably alarm most people he thought. Emails like that. It was like they knew what you were thinking. Bobby supposed he was just used to it. Another deadline I can’t meet.
By 8:45 Cedric Hamm, Navid Driskel, Antoine Bryson, Nick Caruso and Tony Deoliveira had all called in sick. This wasn’t particularly surprising. After all it was a Tuesday and all of them had gone to Hennessey’s Bar and Grille after work the night before. This is what they’d always done. He was never invited to any after work events or activities but he didn’t mind he supposed. After all he was the boss. No sense in messing that up too right? Always keep work and friends separate. Had he read that somewhere?
Still no word from Tyler Jordan though. He wondered if Tyler would even bother calling in sick. Usually he didn’t. Though did it really matter? The man did what he wanted anyway. Tyler was he first person that Bobby was able to hire. After a rather busy day of shipping and missed deadlines he’d thought his calls for help had been answered. The email had come through on a Friday afternoon scolding him for not hiring more people. It had said that if there wasn’t someone hired for the inspection job by Monday morning they would deactivate his key card and he would be fired. Inspection position? We don’t have an inspection position.
He knew Tyler from High School. He thought they liked each other enough. Perhaps not friends but he knew Tyler was a decent enough human being. He also knew that he needed a job.
He had sent Tyler a message through Facebook that Friday night. When he hadn’t heard anything back by Sunday morning, Bobby went looking for him. He found him just after 2PM watching the Patriots game at The Squires, a hole in the wall bar just outside of town.
“What do you mean inspection job. Inspecting what?” Tyler had bought him a beer which he didn’t bother drinking. Bobby often thought back on the exchange, like he'd looked back on a lot of things in his life and wondered if it had been rude not drinking it.
“They’ll tell you. You don’t really need experience.” He wasn’t sure if that was the truth or not.
Tyler thought for a minute then shook his head. “I dunno man. That place gives me the creeps. He yelled at the tv in front of him. Bobby wasn’t sure what had happened but supposed the Patriots had done something wrong. He really didn’t follow sports programs.
“What’s the pay?”
“The pay?” They hadn’t said anything about the pay. They said nothing actually. Not even the work hours. Only that if there wasn’t a new inspector by tomorrow morning he was fired.
“Yeah man. I don’t work for free.”
One thing that Bobby did know was his bosses had money. He was making $115,000 a year when he’d started 9 years ago and without even asking for a raise they, someone, had increased that amount to $680,000.
“150k” he blurted out. Tyler nearly spit out his beer and was now coughing uncontrollably over the top over the bar. The next day a hung over Tyler Jordan started his career with Cyborg Inc.