A very boring job
At least, it should have been...
Greetings!
The following article was penned in response to a creative writing prompt set by a creative writing tutor. It’s all absolutely true.
Enjoy!
Mr Johnson never smiled. He was the head of maintenance at the department store where I worked. I was told that he'd been a chauffeur. A feasible suggestion, given that he always answered instructions from his boss with 'Very good, Sir' – an expression I'd previously assumed was confined to the television.
He wasn't especially pleasant to work for. Not that he was nasty, but such a stickler for correct procedure that he even grabbed a broom from a colleague once and proceeded to demonstrate how to use it.
"Hold it like this, lean forward, short strokes, put some effort into it; it's not a mop."
And then, to add insult to injury:
"Do you understand?"
My function was to sit at a help desk. The phone would ring, I would answer it, and a voice at the other end would say something like “Someone has knocked over a bucket of sand on the fifth floor, can someone clear it up, please?”
I would then write the details on a chit, place the chit on a spike, and wait for the other maintenance workers to come and take the chits and do the jobs.
In between these flurries of activity, I had no work to do, often for several hours at a stretch. Sometimes, the phone wouldn't ring for days – with a bit of luck. I was studying for my ‘A’ Levels (for non-UK readers, ‘A’ Levels are the advanced level exams taken by secondary school students, usually at the age of 18, and are designed to help you get university offers and job offers). Thus having nothing to do meant that I was being paid, in effect, to do my revision. As far as I was concerned, the fewer interruptions the better.
On one occasion, the young man who phoned said,
"I'm sorry to bother you. I don't know if you're the person I should contact, but when I opened the rubbish chute to put some cardboard in, flames leapt out."
"Flames?"
"Yes, it was on fire".
I had to contact the Fire Officer urgently, so rather than phone his office I raced along to the Gents' toilets. As I expected, he was leaning against a "Smoking Forbidden" sign having a cigarette. Within minutes the entire building was evacuated. I have to say I was impressed.
Once, a supervisor phoned to say that someone had been sick on the third floor. Mr Johnson happened to be in the office.
"What was that?" he asked. I told him.
"Well, you haven't done anything for three hours; you can go and clear it up."
"Okey dokey."
I went straight to the rest area, where several members of the maintenance staff were enjoying a post-lunch nap.
"Someone has to clear up some sick", I announced. I didn't think saying that I was the one who had to clear it up would add anything of value to the statement. One of them jumped up and said he'd do it.
I went back to the office. "You finished already?", Mr Johnson asked, wearing a look of incredulity.
"Yes", I said.
About 15 minutes later, the person who'd volunteered to do the job came into the office.
"I've cleared up that sick, Mr Johnson", he said.
Mr Johnson looked at me. He didn't say anything, but as he turned away I thought I detected a smile.