Chapter Text
Working at a paper company is just as boring as it sounds.
You get up at the ass-crack of dawn to get to Westerberg’s Dunder Mifflin branch. Well, it’s not dawn but you help but be pretty damn dramatic when you spend your days selling paper. Paper. Reams and hole punched or printer paper or lined or plain or card or coloured or god it’s just so boring and dull, but it’s the only job going in the city and no one will let you be a journalist with no experience – which is bullshit but you can’t get angry at the only people who may potentially hire you. You spend all day talking to people about paper, what type to buy for which printer, convincing them that they do need a dozen more of the crisp, almost the same as you bought last time but it’s different and new and you have to sell a whole load of it or Flemming will put you in overtime.
At least you get some of Martha’s left overs from the restaurant for lunch most days, you think, standing on the bus with Sleater-Kinney blasting through your headphones. You try to get yourself slightly excited, maybe today you’ll be able to eat lunch without JD cornering you about how much he hates this job - which, come on, everyone hates their job here – except maybe McNamara, but she’s preppy at 8:30am so you can’t really trust her. Maybe today you can sit in your cubicle and write an article for a competition to get experience so that a paper will hire you without Flemming catching you for once. Maybe the coffee in the breakroom won’t taste like tar and maybe the milk won’t be off so you won’t have to choke down it down black – although that’s the least likely of your hopes for today.
The bus lurches to a stop and the it feels like half the bus falls into you, and it gets even worse when you have to scoot out of there, throwing in as many apologies as you can before someone rolls their eyes at you and you almost jump out the bus. Finally, fresh air, that you won’t be allowed to breathe for another 5-7 hours. God this job is the worst. Even though you had a coffee less than half an hour ago you can feel it’s affects waning. You check your watch, it’s asymmetrical, the twelve doesn’t hit the middle of your strap, it always annoys you but you never change it, you’ve got a good half an hour to get your computer booted up, have some shitty coffee and prepare your selling voice before the day sets off. Being late stresses you out, it makes you sweaty and nervous and it’s detrimental to your shitty shitty job. You wave at the security guard, who salutes back and, thankfully you’re alone in the elevator, waiting for the third floor. You get to your cubicle without running into anyway, thank god. The only good thing, apart from the ability to pay off your student loans, is working by an empty cubicle so you’re free from working with the likes of Sweeney or Kelly. Your need for caffeine makes you move for the breakroom, but of course McNamara is by the coffee machine, you take a full minute staring at the breakrooms glass door, deciding if the small talk is worth the shitty coffee. Unfortunately, the need to put your lunch in the fridge and the desire for energy wins out. You take a deep breathe before entering the room.
“Ronnie!” Oh yeah, that’s another thing, McNamara never calls anyone by their actual names, it somehow ends up being a nickname that no ones called you since Middle School. “Happy Monday!”
“You know most people hate Mondays?” You say, rifling through the cupboards for that one mug that you love, a blue mug with Penn State’s logo on it. You find it and turn to see her, covered head-to-toe in yellow like she always is. It’s never the nice, muted yellow either, it’s always bright and bubbly, just like her you suppose. You suppose that you can’t be too critical, considering your closet only consists of different shades of blue, but at least blue’s a nice colour, yellow’s just, too much. You put your lunch in the fridge, knowing that it’s going to be delightful, Martha’s one hell of a chef and her spaghetti is to die for, needless to say, lunch is your favorite time of the day – if JD doesn’t corner you.
“Yeah, but it’s the ideas behind it! If you think you’ll like it, you’ll like them more!” How is she so excited at, you look at the clock, 8:37 in the morning? You manage to fill your mug while she tells you about her weekend, she got a new cat and her wife pretended to hate the cat but she really loves the cat. She sees you’re done with the machine and waves you goodbye, blowing you a kiss on the way out, with far too much prep in her step. Ugh that rhymed, she must be rubbing off on you.
The coffee doesn’t taste like complete ass today, Betty must’ve made it. Betty is the only one you would really call a friend in this whole place, and even that was a bit far-fetched, but you know she feels the same way. She’s in the closest cubicle to you and has your back if Flemming chews you out in a meeting, you do the same but you never try to see each other outside of work, you know the boundaries. Speaking of Betty, she waves you over to her desk and you feel some of the tension leave your body from seeing someone you actually, genuinely like.
“I heard that there’s someone new getting transferred to the office, just warning, that free cubicle may be going.” You groan, that was the best thing about working here and it’s getting taken from you?
“How come I didn’t know this?”
“I thought one of your core characteristics is your inability to remember to check your email.” You close your eyes and sigh, this is just what you need right now, you think bitterly. Between barely seeing your best friend and being stuck in this office for too much of your life you don’t need the one good thing gone.
“Of course there was an email.”
“They said they’re coming tomorrow so you’re free for one more day – savor it while you can.” You roll your eyes good-naturedly, a wry smile coming to your face, Betty’s a good one.
“Yeah right Finn, thanks for the heads up.” You start to head over to your cubicle, Betty giving you a thumbs up and turning back to her screen. She works in the accountants section, lucky for her, the section aren’t complete assholes and she gets to play solitaire on the computer without Flemming checking up on her every ten seconds.
After that the day moves like it normally does, in a flurry of calling other offices and companies to sell them more paper than they want because, you can be pretty damn persuasive when you want to be. As much as you hate to say, you are actually pretty good at this job, you convinced a chain hotel to buy almost twice as much paper as they actually need because ‘holiday’s are coming up’, it’s the middle of January. The closest holiday is Valentine’s and you really think that it shouldn’t be counted as a holiday. And it’s not because you’ve been single for over a year, that’s nothing to do with it. Besides, you like being single, and the sex, you don’t miss the sex – well, maybe a little bit, but that doesn’t matter. You’re moving your career forward even though it’s currently stagnant. But you firmly believe that it won’t be still for that much longer, hopefully.
It’s when you’re walking to the breakroom for lunch when you see McNamara with her headset, repeating the same customer service spiel while going through the different callers that you thank whatever God there is that you’re not in customer service. She does it pretty damn well though. You don’t get cornered by JD at lunch, which you take as a complete win, Flemming only glares at you twice and you only go for a smoke break once. All in all, not the worst day you’ve had at the office, but it’s also extremely, very, incredibly similar to the rest of your days. You leave, almost as soon as the clock strike five, just like most of the office – even McNamara. Only Courtney stays after five, and that’s just because she almost allergic to coming into work on time and Flemming likes to punish her.
The bus is somehow even fuller on the way back home and the air is just as stale and hot as it is every other goddamn day. There’s the same couple of people she’s sees most days, the woman with grey hair and a nice blouse who almost always gets a seat, the teenager in a Burger King polo shirt who looks like he’s about to collapse after standing up. The usual suspects. There’s always at least on person on the phone, and they always manage to piss everyone off by their third stop. Thankfully, your stop isn’t that far so you’re quickly free from the pain of the bus. As much as you
You’re excited to see Martha, then you remember that it’s Monday and that she has a shift from half an hour ago until 3am, it makes you sadder than you’d like to admit. You sigh and kick your shoes off, knowing that you’ll trip over them in the morning but not finding it in yourself to care.
Martha left some fancy fish dish with a sticky note with a smiley face and a kiss on it and your heart warms of a second. Then you watch reality tv alone, with reheated food and a glass of wine.
The fact that you’re all alone bothers you more than you’d like to think.