Gregs Awakening

Gregory was your normal, average, bored, 30 something male. Sitting in his normal, average boring cubicle, dealing with his normal stressful, and boring job. smack dab in the middlest of middle management.

The mirror at his desk to help him keep an eye out for people hanging by his desk revealed a face he had come to hate. Greg's former athletic body, had grown fat nay obese he found himself avoiding leaning over too much. Least the new ugly body he wore would come into view. However he could tell there was a pair of pants behind him. Greg did his best to stall a bit before turning around as he wanted to at least seem bothered as desk visits usually meant a new guy forgot a password or worse yet a employee from the dark ages wanted to blame his poor performance on his computer not the fact they were old and technically challenged.

Greg shook his head mentally, he had to deal with incompetence from below him and above. Greg's new job he thought would be an exciting foray.

He figured new technology, new company, and better pay would make his days exciting again. Sadly they did not. The thrill of putting networks together had long since gone. He figured all the new tech would give him something to learn and chase. But no it did not the new wore off after the first 30 days when he realized the new tech was no more a challenge than the old thanks to his experience. Now three months into his new role Greg was underwhelmed.

Gone was his old office replaces with a death trap 10ft x 10 ft room with three other people. The job was not more challenging and the people were a lot less fun. Now he found himself cleaning up everyone else's mess. Rather than before, where he designed the system, so there was no mess. The more Greg settled in, the more crap he found left half done or almost finished. Nothing became more frustrating than to start a project, like the lastest one to reconfigure the update systems for all of the computers. Only to find that make him frustrated beyond belief. Work did not bother him so much but his lot in life did.

Greg constantly found himself looking at former classmates who had more success in life. He only hoped one day he could catch up.

Greg was going through assignments for the day when he found an anomaly.

" Mary on ticket number 15764 did you even try to call the department manager back before closing that out?" Greg knew the answer but it was a small hope that his new coworker would come through.

"No i just thought he sorted it out when he didn't reply to the email." Mary Haines said blankly as she packed up to leave.

"Next time call please." Greg said as he reassigned the issue to himself. He dialed the giant pain in the ass department head over the manufacturing area. Greg knew this guys type well. He was at the company for 35 years. Barely functioned with his computer. He did not pay attention to emails, instant message, bulletins, texts, or faxes. He did answer his phone religiously and heaven forbid the man go ten minutes with him being ignored.

Greg already prepared himself for the onslaught.

" Hey Tommy" Greg said with his tone elevated like he was talking to his best friend or selling a car.

" Hey Greg so yea this lanes been down twenty minutes. You know if it is down more than five i have to submit a report to Ron." Greg hated to be lied to. Greg knew enough to know that manufacturing had a redundant line the fell over too. So the report only had to be generated if the backup line went down. However Ron was a VP.

" I apologize for that Tommy what seems to be the problem." Greg waited said detaching his frustration and maintaining the friendly intonation.

" Well This station was working fine then it cut off." Tommy said. " Could you come fix it."

"Sure.... Tommy you did check and make sure that the line runner didn't plug that space heater in again and blow the fuse."

" I.... Let me call you back." Tommy hung up the phone.

Greg was smiling as he was pretty certain he had resolved the issue but would never get a call back. As that would mean Tommy would have to admit to lying to Greg to get him to show up and solve a problem that was not even his problem. So Greg had to go a head and record the finer details in the system just in case there was a report sent up the chain. Then gathered his essentials and make his way to the manufacturing area.

" Did you get it fixed?" Mary said looking up from her phone quickly trying to pretend she was working.

"Not sure yet gotta go down there. Thanks I needed the hike."Greg wished he could be more direct at the moment but his new boss did not believe in a hierarchy. So Mary thr junior tech was not even at his disposal. so he was biding his time and closing monstrous amounts of issues out and preparing to build a case to get her in line.

Greg's boss was new to management so he was a friend to all and leader to none. So Mary pretty much filled a chair and asked the 'did you try restarting line' and then if that didn't work more often than naught would blindly blame it on a backend system and pass it to me.

Greg found himself electing to bear the frustration as the last two new hires in the IT department ended up being millennial trash. So Greg was happy with the devil he knew for now.

Greg walked the long walk from the administrative office, throughout the call center, then shipping and finally to the manufacturing area. While he walked Greg went through the scenarios he wished he could affect on his co worker. One ended up her being sacked on the spot. While he sent here running away her self esteem broken and her tears flowing in streams.

Mary was a Very plain woman in her early 30's. She was not much to look at and her lack of work ethic and antisocial nature did not do much to raise people's the opinion of her. There was not much driving Greg to improve the relationship. Greg figured he would slowly work her out once the group found a dependable employee.

Greg felt strange. At his last job he knew just about all the names and faces of people walking around. It was familiar. Now in his new job he knew no one. Worse yet he was married to a desk now and did not have a lot of time to socialize and get to know those around him. He felt lost some what. Just before Greg got completely lost in thought he realized he was in the manufacturing area.

There was a slight mist in the air. 5 ft tall manual grinding machines arranged in 3 rows of 5 all attracted the eye with the sparks coming from the metal pieces they were working on. From there the parts were sent down a finishing lines to be polished and prepped for the next phase. One of the integrated computers for the machines had kicked off. When Gregory arrived he noticed all of the lines were working. He saw Tommy who waived and then disappeared to a different area of manufacturing. I was hoping to get the small satisfaction of Tommy eating some crow. Instead i just walked up to the line operator and verified the unit came back up after flipping the breaker responsible for that units integrated control unit.

I just emailed in the issue update and closed it out. Since Greg was already there he decided to walk the area and spy on the networking there. Greg was looking at the ceiling and walking trying to trace the networking cable bundle. That like the branches on a tree trunk split off to the various areas of manufacturing. Greg was so preoccupied he did notice the quality manager and bumped into her.

Luckily the quality manager was not holding anything. The quality managers name escaped his mind. She had dark brown hair. She wore a tight fitting polo shirt and khakis. Greg could not help giving her a once over. Greg was a hair over 5 '9 and she was just as tall as she was. Greg could tell the underneath that shirt were a great pair of melons and her pants were a tight fit but again you could tell the woman worked out regularly. Greg thought it was a crying shame she was not in yoga pants.

"I am very sorry about that ma'am." Greg apologized trying to keep a level head and his eyes on the womans face. Which was not hard to do. Her face was very nice to look at as well. She had a hint of a tan and a face that was very slender but a strong jawline that was punctuated by a nice pair of lips that you just wanted to nibble on.

" Please be more careful... Greg isn't it?"

The woman said her voice rounded out the package not bubbly at and and sultry. Greg was in his head now trying to rally while his adhd brain started throwing images on her bent over and begging for his dick.

" i am sorry you know my name and i am embarrassed to admit that i don't know yours." greg said. In his mind he gave himself a oat on the back. Meanwhile his adhd brain. Was now taking him through a whole porn scene.

" Sarah Varner" she said. " What were you looking at i thought you were daydreaming."

Greg's adhd brain almost made him reply " I am dreaming about you."

Luckily Greg caught it and before he could think of a replacement phrase he pointed up.

Sarah followed his finger and looked at the ceiling. Sara breaking eye contact briefly gave him the break he needed to think again.

" I am the new networking and systems administrator and engineer here. I am new so i was following the cables looking anything out of the ordinary." Greg finished.

"you can tell that from here?" Sarah asked.

"i am not expecting to but if I can then it likely means i have a lot more to look into." Greg said.

" Well i have to catch up but next time keep and eye out would you. We don't want to reset the days since accident count again." Sarah said as she started to walk off.

"it was nice to meet you" Greg said as she walked off. Greg said staring at her butt. Her butt was exactly what he was expecting. He did not realize she had turned around to respond. Greg didn't realize Sarah was looking back and and gave him that look the face just said it all "really.....?!" . "Nice to meet you too" was her retort but he could tell the damage had been done.

Greg reminisced about his younger days when he was an athlete. Back when he was at his fighting weight girls didn't give him the really face. He'd look up and realize they'd damn near be posing. Now with out the good looks or the wallet the size of texas that most of the time he got the really face. Greg was pushing 270 and his good looks were far far far gone.

Greg wrapped up his time in the manufacturing area and headed back.

The walk back was uneventful. Greg then got back to his desk after ten minutes of walking. Greg loved his setup despite being in a sardine can. Greg had different system monitors on his desktop and management consoles from his pc he could reach out and deal with Anything quickly and with ease. At his desk Greg felt powerful and in control of his own little world. He could focus on the network identifying problems, tweaking systems, designing projects it was all so easy from his desk. Greg noticed an email from the call center. Greg did recognize the name on the other end.

Jessica was calling for help. She was a hot nerd, that was the best description that could be given to her. She had a decent body she was not athletic but she had a natural cuteness about here. She had straight brown hair that spilled halfway down her back. She was a little socially awkward but not in a bad way. Greg could use a distraction at the moment. So he got up again from his command center and walked to her desk in the call center.

" hey dude. I cant get it to come on." She said as Greg approached. Greg could appreciate her pants though it was work slacks but they may has well have been yoga pants. Greg new insurance tripled the cost of his add meds so he was forced to go without. Of course his adhd mind converted her statement into her crawling across her office chair to give me a closer look at her ass.

Greg had to shake the vision out of his head and sat down at her desk. The pc did not turn on. So he check the surge protector under the desk sure enough it was off.

" Hey Jessica watch this." Greg said and waived his fingers and did his best magician hand imitation and flipped on the surge protector at the same time bringing the desk to life.

" WAS it that damn surge protector again." she leaned in to look under the desk and i leaned back in her chair so she could see. Jessica had little in the way of cleavage but she was definitely in my personal space. This gave my ADHD brain the fuel it needed for another porn vision where Jessica instead of looking under the desk was going for my zipper.

Greg had to rally hard to not pitch a tent with Jessica that close. Greg had had enough of the really face for one day.

"Sorry about that thanks for your help." jessica said. As she made room for Greg to get by.

"no problem call me if you need me." greg said he made his was back towards this desk. He caught a glimpse of a new girl. She was a strawberry blonde woman that despite the conservative outfit Greg could tell she had a nice body on her. She had a cute face and Greg had had the pleasure of running into her and realizing she was a fun person to be around. While she would not win modeling contest she would definitely draw attention and her personality was infectious. Greg kept a wide berth as he was happily married.

Sure he loved the kids and he got a wife that hot as hell. He just did not realize that most of her dating behaviors were just that Greg noticed as the marriage aged her behavior had changed for the worse in his opinion. Greg had one thing keeping him in line and that was his sense of loyalty. Now he was growing to accept that he needed to start being loyal to himself.

Greg's long term ambitions were slowly trickling away. Luckily before he started down that depressing train of thought he realized it was time to go. Greg said his goodbyes and made the short trip home. Audrey his wife was in the kitchen when he walked in. She was short at 5 4 or so but she had a butt men would kill for. Greg thought amusedly if her butt was on a guy he might consider switching sides. Greg walked up and grabbed a nice handful of his wifes butt. She was so used to it it did not even phase her any more. She could cook an entire dinner while i held her ass in my hands. She would not even be slowed down.

"Hey baby doll how was work?" she asked while obsessively finishing her current task.

" just another reminder of how i am a useful cog in a machine that makes someone else a lot of money." Greg said as he tossed his keys and began shedding his work clothes.

"well your are useful cog in my machine." she said and did her best to mimic the bad joke dog face meme.

"Nice well if your machine would only stay up past 9 pm my cog would not be so rusty." Greg retorted. Greg waited for Audrey to respond after a couple seconds Greg realize his wife and gone back to her menial tasks and just giving him the cold shoulder Greg moved on Greg went into the living room to hang out with his kids Liam and Elena both of them were sitting idly by looking at an iPod screen trying to figure out who was going to beat up who next. The next thing he knew Greg watched his Liam slowly started wedging his foot under his sister's face which then in turn cause both of them to erupt in a hissy fight over who was going to scream the loudest. Greg slowly but surely living room and just try it out course his wife asked him if he was going to do something or not. Kind of course had no intention of getting involved they were kids like kids be however his wife who had been dealing with young one screaming all day was about ready to stab both of them with the kitchen knife now she held her hand. Greg decided it was better if he dealt with the kids as to prevent them from imminent death.

The rest of the night was spent with the kids. Greg was happy to be a young dad. He had sacrificed a lot of his youth for his kids. That never bothered Greg however income did. Lately his lifestyle while not extravagant was still beyond his means. For him 7 months of his wife's out of control spending and recently discovered and terminated emotional affair had him stressed.

Greg never thought he would have to handle stress until recently. Greg could feel that he was starting to unravel. New responsibilities at work, no extra pay, finishing college, being a dad, a husband and his side business was just delivering up crushing burden.

Greg decided that this weekend he would take his wife out. Meanwhile Greg handled some after hours work. Greg hopes of going to bed early to have some horizontal mambo with the wife waz dashed as it was 1 am when he finally tore himself away. Time itself seemed to be slipping from Greg. He climbed into bed and promptly was unable to sleep.

Greg woke up with a headache. He knew he finally passed out around 4 am. The clock showed 6:15 am and he knew he was going to be late. He tried his best to hurry but the headache did not abate even with half a pot of coffee in him.

The drive to school to drop off Mac his stepson was uneventful. Both Greg and Mac were too sleepy to carry a conversation.

Greg was happy to be at his desk. He had 10 minutes before the morning rush. Greg logged in and started looking through his emails. The next thing Greg was aware of was the phone in his office ringing. Greg shook his head realizing he passed out for twenty minutes.

Greg was happy that the phone rang as a Mary would be walking in soon.

By lunchtime the headache was causing Greg to barely hold back his attitude. Greg did his best but kept blanking out. He felt it deep within him. His emotions beginning to stir Gregs monster. Greg's monster was his nickname for a force that he had felt in him during times of duress or elation. Greg often times feared what would happen if he just gave into the well spring. The last time he did as a child he took on his father four times his size and forced the man to fearfully put and end to the confrontation that started out playfully. It felt like it was his primal side running amok and he felt power.

Then Greg got a call and that required him to drive downtown. Greg was not happy as the downtown location was in the center of a hood and he would likely be leaving well after dark in the 3rd most crime ridden city in the US. Greg made the call to his wife to let her know he would be severely late and to not wait up for him.

Greg grabbed the company grab bag with the networking tools and headed to the car. He was annoyed when he looked at the clock in his car and realized that it was 4pm and he should be going home. Greg began the forty minute drive downtown. In the car, Greg was practicing the fine art of mentally murdering people while he drove. His wife's text message were not helping either.

"You're always at work."

"Why can't you just come home I don't get it."

"Are you ignoring me."

"Fine Greg I do a lot for you and you can't even respond."

"How would you feel if I did this to you?"

Then to cap it off halfway to downtown Greg then realized as interstate slowed down from 70 miles per hour to about 10 that he was in rush hour. Greg's blood pressure was up as the 40 minute drive turned into an hour and a half long drive.

When Greg got there the receptionist gave him a frustrated look. Apparently all of the receptionists could not get on the network.

"Gena what's going on?" Greg asked as he walked towards the door leading to the back.

"Well we can't get on the internet." She said.

Gena was very attractive, she was a very unique blend of races. Leaving her with slightly reddish brown hair and permanent light tan color. If Greg was not married he'd probably be trying to hump her leg. At the moment however Greg's level of frustration was so high not even conversing with this woman could removed the seething emotions behind his outer facade of professionalism.