"And this is going to be your office," my new boss told me as we walked into a tiny, orange room. Today was my first day as a professional accountant. All of my hard work was finally paying off. Now that I had graduated college, I, Brad Nichols, was the certified accountant at... Dickie's Sports Grill. So this was what my MBA had done for me. The market was rough, and with student loans being what they are, I was in dire need of some funds. The Fortune 500 companies required experience, so I was left with some less choice alternatives. But on the plus side... all you can eat mozzarella sticks.
"This should do nicely," I replied, trying not to sound sarcastic. "What kind of computer are we working with here?"
"It's an HP. I think it has a hard drive," Stacy said. Stacy was my new boss. She was a middle aged woman, blonde hair and skin damaged from prolonged tanning bed use. She clearly used to be attractive, or at least attractive with make-up, but now she settled for being the manager of a sports grill where other, younger girls made money for her by being hot. You see, Dickies was a restaurant where the women wore tight shirts and shorts that emphasized their curves, and men... worked in the kitchen and heated up the food. It was that place guys liked to go to watch fights and football games while their girlfriends toiled away at home worried about what chick they were ogling. I thought that was going to be the one advantage of working here. As a single male, it would seem like a dream come true. Unfortunately, it looked like I would be cooped up in this tiny prison all day until 2 AM every night.
"Well, I'm sure it'll be fine."
"Let's hope so!" said Stacy. She turned to the doorway. "Come on in, Leslie." A girl walked in. She had long blonde hair, and was thin as a stick. She may have been 5 feet tall, and I would be surprised if she was over 90 pounds. "Brad, this is Leslie. I need to borrow this room for like, 5 minutes to go over the onboarding ceremony."
"Ceremony?" I asked.
"Okay, I read these papers and say 'Welcome to Dickies, Ladies!' and tell you to get to work. Also you're a dude." I nodded approvingly. The two of us sat down on a chair and she went over the riveting history of Dickies Sports Grill, a run-down Taxidermy shop turned-into-a restaurant where men could take their families to eat a wholesome meal. Then of course, after a few weeks, they ditched that and started going for boos and chicks and became somewhat profitable. She discussed the routine of the business, including opening at 9am and closing at 2am, and a bartender that sells drinks, and fried zucchini. Wild stuff.
"Are there any questions, you two?"
We looked at each other. She looked like she probably didn't understand much beyond three syllables. I don't mean to sound harsh, but she had all of the presence of a drug addict. She definitely made it day to day by being good looking. I looked back at Stacy, who was already one foot out the door. "I think we're good." I smiled extra-large after that, to emphasize how good we were. She smiled back, nodded, and headed out the door.
"Well that was fun, right?" Leslie asked, getting up. "Ooh, computers. My boyfriend plays games on these sometimes. Does this thing play Call of Duty?"
"I doubt this could play Minesweeper."
She giggled. "Isn't that the game with the blocks and the little guy that builds houses?"
"No, that's..." I looked at my audience. "Well, I better dust this old thing off. I'm sure there's a lot of money situations that need to be sorted out here. And I'm sure you've got a lot of... waitressing... to do? Yes?" She agreed and headed out the door.
Ah, Windows XP, how I hath missed thee. I actually had, that wasn't sarcasm. Everything about this computer screamed 2000, from the low quality, generic background to the low res buttons. Whatever role I was intended to play here, it was now clearly more afterthought than priority, a business distilled to its core value of profiting off of the lowest common denominator and nothing more. I managed to pull up excel and word, and noticed some files to my left. Looks like I had my work cut out for me. If nothing else, this job would give me enough experience to tackle anything in the future, for that much I could at least be grateful.
As the day trudged on, my interest waned. Inputting receipt after receipt and ticket after ticket had weighed heavy on my poor brain, and I pushed the keyboard aside. Across the way, I could hear the faint sound of kitchen noises, with the hustle and bustle of dinner being prepared, most likely by a micro wave in some form or fashion. I have never eaten here, but I could only imagine the type of food the regulars were want to consume. Certainly no five-star chef was waiting in the back, eager to please the patrons of the facility with his worn out ladle and pinches of oregano. All I needed was a glass of water and maybe some crackers to tide me over until dinner at my lonely apartment. I put down the food here, but I would be wrong in not mentioning that I would probably be eating a TV dinner at home, as I couldn't cook and had little to no money.
I opened the door in front of me and proceeded left towards what sounded like a kitchen. As I rounded the turn, I almost ran into a huge man. He looked well over 6 and a half feet tall, and thick as a tree. His arms looked to be many times the size of mine in width. He had a boyish face, and a calm demeanor. "Hey, champ!" he said, stirring a pot. "You must be the new guy. I'm Freddie. I do a lot of the cooking around here. What's your name?"
"Brad," I said, shaking his hand. His firm shake came as no surprise, but left me souring afterwards nonetheless.
"Nice to meet you man. Need anything? Water, food, a little wakka wakka, if you know what I mean, help yourself. I won't say nothing." He continued cooking as he spoke. His positivity was surprisingly refreshing.
"I appreciate that, Freddie," I replied. I wandered over to the water machine. There was cute girl standing there wearing the customary short grey shorts and cleavage revealing white top. She had maybe a B cup and filled out the shorts quite nicely. She was a natural blonde, and I liked her eyes in particular. It felt bad to immediately break down her looks, but in a facility such as this, I was inclined to do so without hesitation. I filled my water, and turned to the girl and said "Hi, I'm Brad. I'm the new accountant." I held out my hand. The girl shook it, but didn't look at me. Her eyes stuck firmly to Freddie.
"Hi, my name's Amber." Another girl approached, also a cutie. Amber turned the other girl. They were half whispering, but I could catch every word. "Oh my god Jules, I fucked Freddie last night and I can barely walk. His cock has GOT to be like a foot long. Like, seriously a foot long. I almost wish I was joking." The two giggled and pulled away, whispering more. I looked back at the beast of a man before me. I guess I couldn't say it was impossible. Still, a foot long was huge. Wait, why were they even talking about this? How ridiculous was this place?
I snuck back to my office and closed the door behind me. I banged my head against the door and prayed for 2am to arrive. I could not believe the insanity I was now a part of. I was a college graduate, not some monkey in the middle of a shit throwing contest inside a zoo. And yet I felt like I was among children, dancing at rock bottom, waiting to be trapped in an endless cylinder of-