Although the story here is pure fiction and the author in no way condones violence towards women, no matter what the circumstance, this story is dedicated to a woman who changed my life forever.
*
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Tom and I have the greatest job known to mankind. Now it may not sound like it at first, but bear with me. I am the senior accountant at one of the largest computer supply companies in the southern hemisphere. Lets for now call it "X" because for now I am rather reluctant to use the actual name, lest HR and senior management come banging down my door to fire me, or worse, want in on the action.
I have been the head of the accounts department for about 4 months and took on the role after my long time colleague Oscar resigned in what was quite unusual circumstances. While citing he was off to bigger and better things, we all knew it was down to the women he worked with. The accounts team is essentially a group of 6 women all aged 22 to 35 and they are the dictionary definition of a click. The problems caused by this are too many to reel off but in short, Oscar's inability to control his team and the mental strain they put him under drove him out in the end.
When he gave his notice, I was one of the few they approached to take over from him as I was in line for a promotion and through my own role and friendship with Oscar, knew enough to step into the role reasonably comfortably. Now this didn't mean I was comfortable with the role because I knew the real reason he was resigning.
The offer was put to me on a Friday afternoon, and it just so happened it was dear old dad's birthday that weekend. I had decided to delay my refusal of the role until Monday so as to make it look like I had given it some thought. That Saturday, while gathered around the TV watching the old man's beloved Magpies get smashed again, the usual question "How's work?" came up. I had gone over in detail the situation Oscar found himself in and the job offer with them and my younger brother Jim, who is an IT consultant, suggested that if I was thinking about it I could purchase and put some spyware to use. If I could get something over the girls, it might make the position and life in general at work a bit more bearable. After all, there's nothing like a little blackmail to cleanse the soul!
So we discussed it further and he went over the various possibilities with me and by the time Monday came around I was 50 -- 50 about the job and seriously considering the possibility. There was a potential role in Sydney I had heard about through a friend from school that was coming up if this role didn't work out anyway so there would be no harm done. I have a mate in our IT department (as all good internet dodging employees do) and ran the idea past him. He said for a slice of the reward, he could help me put something in place.
Now if this little group of accounts girls were your run of the mill team, it might have ended there, but these women, as I mentioned earlier were all 25 to 35, all stunning, slim and very well off. This made everyone all the more confused as not even we were paid well enough to maintain the kind of lifestyle these women lived. They were all members of the local gym, they lunched together at the local top notch restaurant every second day or so and the cars they drove were better than the cars belonging to the people they worked for. In short, something was up.
I still wasn't sold on the role until I sat down and discussed the intricacies with Oz, and the specifics of each of the women that were there. Angela was the queen bee of the group. Medium length red hair, pale skinned and regal to the hilt, she was the strength of the team. Think a much stuffier Julianne Moore. Catherine was around the same age, early 30's, Blonde shoulder length hair, strong build and basically her right hand woman, and there was no show without punch. If anything came to Ang's attention, it took about 3 seconds for Cath to be laughing about it with her.
Lisa was the kitten of the group. Long black hair and a phenomenal figure, everything where it should be, and very flirtatious to boot. But with Angela and co. Over her shoulder, no one ever dared to flirt back, a mistake Oz made only once. Of his team, these were the three I knew the most about.
Megan was a shorter mousey brown dynamo, who was pretty quiet, but built perfectly. She and Nerida were one of the biggest sources of Oz's frustrations, due to the fact that whenever it came time to ask them to lift their work rate, not only would they ignore him, but something the others were doing would inadvertently struggle as a result. Kind of a way of saying, fuck off, we will work as hard as we want to. Nerida was Megan's twin, blonde, very thin, and quiet and shy as a mouse. I smiled at Oz's descriptions, these women were to drool over and it seems all he could to not to throw up talking about them.
Then the last of the group was Rachel. If the others were pretty, she was a dynamo. Long brown hair, tanned skin, perfectly... "Rachel? I didn't think she was still with the company?"
"Yeah, not working on anything your department is related to, but she's still here. Why? Oh, you're not still hung up on..."
"No, of course not. No, just didn't know, that's all."
Fuck 'em, I thought, let's do it.
The following morning I accepted the role as manager of the accounts team and once I was transitioned across, as soon as possible installed the spyware recommended by my brother. The girls of course welcomed me with open arms and expressed their hopes for a long and happy working environment, and then 2 minutes later went straight back to their normal habits. I'm sure you know the ones, the conversations that stop when you enter the area, or team lunches you find out about after they return from them, and the smiling attitudes around other staff members that aren't smiling attitudes when there is no-one else around. Never anything to complain about, but none the less very uncomfortable. All this I was warned about by Oscar in advance but the silver lining at the end of the week was the results of the spyware.
That Friday night, I hung back at work to go over what I had found from a week's worth of web, email and upload / download monitoring from the ladies in my team. As expected, there was the usual banter about having me in "the right place", prioritising "adversely to the company" and gossip about the other girls and men in the office. I took the juicy ones and started a small portfolio on each of the girls when I came across the same few emails again and again. They contained an account number, purchase orders and a client name. One of our big clients as well. I decided to put the portfolios aside for a minute and follow the breadcrumb trail to see where it went.
I gathered all the similar emails together and went into the client account details. Nothing really looked out of place. The usual constant flow of orders this client makes were there but the account number was different to the one on reference. I put everything in my draw, locked it and went home for the night, leaving myself a note to call the bank on Monday to enquire about the account the girls had referenced.
Monday
Monday rolled around and the games continued, but I decided to hold off on the call to the bank and see what the spyware produced that night to verify the first week's details. Monday's emails however had a slight variation. Same client, purchase orders still referenced, but a different account number. I took this down and called Paul, the bank manager. His response floored me. Yes he had that account number, yes it was a company account and yes it had two employees as signatories. So did the other account, but different signatories. All the girls in the accounts department. Bank accounts totalled around $200,000 each.
I thanked him, asked him to get as much information out about these accounts as possible and told him I would see him in 5 minutes. I walked out to the pod with the girls and informed them that as a part of my introduction to the team, I wanted a consolidated report on the bottom twenty clients by tomorrow to discuss with them. This did two things (well three, but I'm not counting making them all very pissed at me for giving them something very tedious to do). One, it kept them too busy to have any reason to contact the bank and two, no reason to delve into the client in questions account, as he was in the top three clients.
Five minutes later I was looking over the bank account details and could not believe my eyes. For about the last three years, these women had been placing inflated orders on this vendor and getting the money syphoned back into their accounts in the form of refunds. Once an order had been placed, the marked up price would be put in by one of the girls and confirmed by another. Then the refund would come in and be processed by another while being left off the reports. Each week the account would change and regular instalments would be transferred out by one of the signatories. The accounts were monitored via email to each other and funds withdrawn via direct debit to nominated accounts.
I spent the hour I was at the bank desperately trying to keep a straight face. As the new accounts manager, I was given right of signatory to all the companies accounts and Paul had assumed this was me just getting an update on accounts I was already aware about. While I was pouring over the statements and direct debit forms, Paul's secretary came in and offered me another coffee. I declined, glancing up as she bent forwards to pick up my cup and got a great view of her chest down the front of her top before she stood up. Nice, I thought, as I returned to the statements, when it hit me!
"Hey Paul, can I update these direct debit forms while I'm here?" I slipped in. "We are just trying to consolidate our spending before the upcoming audit and we are now operating a single deposit account for these fund transfers." I reeled off. As senior corporate signatory I knew I could, and He had no idea that these accounts weren't corporate spending accounts but rather backdoor funds accounts. I transferred the direct debits over to a corporate account I was about to close and updated the signatories on all the accounts to require my signature as well.
I returned to the office and scheduled appointments with each of the girls tomorrow to go over what they had been working on, or so they thought.
Tuesday
Tuesday morning was bright and sunny. Slightly warm and not a cloud in sight. I was feeling fantastic and had about a thousand butterflies in my stomach. Angela was the first meeting for the day. At 32, she was the oldest and a bit of a "Mother Duck" to the rest of the girls. If she broke, the rest would follow.
Angela came in, sat down and opened up her report. "Full rundown of the bottom..." she started before I interrupted.
"Actually Angela, I have something else I needed to discuss with you. It's about work attire and the changing conditions of the office. You and your colleagues are taking a pay cut and will start dressing more appropriately. The attitude will stop and the lifestyle will be drastically cut back. You see management, and by management I mean me, have decided that the financial arrangement you seem to have worked out with the company is not really in the best interests of all parties and we are going to fix it up a little."
