Russ, whose full name was Russell Thomas Highpoint was never called lazy, at least not to his face, and never by the men and women who worked for him. Although his lack of attention, even to the personal, saw him still sipping a cold first cup of coffee late into the afternoon. Had he been a dreamer, he could have spent the time toiling over how best to market his company’s next product, or something else to do with business. But, Russ was not a dreamer, at least not in the conventional sense. A better description of how he spent his time would be tarry. He tarried enough to be the winning contestant in a Rip Van Winkle attention span contest.
Punctual and dedicated to routine, he definitely was, arriving at eight in the morning and leaving promptly at five in the afternoon. Lunch was a tuna fish sandwich on toasted whole wheat. Daily. It arrived on a bamboo tray with silver handles and corner pieces, brought into the office by his secretary, along with a bottle of Perrier, half of which had been poured by her into a clear, eight ounce glass. Normal Perrier, never contaminated with lemon or lime.
The secretary, ancient well beyond her years, matched him exactly. She was a worrier about things that were none of her business, such as people spending too much time on this and that she found to be an improper use of company time. This she thought her duty to report to one and all. Her pet name by the employees was Fuck You Sally, most often abbreviated to FYS.
Once she had the audacity to post a note in the break room: Coffee Time is Wasted Time. Someone had inked over it, FYS is wasted space. Another had written: Please refrain from relieving yourself in Sally’s desk drawer until after close of business. An irate Sally removed the sign and seldom left her desk.
Russ held business meetings that were as interesting as counting the individual hairs on a barbershop floor, and lasting longer than winter. These occurred on Fridays at three o’clock until exactly five in the afternoon, a time when beer and the weekend dominated employees’ rambling thoughts. Russ thought it brilliant of him to give people something to think about in their free time. It would have been brilliant except the interminable meetings invariably offered a clean plate of nothing worth thinking about. The placement of chairs so the janitorial service could best sweep the floors. The proper use of paper towels to avoid excessive cost, including a fifteen-minute demonstration by a supplier. A discussion of various shades of beige for the repainting of the walls in the underground garage. Whether or not it was really necessary to replace the break room’s coffee machine and a PowerPoint presentation of various alternatives, complete with graphs of price comparisons of possible replacements and more graphs of long term maintenance costs.
Several employees remained comatose long after these meetings were over, reviving barely in time to avoid a call for an EMT. In one such meeting, EMT was called to restart a heart that had simply grown tired of beating.
Russ, of course remained oblivious. He was also oblivious when he walked through the parking garage and was hit and killed by a delivery truck.
It happened on a Friday, so celebrations didn’t begin until Monday.
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