The Mundane Journal Entries of an Ordinary Person

Season: Summer

Weather: Still warm and muggy.

Day of the week: Monday

Date: 29th January, 2024

There was a buzz when I arrived at work. My colleagues kept coming up to me and thanking me. It really was a head scratcher. What had I gone and done now?

My team leader explained that word had gotten around that our department's pays had all been reviewed and it turns out the pig head had been embezzling our bonuses and pay rises. The pig head was going to go to prison and our department would have the full amount owed returned to us on the next pay day. Namely, this Thursday.

Come Thursday night, the department wanted to take me out for dinner in order to thank me for taking out the pig face. Except I hadn't taken out the pig face. I directed their gratitude toward the other bosses and Anthony Duin in particular. I had a feeling it was mostly his doing.

We were going to get a new direct line boss. We wondered who it would be and gossiped during the morning tea time we were now permitted to have. Getting used to taking breaks was going to take a while.

To thank the bosses, everyone was working at 120%. That is until the bosses brought the big bosses and even THE biggest boss of all on a tour inspection and a heavy hand fell on my shoulder, breaking me out of the work zone I had been in.

"Miss Brown, what are you doing here?" smiled Stony Boss with a sinister gaze. "Don't you have a medical certificate for all of this week?"

My protests that I felt fine were ignored.

My work was taken over by a work colleague who had a gossipy expression on her face, while I was bundled back up in my jacket, had my bag thrust into my arms and was escorted downstairs by one of the lady bosses.

"Either he's taken an interest in you or he's taken you on as his next project," she told me in a conspirational tone. "That man is such a nag. He likes to poke his nose where it doesn't belong and try to make everybody's life better in the way he thinks it should. Better you than me. It'll keep him out of my hair. If he gets too much, let me know and I'll get his family to rein him in."

She input her number into my mobile phone, her name reading Lara Craught and left me standing there not knowing what to do with myself. I didn't want to go home. I wanted to get back to work. There were a heap of things to be done.

In the end, I was caught at the department door trying to go back upstairs by the back route. Anthony Duin seemed to have been standing there waiting for me with his hands on his hips and lips pressed together in a tight line. My colleagues all craned their heads in our direction in order to get a better view.

"I knew it," he said the moment he caught sight of me. "I'd better take you home. You'd better not let me catch you working from home either, Miss Brown."

So. At home with nothing to do...

What should I do?

Hmm.

I know, I'll look at the TV. My shiny new TV.