Work Text:
The sun is barely starting to rise over a boxy, grey office building. In the deserted parking lot a single car pulls in. Its engine purrs lowly, luxuriously, as the driver pulls into the assigned ‘regional manager’ parking space. The lettering is chipping and aged but still legible, even with the addition of multiple sharpie doodles defacing the signage.
A man no older than mid-40s steps out of the vehicle, pulling at his suit to straighten it. He looks to the camera with a weary, but welcoming smile as he retrieves his belongings from the boot of the car. “Good morning!” he greets, before gesturing for them to follow, the keys to the building jingling loudly in his hand.
The office space is eerie, with no sign of life aside from a single betta fish sitting in a tank behind reception. The man greets the small creature as he switches the lights on; it moves from where it had been hiding in some foliage to the side of the tank closest to us and the man. He promises to come back and feed it breakfast once he’s settled.
[cut to headroom- Farrier, Regional Manager]
We just need you to introduce yourself, what you do here, anything the audience would need to know to ascertain your role here, etc
‘Ok, well I’m Thomas Farrier, I’m the Regional Manager here at Nolan Technologies. I handle all the important business here, as you can imagine. I’ve been here in this office for a couple of years now, longer than all the other people on the floor, aside from the bloke in HR. I’m pretty sure he came with the building, as do all ghosts and paranormal entities.’
Paranormal entities?
‘Well, he haunts me.’
[cut back to the office space, Farrier is feeding the office fish]
“Good morning, deary- did you have a nice night? I hope that bloody cleaner didn’t forget your dinner again… you know you can tell me these things.”
The fish wriggles excitedly as he supplies some food from a small container- dried brine shrimp. The fish swarms the small cloud of shrimp he drops into the tank. “I’ve got a blood worm for you here, as a treat- there you go," he coos as he drops the worm into the water.
[cut to headroom- Farrier]
‘The fish was a strategic purchase. She’s been here for about six months now, her name is Petunia, named after my grandmother who taught me how to construct a car engine from scratch and have it run like a dream. I mostly take care of her- the fish I mean, my grandmother died hot air ballooning in the nineties- but some of the lads bring in new things for her tank- Philippe, who you’ll meet, planted some living greenery in there and she absolutely loves it. I have not a clue how to deal with that, but he seems to so I leave him to it.’
[cut back to office, someone new walks into the space]
“Morning Farrier!” he calls out in a thick Scottish accent, hooking his jacket on the coatrack before depositing his things on his desk. Farrier emerges from his office, coffee in hand; he waves at the younger man before looking between the camera and the other man.
He gestures for the man to come over, and he does. Farrier has turned off his mic and the two move into the office, shutting the door and leaving the crew in the office alone.
[cut to headroom- Collins, Salesman]
‘I’m Adam Collins, I’m one of the sales team here, kind of self-explanatory. I’ve been here for about a year and a half, and I’ve only enjoyed about twenty six percent of that. I’m kind of at a point where if I ascend any higher in the company this will become my career, but the idea of this being my career makes me want to take a nap in a busy intersection.’
So, what’s the story between you and Farrier?
‘First of all, we’ve already disclosed it to HR, so don’t try anything funny. There’s also not a story, so jot that down. Sometimes you just need something interesting to happen and ever since that ******* in HR relocated my best mate to travelling sales, I’ve been bored out my skull.’
[cut to office- Farrier’s office door opens]
Collins runs a hand through his hair and wipes at his mouth absent-mindedly as he wanders back to his desk, the far end of the group of desks at the front of the office. He sits heavily in his chair and straightens his legs out as he taps away on his phone. He stands up again a moment later and walks into the breakroom. The aggressive gurgling of the coffee machine breaks the silence of the office alongside the much more pleasant bubbling of Petunia’s tank filter.
It's another ten minutes before anyone else enters the office, another young man, this one dark haired. His eyes widen, shocked at the camera crew as he pulls his jacket around himself. Farrier calls out from inside his office, “morning Tommy!”
[cut to headroom- Tommy, reception]
‘I’m Tommy, I’m the receptionist, if you want to call it that. I’ve been here for going on two years, but I’ve worked for Nolan Tech for like, four years? I worked at another branch before, but moved here… for love, not that that really turned out… sorry that was a little depressing.’
He shuffles awkwardly in his chair, looking out into the office space. Collins has returned from getting a coffee.
‘I didn’t mean to show up this early, but I had to drop my cat at the vet before work and naturally I gave myself way too much time to do that… I try not to come in too early, I made that mistake once.’
He looks out to Collins again, before looking back into the camera with a grimace.
‘Never again.’
[cut back to office, another two men walk into the office, soon followed by another two after that]
“So do you need my PayPal or are you gonna use Venmo?”
“Alex, I’m not paying you for a lift to work, I live a block from you.”
Alex has the arm he has slung around the other man shrugged off, and Alex takes a seat at his desk across from Collins.
“Have you just gotten here?” the other man says with a French accent as he stops at reception, crossing his arms on top of the counter, looking down at where Tommy sits. Tommy smiles almost shyly up at him, shrugging and responding as Philippe pulls a red jellybean from a small holder on the counter.
The other two men are the youngest yet and the only ones wearing nametags- Peter and George. Peter stops in at Farrier’s office to say good morning, whilst George beelines to Alex’s desk, fist-bumping the salesman and leaning against his desk as they talk about something that makes Collins roll his eyes.
[cut to headroom- Alex, Salesman]
‘I am the main character of this office space- I’ve been here for eight months after I got transferred from my old branch. I accidentally gave the boss a mild concussion in a freak office prank accident. I think he’s fully recovered, but I wouldn’t know, he blocked me on all lines of communication.’
How did you manage to give your old boss a concussion?
‘To be fair he walked right into the line of fire, I was trying to booby-trap this guy’s desk because I hated him, and you know, sometimes stuff happens when you’re tangling with a couple grams of fireworks and a medicine ball.’
[headroom- Philippe, Accountant]
‘My name is Philippe, I transferred from the Marseille branch two months ago and I am an accountant here. I stare at spreadsheets all day and try to stop Farrier from accidentally laundering large sums of profits almost every day.’
Accidentally laundering large sums of profits.
‘Excel is one of the most dangerous tools on the market, and he has less of a clue about technology than Tommy’s cat- I think Tommy’s cat could do a better job running the technical side of things in this office.’
So are you and Tommy an item?
‘Why? Because I stopped to say hello? I wouldn’t rely all your runtime on that.’
[headroom- Peter and George]
Peter and George look at one another before Peter gestures to their nametags ‘we’re the newest hires at this office, I’m the Customer Service Representative and George is an intern.’
‘Peter’s dad got him a real job here.’
‘Shut up, he did not.’
‘You’re a nepotism hire because he works at corporate, just own up you’ll feel better.’
Peter glares at George and doesn’t respond.
‘We sit out back with Mr Winnant in HR because we annoy people in the main office. We’re like Harry Potter under the stairs, except our only powers are Peter’s magical powers of Nepotism.’
[headroom- Winnant, Human Resources]
‘I am the Human Resources of the office, which means I work for Corporate, and Farrier isn’t exactly fond of this fact. I wouldn’t necessarily call it insubordination because technically neither of us are superior to the other, but he is definitely not shy about his feelings towards me.’
[headroom- Farrier]
‘I respect authority, I was in the military, yeah? I’ve seen a man die… from a motor-vehicle accident half a year later.’
‘I don’t respect that creature though. Like in the military, we here all support one another… some more than others, but him? He is like the spy, airing dirty laundry is his job. And I do not think I should be required to respect that- he’s just not part of our family… he’s also divorced so he’s not even a part of his own family.’
[headroom- Alex and Tommy]
‘Tommy and I found out that Winnant hooked up with Farrier’s boss at a function one year’
‘And Farrier found out… along with like everybody in this office’
‘We think knowing that kind of broke something in him, and now he feels like Winnant is playing one super long, super convoluted mind game with him where he has Farrier’s future in the palm of his hand-'
‘Along with his bosses’ penis.’
Alex and Tommy start laughing, Alex stops first.
‘But we all know Winnant isn’t clever enough for that… he’s just a bloke trying to survive a mid-life crisis.’
[cut to the office- Farrier has called a conference room meeting]
“Ok so as you all know, this morning I will be going over our quarterly reports here at the company- just the general gist of things, yeah? This is one of two big events today, and I’m sure you’ve all been looking forward to celebrating our quarter in review.”
From where he sits in the front row of the small array of seats, Collins pales. When he turns to look at Tommy, the younger man looks confused for a moment, before a look of grave understanding washes over his face.
“Peter, have you got all the customer survey results in? I believe they should all be finalized by this point.”
Peter nods, adjusting his tie self-consciously as all eyes turn onto him, “I’ll be making my rounds to go over results with everyone over the next couple of days.”
“Brilliant, thank you Peter.”
[headroom- Farrier]
‘I don’t understand why you think I’m implying anything. I was in the military- you have anything to say in the military, you say it.’
[headroom- Collins and Tommy]
‘It’s Farrier’s birthday today, and as the unofficial heads of the unofficial party planning committee, Tommy and I both forgot and have exactly nothing planned.’
The party planning committee?
‘A lot of us just wanted an excuse to use company funds to eat cake and waste time at work once every couple of months. I came up with the idea with Alex, but for a number of reasons, he cannot be trusted with neither company funds, nor the ability to organize events, so Collins was elected given his… good standing, with the boss.’
Collins grimaces and his cheeks turn red, refusing to look into the lens, nor at Tommy.
[cut back to conference room]
“We’ve reported a significant increase in overall customer satisfaction, along with a steady increase in customer loyalty. We’re noticing that after their initial interaction with the company, customers are more likely to continue relying on us for their needs, both for their own businesses, and for personal, at-home use,” Farrier reports, gesturing to the projected presentation, where the data itself is primarily overshadowed by the frequent and mostly unneeded use of emojis and animated clip art inserts littered around the graphs and tables.
“I also need to congratulate our accounting team for a drop in fund wastage and overhangs this past quarter, and a recent project held between our team and a team from Birmingham- bless their souls- has made its way up to corporate and will soon be rolled out with other branches to help streamline how our resources and funds are tracked and managed between branches. Let’s give them a hand,” at his prompt, the rest of the office breaks into a polite clap, the members of the accounting team nervously beaming and nodding in thanks, Tommy elbowing Philippe and bumping their knees together.
When the camera pans over the room, Alex is watching the two with a tight-lipped smile, topped off with an exasperated eyeroll as the clapping dies down and the two are broken from their trance, shuffling in their seats as if caught doing something inappropriate.
[headroom- Alex]
‘They’re totally fucking.’
[headroom- Tommy]
‘I wish… delete that footage, stop rolling- now!’
[The office- the conference has ended. Collins and Tommy are in the breakroom]
“How could you forget it’s his birthday?” Tommy demands as he flicks the kettle on, turning to face Collins as he waits for it to finish boiling. His hair is disheveled, like he’d been worrying at it since they were let loose from the conference room.
“We’re not a married couple, I don’t keep track of these things- I thought you’d have access to important dates like that!”
“Why would I be able to access someone’s birthday information? I’m the desk jockey!”
“Okay, whatever, do you have any ideas? Something we could throw together quickly and have ready in…” Collins checks his watch, “four hours?”
“I can’t leave the front desk without someone to cover, and I don’t think anyone here can redirect a call. Can you convince George to run out and grab some food- maybe a cake? He could grab a cheesy card and run it around to get everyone’s signature. I could ask Peter to get his dad to make up some ‘important call’ to keep him in his office while we set everything up in the conference room,” Tommy spoke quickly and almost like he wasn’t even talking to Collins, rather just to try and calm his own nerves. Collins nodded in eager agreement and pulled the younger man into an awkward half hug.
He left the breakroom and walked confidently into the annex, where George fed documents into a shredder whilst Winnant tried to take a call in the booth beside him.
“George, can you do Tommy and I a massive favour?”
George let go of the document he was shredding and watched it face its demise to the machine before he looked up at Collins, “I was doing something really important, but sure, what’s up?”
Explanation over, George rolled his eyes, “You do realise I get paid like two sheckles an hour, and my employment is crazy tenuous as is without me literally disappearing for an hour.”
“Tommy can cover for you! He’s going to get Farrier distracted with a meeting anyway, nobody will even notice you’re gone!”
George fed another document into the shredder and chewed the inside of his cheek a moment before sighing, “fine, but you’re shouting me a drink from the vending machine.”
[headroom- George]
‘There isn’t much I wouldn’t do for a free fizzy drink.’
[cut back to office- Tommy is back at reception]
Tommy is trying and failing to focus on assisting a customer at reception, the phone was held to his ear with a white knuckled-grip, and Alex was staring at him from his desk like he was half expecting Tommy to start throwing things. It’s another couple minutes before Tommy successfully passes the likely disgruntled customer onto their quality assurance team member.
Now that he’s not being sabotaged by his professional responsibilities, Tommy calls through to Peter, who lets the line ring for a moment before picking up.
“I need you to get your dad to call Farrier, and I need that call to last at least half an hour.”
Peter rolls back in his chair, the seat creaking and groaning at the movement, “very needy today, Tommy… why?”
“It’s Farrier’s like, sixtieth birthday, and as the co-leader of the party planning committee, I’m begging you to help keep him in his office whilst we set things up… please.”
“My dad is a very busy man.”
“I’ll send out a memo letting everyone know you’re the one that set the fire alarms off because you tried to cook a croissant in the toaster and then couldn’t get it back out.”
“Fine.”
[headroom- Tommy]
‘I’m the oldest of three, I’ve learnt never to underestimate the power of blackmail.’
[cut back to office- Philippe is in the parking lot]
“A bit more, turn your wheel hard left- that’s your right! Who gave you your license?”
George has returned from his errands and is trying to squeeze back into a parking space between two other cars. “Am I in yet?”
“Just a bit more- stop! Stop moving! Break on!”
Successfully wedged in the space, George pops the boot of his car. Philippe descends upon the contents, carefully placing the food in a bag that would typically contain a change of clothes for after work. George had done a commendable job- chips, lollies, even some crackers and dip, and then, the piece de resistance, chocolate cake- Farrier’s favourite, according to Collins.
“I’m sure your duties as an intern don’t extend to this- but you have done a marvelous job,” Philippe chuckled, before closing the boot of the car and walking with George back up to the office.
“There isn’t much I wouldn’t do for a free fizzy drink.”
[headroom- George]
‘I wasn’t joking.’
[headroom- Farrier]
‘I’m not sure why old Charlie Dawson wanted to discuss last nights episode of the Great British Bakeoff for half an hour, but I was in the military, and you never question a superior… bloody spectacular, it was.’
[cut back to the office- Tommy and Alex are putting up party decorations in the conference room]
“I don’t understand why I have to help you; Collins is the other head of the committee!” Alex was catching his breath in between blowing up sparkly gold balloons and using his cherished breath to complain.
“Because he’s the only one who kind of knows how to answer the phones while I’m in here- plus, Farrier would never suspect you of being helpful, he’ll probably just think you’re on lunch.”
Tommy had done most of the work- digging out their allocated ‘party tablecloth’ to put over the table, hung up the allocated happy birthday banner and stuck the pre-printed ‘Farrier’ nameplate underneath (everyone in the office had one, apparently it made everything feel more personalized). Alex had sat in the corner on a mountain of four stacked seats and blown-up balloon after balloon, insisting on having an allergy to latex despite continuing to blow them up, before moodily throwing them at Tommy, who tied them together and hung trios of them in the corners of the room.
When Philippe walked in with his bag, he smiled at the decorations, “you guys managed to pull all this together so quickly?” he whispered excitedly, mindful of Farrier on the other side of the wall, still caught up in a seemingly never-ending phone call.
Tommy’s fingers slipped where he was tying three balloons together at Philippe’s appearance, the clump floating off in opposite directions as he stammered and stuttered his way through a thank you. Alex looked into the camera.
Philippe and Tommy gathered the escaped balloons, and almost knocked heads reaching down for the last one. “Thank you, infamously hard to wrangle… those balloons,” he said softly, letting Philippe hold the three balloons as he tied them together successfully, his face burning red and hidden poorly under his drooping fringe.
With Philippe insisting the rest of the accounting team could hold their own, the three finished decorating the room and setting out the food in no time at all- and considering a couple hours earlier they hadn’t known it had been Farrier’s birthday at all, it was looking pretty good.
Peter knocked on Farrier’s door, just as the man finally hung up the phone and leant back in his chair with a weary sigh, “your dad is a proper chatterer- what can I do for you?”
“I just need to call a conference to go over a new evaluation system for the performance review, saves getting asked a million questions- everyone is already in there, just need you.”
“Alright, alright, I’m coming.”
Upon entering the conference room, Farrier was met with his entire staff- Winnant included, although he was shrouding himself behind other employees- standing amidst the fruits of Tommy’s party organizing labour.
“Happy birthday!” they all announced, and Alex and George chose their moment to blow into kazoos they must’ve dug out of storage from previous celebrations.
“I was sure you’d all forgotten!” Farrier stammered, walking further into the room and taking in all the decorations, including a rich, marvelous looking chocolate cake at the centre of the table.
Collins and Tommy exchanged a look at the comment but said nothing to allude to the shock of their lives they’d received hours earlier. “I hope you like the cake- your favourite, if I remember correctly.”
Philippe handed him a knife as he stepped up to the table. Tommy had lit the candles and he stood with Peter cupping their hands over the flames to try and prevent the fire alarms picking up any smoke. As Farrier blew them out to the sound of a horrible office-rendition of happy birthday, someone flicked on some music from the projector speakers to the sound of cheering.
“If he touches the bottom he has to kiss the nearest person!” Alex called out, before being elbowed in the ribs.
[headroom- Farrier]
‘You know, I was in the military, and you learn to see your comrades as a sort of family… today, I felt that… in this office, with these people. I felt God in this office tonight.’