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"...And that concludes today's meeting. I hope to see even more of that upward trend in the next quarter, and think that we've all worked hard enough to deserve this upcoming downtime. Happy holidays, and enjoy your break."
The scraping of chairs, a bustle of executives rushing out of the door, and silence. His smile slowly faded, revealing just how tired he really was. He took a deep breath, then sighed, relieving some tension and slouching a bit. No time was wasted in gathering his things to leave, and with a flick of the light switch he was off.
As he walked beyond the collection of meeting rooms and through the offices, he could see and hear his employees chatting and grabbing their things as well. Some still had some hesitancy towards chatting casually around him, but most had gotten used to the novelty of the owner being in the same building as them. Most were discussing their plans for the upcoming break, and he could hear some of the louder conversations quite clearly.
"Oh yeah, you already know what’s happening at my place over the holidays!” one of them said, with an air of cockiness and confidence.
“Let me guess,” another sighed, seemingly already tired of the conversation before it had even really begun. “You’re going to have the most epic party anyone has ever seen, with all kinds of hot babes and even hotter tubs, and I’m not invited because you can’t be seen with a dork such as myself?”
“What? No way man, not even close!” the first guy spoke incredulously. “I mean, I was gonna say all of that stuff, but you forgot all of the awesome stuff I’m gonna get! I’m expecting at least three Lamborghinis, seven bottles of Ultra Fancy Ones, and another hot tub.”
“Yeah, sure thing. Keep telling yourself that, and maybe one day you’ll make enough to own even one of those things.”
“Hey!”
“Look,” said another employee, “I just think that if you were to get an entire catering tray's worth of cookies just for yourself around this time, nobody would judge!”
“And what I’m saying,” replied the secretary, “is that I don’t want to talk to you, and that I’m leaving.”
“Just give me a chance!” the other employee yelled out. “I can give you all the cookies you’d want! …Or if you’re not into that, I’ve got cinnamon rolls! …Maybe buns?”
All around him, discussions of a similar caliber were taking place. The hustle and bustle calmed him, reminding him of when he first started the company. It was almost therapeutic, like white noise. Meaningless little views into people’s personal lives, which had no effect on him.
“So what did your kid ask for this year?”
He stopped dead in his tracks at that. He leaned around the cubicle to listen a bit more intently to the conversation, despite the fact that it had nothing to do with him.
“Oh, you know, the regular stuff. New games, some new brand of shoes, a new sister, the works. What about you? What do your kids want?”
“Eh, about the same things really. You’d think it’d be a bit different having two kids compared to one, but when they share everything it’s a bit hard to tell the difference! They’re still a handful, though. Sometimes I want to leave them with someone else so I don’t have to deal with them for a while, but I love them too much to just let them go, ya know?”
“Oh, I hear you. Once they get older, you’re not gonna want them out of your sight for too long! Hahaha!”
The laughter rang in his head for a bit longer than he wanted it to, and he quickly swiveled back around, making a beeline for the elevator. He didn’t want to be around to hear more about stuff like that.
Despite his best efforts, however, he couldn’t help but to tune in to more conversations.
“Yeah, my entire extended family is gonna be coming to my place for the holidays. They’re gonna bring their own food, so it’ll be a feast!”
“I just wish my daughter had a better relationship with the rest of the family. I swear, it’s like she couldn’t be bothered!”
“Oh, you know how teens are. Just get them outside with the rest of the family and they’ll be fine!”
“Yeah, my family-”
“Oh, of course my mother-”
“My siblings and I-”
He trudged through the space, struggling to keep his composure even as he felt as though he was going to cry. He just hoped no one was going to ask him about his plans, or why he currently looked constipated. As his resolve faltered, he found himself in front of the elevator. He was almost home free! He just had to wait for the lift, then he’d be out of here.
Lo and behold, when the doors opened there was nobody there. Huzzah! He breathed a sigh of relief, his shoulders relaxing and unraveling tension he didn’t know he was carrying. He let himself smile as he went inside, then pressed the lobby button. Pretty soon, he’d be back home to relax and never have to think about this experience ever again.
Yep. Everything was gonna be al-
“Hey Homeschool! Mind holding the door for me?”
Oh goddamn it.
Despite his glare of disapproval (and his mashing of the ‘Close Door’ button), the employee Homeschool knew as Jared managed to get on just as the doors shut.
“Thanks man. You know, I would have taken the stairs down, but then I saw you and had to catch you up on the latest happenings in ‘The Life of Jared’, ya know?”
“Oh joy.” replied Homeschool through gritted teeth, in a tone that he hoped conveyed how unwanted Jared’s comments were. Jared was the exact last person he wanted to talk to ever, and seemingly never took a hint.
Just as expected, Jared continued anyway. “Yeah, so have you heard about the response to that new phone we put out?”
As if Homeschool hadn’t just gotten out of a meeting about that exact thing.
Not even waiting for Homeschool’s response, he continued. “Uhuh, yeah, so it’s super great right? Right, and I told my parents about the whole thing and just how much I contributed to it-” Homeschool could only assume that Jared’s idea of “contribution” consisted of talking to everyone around him about things that didn’t matter, writing exactly one full line of code, then playing solitaire or whatever it was he did- “and they were like ‘oh wow that’s cool’, and I was like ‘yeah, it’s no biggie’, and then they were all like ‘it’s even cooler than whatever your brother Caleb is doing, we’ve got to tell the rest of the family’, and then-”
Homeschool checked the floor screen to check how long he had to deal with this for. They’d only gotten past two floors, and still had thirteen to go. He almost zoned out, when Jared then jabbed his side.
“Ya still listening? So I was all like ‘nah, you don’t have to do all that’ and then they said ‘oh, but it’s such a big thing, and we already told everyone’ so yeah, my whole extended family is gonna be over for Decemberween! It’s gonna be awesome, we’re gonna have all kinds of Hot Jones there, my stupid brother Caleb won’t be there, there’s gonna be food, it’ll be great. How about’chu, bossman? What are you gonna do? I bet it won’t be quite as awesome as mine, but-”
“Jared.”
“Yah?”
“Shut your mouth.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
If Homeschool were being honest with himself, he hated Decemberween with a burning passion. It was frankly ludicrous in every way imaginable: the associated imagery was tasteless, the commercial aspect was blatant and rampant, and he just never liked the taste of peppermint enough to give any kind of pass for candy canes.
The worst part, however? An overall insistence on familial connection. Don’t get him wrong, the concept is fine (something lovely, even) but in execution… it always left something to be desired.
Which is exactly why, instead of doing any kind of holiday related activity at all, or even being slightly productive during this break, he decided to take out his old handheld Videlectrix™ GamesGuy and just play some arcade games for the rest of the day and ignore any mention of the holidays in question. He had everything he could need near his bed (snacks, caffeine, statistics for his company, etc.) and planned his day around staying in bed and not moving at all. It would be perfect.
At least, it would have been, had the doorbell not suddenly gone off while Homeschool was on the last level of Rig Rug, startling him and cutting off what would have been a record-breaking run.
Looking down at the “Game Over” screen in disgust, Homeschool sigh-grunted out of frustration and went to put on more presentable clothes. He had been dressed in (admittedly ragged) pajamas, and quickly climbed into the closest pile of clothes; white slacks, a similarly white dress shirt, and a blue sweater vest. Despite his general disregard for the general populace, he still aimed to at least look mentally stable. He had an appearance to maintain, after all.
Just as he grabbed his glasses (they were absolutely not prescription glasses; he’d never had a problem with sight, he just thought they added to the public’s perception of him), the doorbell rang yet again. Then, just a few seconds later, as Homeschool was rushing to put on his shoes, the bell started going off repeatedly; one after another, in such quick succession that the sound started to overlap itself. Frankly, it was the sort of annoying action that indicated the person at his door was not from the area; the street he lived on was relatively quiet and “high class”, and the people here recognize the fact that ringing the doorbell once was usually enough.
“Just a moment!” Homeschool cried out as he finally slipped on his shoes, quickly going down the stairs to the front door as fast- yet carefully- as he could. His house was fairly quaint for the area, but it was still quite a bit larger than what most could afford. Homeschool’s bedroom was on the highest floor, which he occasionally came to regret due to his general ineptitude in all things athletic. His siblings were much more adept at that.
The sudden memory of his family reignited his annoyance, and was only exacerbated by the ringing bell, now a near constant stream of noise with nary an interruption. As he came down the last flight of stairs, stopping at the base of the stairs to double over and catch his breath, the bell still hadn’t ceased, being much louder now that Homeschool was close to the door. He got up and quickly smoothed invisible creases on his vest, then took a deep breath to put on his best “casual and unbothered” smile. Internally, however, he was livid. He definitely didn’t like his schedule interrupted, least of all by someone who didn’t know basic manners.
As he gathered his bearings and prepared to meet the person outside, he could only wonder who exactly had the audacity to come up to his house in such a manner. Perhaps some cocky upstart tech enthusiast, who happened to be a fan of Homeschool’s intellect; maybe it was a member of the board who hadn’t gotten the memo to stay home for the holidays and decided now was the perfect time to get Homeschool’s opinion on a new idea for technology that wouldn’t be feasible in his lifetime, let alone for next year’s Decemberween sale. “If this is Jared again, I swear he is so fired” steamed Homeschool, as he went to finally open the door.