Work Text:
The obnoxious young president of the company showed up just as I was perfecting the stencil on the door, which had had no time to dry, and rubbed his ass all over it as he brought in some random woman I’d never seen before! I saw red. I even saw a couple shades of purple. How dare he act so flippant towards my painstaking work? The kerning had taken forever! I take an instant dislike to anyone who treats people with "lower" job titles as lesser, and he was no exception.
And that’s when I started noticing the woman around his office, and in the elevator, and in the break room. I was never able to catch them in flagrante delicto, but there were some pretty compromising moments where I’d see him leaning over her as she typed at his desk, or patting her on the shoulder a little too long. I knew the two of them, despite being dumbasses about what it takes to hand-stencil lettering on an unforgiving medium such as glass, were probably smart enough to be conducting their obscene acts outside of company time. Which was a wise choice, since The Hud will deduct literally anything from your pay if the board thinks they can get away with stipulating it. We need a union so bad, but I digress.
Whatever their relationship was, it started getting under my skin the minute he rubbed his bumpkin ass up against that glass, but it was almost as if they were wiggling the splinter to make it dig down deeper, yanno? Just chattering away all day, and the yokel staring at her with obvious gushy feelings when he thought she wasn’t looking.
Finally, though, I got a chance at revenge! I saw the woman waiting for him to be in a board meeting, then slipping through the access door to the clock gears. I didn’t realize until I heard her speaking to Moses that this was a frequent habit, as he clearly knew her. They chatted about how she was going to break the news of her real identity to Norville. My ears perked up, and luckily I was able to get enough context to know I should check into opinion writers at local newspapers.
Well, there was none more local than the Manhattan Argus, and I pulled a copy out of Mussburger’s trash while he was at that self-same board meeting. And there was a name – but was it her name? There was no photo accompanying it. I’d have to do some digging.
I invented a ridiculous pretext to stop by the news desk the next day, pretending I was a private detective looking for a woman in connection with a heist of some sort that I kept purposely vague. I kept my description vague as well. I was able to look around the writers’ room as I stood and stretched on my way out, and who should I spot but that dame, leaning over the crossword puzzle guy’s board in conversation! I asked the guy at the news desk if that was Amy Archer, but made it clear I was just a fan of her reporting, and that she wasn’t going to be under investigation. Reluctantly, he said she was.
From there, it was simple to piece together the evidence I would need to bring this rude paint-ruiner down. I kept a dossier of example articles about Norville, some characterizing him as an idiot early on, then reluctantly acknowledging his genius when the Hula Hoop became popular beyond The Hud’s wildest dreams. I was disgusted by his success. How dare someone so oblivious to his surroundings, who constantly yammered on about nothing, come up with something so popular that turned such massive profits?
But I knew the true reason the board had hired Norville, just like anyone who worked there did if they had half a brain or listened to literally any office gossip. And as the odd jobs man, I certainly got around. And that meant that I knew the perfect time to step in to facilitate his downfall. It was as simple as forking my dossier over to the big man himself, Sydney J. Mussburger, who said merely “Thank you, Aloysius. This is…useful.”
And that’s the story of how I got my revenge, and the warning to anyone who would unthinkingly damage my handiwork in the future.