Work Text:
Quantico FBI Academy - 7:15 AM
bebebebebeep, bebebebebeep, bebebebebeep.
Click!
"Quanitco FBI Academy; this is Jack."
A voice erupted from the other end, sending the trainee into a slight startle. "Heeey, Jack, this is Don, the conference manager. Uhm, do you think you could call Facilities and ask them to remove the second and sixth tables from the lobby in front of the Decadence Room? It would be in the K street conference building, not the main building or the West location."
Jack cocked an eyebrow, mouth slightly agape as he grasped at what Don could've been talking about. "I'm sorry," he offered, "But I wasn't made aware of an event today. What building is the event in, again?" His free hand fumbled around the desk, fingers sliding over unhelpful papers and meaningless charts that had been taped to the desk "for reference." Eventually, he landed on a pad of sticky notes and a sharpie. If he couldn't do anything on his computer, he could at least write shit down.
"You didn't hear about our event? Oh, ah, well, I messaged you in Teams about it, ahm, last night."
"Yes, I haven't had the..." Jack fought the urge to drag a hand over his face and sigh. "I opened the desk a few moments ago, so I haven't opened Teams yet. I apologize."
"You're good. Ah, well, there's a conference today, so it would greatly help with set-up if you could just reach out to Carlos from Management and figure out the situation with the intern passes and the guest forms. I heard back from Lindsey from conference services, and she said that-- nevermind, I'll just give you her number. Her extension is -- are you ready? -- her extension is 7-3458."
Jack was, in fact, not ready. The desk computer was still booting up, and (on top of Don's message) he still had a list of Microsoft Teams notifications to sift through and respond to -- since he was required to respond to all of them, regardless of whether or not they concerned him -- before he could carry out his business at the front desk. He'd neglected to take his coffee when he left his apartment in a hurry, so it was needless to say that Jack was running on fumes. He uncapped the sharpie with one hand and stuck the tip to his pile of blank Post-its. "I apologize," he said for absolutely no fucking reason, "Can you start from the beginning? I apologize." Once again, he didn't need to apologize for anything. His superiors were stupid, yet Jack was the one who had to apologize. After all, Jack was the one who got paid less, so it was obviously his job to apologize.
"Right, Lindsey's extension is 6-5192."
That was nothing like the numbers Jack had heard a few moments ago, but he wrote them down anyway. "And as for the event today?"
"I messaged you in Teams."
GOD FUCKING MOTHER FUCKING GOD BITCH HOLY SHIT MOTHERFUCKING DAMN SHIT FUCKING HOLY GOD FUCK BITCH SHIT DAMN SHIT CUNT STUPID BITCH FUCK YOU MICROSOFT TEAMS FUCK YOU I HATE YOU MICROSOFT TEAMS YOU STUPID BITCH YOU STUPID IDIOT MICROSOFT TEAMS HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT FUCK CUNT DICKASS-- "Yes, I'll take a look in a moment. As for the... uh... tables?"
"Yes, the fifth and third tables need to be removed."
Jack cocked his eyebrow again. Wasn't it the second and sixth? Nevermind. "And you want me to reach out to facilities for this?"
"No, why would you reach out to facilities?"
"For the tables."
"Oh, right, yeah. Ahm, well, the facilities office is closed for another thirteen minutes, so you can call them at 7:30."
Why the fuck would you ask me to do it NOW, then? Jack flipped through the desk binder, finding nothing that could possibly help him in this situation. All the desk processes were clockwork, but it was the people who always found ways to wrench the processes in ways that Jack's gears had never felt before. "And... you said something about Management?"
"Yes, but first reach out to Carlos from Facilities."
"I thought Carlos was in Management."
"Here, I'll send someone to help you. Keep an eye out for Joe, okay?"
Jack's fingers tensed and curled. The computer was still, still, still booting up, mocking him with its Just A Moment screen. Jack wished he could say something along those lines. Just a minute, if it were acceptable to say, would fix all of his present problems. "Alright, thank you, I'll watch for Joe. Before you go, Don, do you know what he looks like? So I can watch for him?"
"Joe? Oh, no, sorry. I've never seen him. He'll be there to help in a few minutes, so just keep an eye out."
And then nobody fucking came and Jack had absolutely no idea if anything actually got resolved or not, but he didn't get fired, so he figured it was fine. The fucking end.