Chapter 10

I pulled into the Kwik Shoppe (I guess the correct spelling was already trademarked) about halfway to work for my usual cup of coffee. I gave a casual wave to the girl behind the counter as I headed back to the self-serve "Koffee" makers. I was still formulating plans for my great office reorganization, so I was pretty much running on autopilot.

"Just coffee today, Mr. John? Mr. John? Are you Okay?" The clerk's questioning finally brought me out of my daze. I had set the coffee down by the register and was just standing there.

"Oh... yeah," I grinned sheepishly. "I was just getting an early start on my work today... er..." I bent over with my nose six inches away from the nametag on her chest. "uh... Ling!" I finished with a grin. It was a game we had been playing almost since she started working there. I actually got a little closer to her chest than I usually do, since the store was empty at the time. Or... maybe I was starting to think lore like an Alpha Male?

"Come on now, Mr. John," Ling blushed as she covered up her tiny boobs on her slight oriental figure. "You know my name by now! I think you're just trying to get a naughty peek!" This was also part of the game we played. The thick Kwik Shoppe uniform shirt she wore zipped all the way up to her neck wasn't about to divulge any of her secrets.

We both laughed as she dropped her arms and reached for the five that I held out. Ling started to count my change out, then she faltered and looked up into my eyes.

"Just a moment, please," she muttered as she set the bills down on the counter and turned toward the office door behind the counter. "Need some change..." Now that was strange. Ling disappeared through the door, leaving a stack of ones on the counter and the cash register drawer open. I glanced around for a surveillance camera. She could be in real trouble if her manager found out.

Ling was back in less than a minute with a big smile on her face, but she wasn't carrying any change. As she picked up the stack of ones, I noticed the change. Her uniform shirt was now unzipped about halfway down, showing the inner swell of her small tits. I could see the red mark where she had removed her bra. I guess what she'd said was that she needed to change. As she handed me my change, her fingertips brushed mine. Her eyes closed momentarily and she took a deep breath, revealing even more skin.

I shoved my change in my pocket without looking at it. I have no idea how much she gave me back. "Thank you, er... Ling," I said softly as I bent close to her nametag again. This was the first time I had ever pulled the stunt twice in one visit, but this time Ling didn't cover up.

With a quick glance around the empty store, Ling pulled her zipper a couple of inches lower, then pulled it wide open for me. "You like my naughty peek?" she asked quietly. Her tiny boobs were mostly puffy nipple and areolae, much darker than her tan oriental skin. Each nipple was pierced with a small silver ring.

"Very nice, Ling," I answered just as softly. I ran my hands lightly over her tits, then I pulled and twisted gently on her rings.

Ling closed her eyes and sucked in a quick breath between her clenched teeth, then she grinned at me, "See? You knew my name without looking at my nametag!"

"What nametag?" I replied, and we both laughed.

Ling took both my hands and pressed them into her pert little tits. "Now you don't have to pretend any more, Mr. John. You can have naughty peek anytime you want." We both jumped as the bell on the door indicated a new customer. Ling quickly yanked her zipper up and I grabbed my coffee as another guy came into the convenience store and headed back toward the coffee makers.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Ling," I said in as normal a voice as I could muster.

"Bye, Mr. John," Ling said with a wink, and continued softly, "I'll be waiting for you." She made sure the other guy was busy with his coffee, then she pulled and twisted her nipple rings through her uniform shirt as I headed for the door.

Ray and Gene were already in the "bull-pen" area that my crew shared as I made my way between the desks to my office. Four walls and a door were about the only perks this job offered -- until now. I was going to make some changes.

"Hey, guys," I called, "when the rest of the gang gets here, we're going to have a little meeting. I've been doing some thinking over the weekend, and I'm going to make a few changes in the way we do things around here."

Gene looked up from his newspaper. "Thinking, huh?" he grinned. "I thought I smelled something different from the usual stench around here."

"You want us to get started on today's processing while we're waiting for the rest of 'em?" asked Ray.

"No, that's part of the change I'm going to make," I replied. "With a little daily planning and organizing, we should be able to get the daily dumps done quicker and with fewer mistakes. You guys enjoy your newspapers and donuts 'til the rest of the guys show up."

Gene mumbled an offer, spraying crumbs, holding the donut box out to me. His cheeks were distended and he had powdered sugar on his mouth and nose. The guys had a running argument about how big a donut could be and still be considered bite-sized.

"No, thanks. Joan fixed me a full breakfast this morning." They exchanged glances of wonderment as I went into my office and closed the door. So far, their behavior was normal, so I still didn't know if anyone had been affected the same was I was. Time would tell.

I grabbed the pile of work orders out of my in box and started sorting them into the type of disposal that was involved for each one. I soon had five almost equal piles: inerts, toxics, petrocarbons, flammables, and organics. Each type had its own method of disposal, its own special forms to be filled out, and each required a different type of protection for the worker doing the disposing.

Until now, I had simply followed the method that my predecessor had used. He would go through the stack and look for any red-flagged items -- which indicated a special disposal problem or a rush item -- then he would put the remaining stack in the big bin out in the office area in the order they showed up in his in box. As each person finished a disposal job, he would grab the next work order off the stack.

While this may be an equitable method to process the forms in the order they were received, it cut deeply into our efficiency. A guy may suit up with a full enviro-suit for a tox disposal, process himself through the decon shower, then have to wear an entirely different suit for a corrosive disposal. Then back into the enviro-suit for another tox load.

This switching of jobs also caused errors. Although a guy may change disposal suits, his mind may still be running on the same old track. A solution that may render a flammable liquid harmless might react violently with a corrosive.

These were the dumbshit mistakes I had to answer to during my Monday morning meetings with my boss. Every Monday I got the privilege of wasting two or three hours over at the admin building while my crew, fresh off a weekend of not having to think about chemical disposal, needed the most supervision to keep the mistakes that I was answering to from happening.

Catch-22? Yossarian had nothing on me! But all that was going to change.

I had put the sorted work orders into some old boxes to replace the old bin in the outer office. I pointed to the five boxes as I spoke to the ten men gathered around me. "The rest of you guys have heard by now that I'm making some changes. This is the first one. From now on, work orders will be divided by type. Five types," I pointed to them, "five teams. Gene, you and Ray will work on organics today. When they're gone, you're done. You can go back to your newspapers. Bill, you and Jeff get flammables." I divided the remaining guys into three more teams, then continued, "Each team will work one type of disposal today. Tomorrow, each team will work a different type. I'll work out a rotating schedule and post it on the bulletin board. That way, one team doesn't have to do a full suit-up every day while another team gets the easy flush jobs.

"If anyone has a problem with his teammate, let me know. I tried to pair you up with the buddy you hang with the most around the office. I'm sure we can work out any differences." I looked each one in the eye as I finished. I could feel it -- there wouldn't be any problems.

"I want all of you to carry your notebooks with you." I think it must be an industry standard. The company bought these spiral-bound, five by eight, quarter-inch, quadrille notebooks by the truckload. "This will be your procedure for every work order you process from now on. Each of you will look at the compound being disposed of and write down the approved procedure for disposal. Then, I want you to compare what you wrote down with your partner. If they are the same, you can proceed with the dump. One of you do the work, the other can log the process on the work order. The next load, you swap.

"If the disposal procedure you write in your notebook differs from your partner's, you will go to the procedure manuals and look it up. I don't want you arguing about who's right or wrong, just look it up. When you're done with a procedure, you both initial the work order and put it in the completed bin. Then go on to the next one. Are there any questions?"

"Yeah, boss," Gene half raised his hand. "What are you gonna be doing?" It was a good question. I had been doing my share of the work orders along with the rest of them.

"I'm going to be managing for a change," I held up my hands to quiet their laughter. "Look, first of all, this system should allow you guys to finish each day's pile of work orders with time to spare. I can't let you leave early, but I can let you loaf around the office here until quitting time, once your pile is done. You know the boss never shows his face over here, so once you're done with your pile you can kick back. Or, if you have a particularly light load on a given day, you could help out one of the other teams. That way, everyone finishes early.

"Second, I'm going to go over to Admin and get us some relief on this damned paperwork. None of us can type for shit, so we've been filling out the EPA forms by hand. I'm gonna talk to the boss about sending his secretary over here for a couple of hours each day to do our paperwork for us." Once again, I had to hold up my hands, this time to silence the guffaws at my presumption.

"Yeah, right, John-boy" drawled Jeff, our resident redneck. "Yer jus' gonna sashay over to that there Admin buildin' and tell the boss yer taking his sexy-tary to do yer paperwork fer ya?"

"That's exactly what I'm going to do, Jeff-bob" I replied, throwing it right back at him with a grin. "Any other questions?"

"N-no, sir," Jeff answered quickly. He suddenly found something interesting on the top of his dusty work boot.

"Okay, I'm heading over for what should be my last Monday morning boondoggle. You guys get busy on your assigned work orders... and remember -- write down every procedure and double check against each other. Half of my time in these Monday morning meetings has been spent answering to your fuck-ups. Now there won't be any more fuck-ups, will there?"

I was answered with a chorus of "No, Sir's."

"Then get busy!" The scene I left behind me was a flurry of asses and elbows heading for the locker room to suit up. For a change, it felt good to be in charge.

Admin was a small temporary building - actually a house trailer -- set up near the entrance to the Chemical Waste Disposal area. A strip of corrugated metal around the bottom hid the wheels and underpinning. There were two window air conditioning units chugging away, making the sheet-metal walls vibrate. I think that putrid green paint they used on it was an industry standard, as well.

It was just big enough to hold two offices -- one for Mr. Boggs and one for his secretary -- and a small bathroom. It was only "Admin" to the CWD unit. All of the other executives were in the glass and chrome office building near the front -- and probably upwind -- of the plant itself.

I walked through the outer door to the office at exactly 9:30 and said hi to Carol, just like I had done for countless Monday mornings in the past. I headed for my usual seat and made myself comfortable, because I knew that Boggs wouldn't buzz Carol and tell her to send me in until sometime after 10:00. That was something else that was going to change, but this morning I was glad to have some time with Carol before my weekly "summons in to the inner sanctum."

"Hey, Carol, do you have time for me to run a couple of ideas by you?" I asked as I sat in my chair near her desk.

"Sure, John," she replied as she stuck her supermarket rag in a desk drawer and turned to face me. "Although I'm not sure why you want my input, rather than Mr. Boggs' opinions."

"Well, I do plan on filling Boggs in on what I'm planning to do," I grinned, "but we both know who really runs this office, don't we?" I watched the play of emotions roll across her pretty face, and compared them to how Joan and my neighbors had reacted to me. I saw her attraction to my presence slowly overwhelm her loyalty to her boss. Her hands moved unconsciously as she stared into my eyes, first fluffing her auburn, shoulder length hair, then fluttering aimlessly at the v-neck of her white, button-up sweater. Her breasts looked bigger than Joan's, but smaller than Peg's. They sure did nice things to her sweater.

"Well, I... sure... I guess... what's on your mind?" Carol's face reddened slightly as she realized what she was doing, then deliberately dropped her hands into her lap.

"I need your help in automating our EPA reporting process," I told her. I explained how I broke up the work assignments and what a chore it was for us to hand-fill all of the report forms. "So, what I'm looking for is a way to automate our reporting procedure. Ninety percent of the information on the forms never changes, but we have to write it in anyway. I was thinking if we could get that information stored in a computer, then someone would only have to type in the date, the chemical, and the amount disposed of. Then we could just print it out. The big hang-up would be those 3-part EPA forms. We would need a printer that would do carbons."

"Hmmm... maybe we could scan the forms into a file... set up a form..." her eyes got a faraway look for a moment, then she focused back on me. "Hey, we could probably find your forms as PDF files on the EPA web site. I used to have an old impact wheel-writer in here before Reggie got me my bubble jet..."

"Wait a minute," I interrupted. "You're starting to talk a foreign language here. It sounds like you've got a handle on it. Who's Reggie?"

"Reggie is my little techno-geek. Whenever I need anything for my computer, I call Reggie over in I.T. to come see me. I ask him sweetly, while I cross my legs," she demonstrated, "and he gets me whatever I need." Carol looked down at her crossed legs showing several inches of thigh above her knees. Her face got red and she tugged her skirt back down. "Shit! Why am I telling you all this?"

A buzz from her intercom cut off my reply. I knew that buzz signaled it was time for my weekly grilling from Boggs. I had a feeling it would go a little differently today.

When I got to his door, I looked back at Carol. Her hands were fluttering at her neckline again. "By the way," I grinned at her. "I think you should undo at least one more button on that sweater, don't you?" Her eyes got that faraway look again and she nodded absently. I decided to spend some more time with her after my session with Boggs.

Charles Allen Boggs III (or so the nameplate on his desk read) was sitting behind his desk, pretending to read the copies of last week's work orders. The same white shirt and dark red tie. His flabby body looked like he had been poured into his swivel chair. I wondered if Carol had to come in at the end of the day and pry him out of it.

I sat in the visitor's chair and waited for the required 5 minutes as he silently shuffled through the pink carbons of last week's work orders. At 10:15 he finally placed the stack of papers on his desk and looked up at me. The 45 minutes of my time that he had just wasted was about average. Once again, he had me right at my boiling point. But if he pulled his usual shit today, I was ready to do something about it.

"This... this phenyl... phenyl-hydro..." his finger stabbed down at the top work order. "This stuff--er... compound, what is it used for?" Good ol' Charlie didn't let me down.

"The same damn thing it was used for last week, and the week before that, and the week before that!" I snapped. That's how I knew he was pretending to read the work orders. He still couldn't pronounce the compounds. "You've asked me the same question so many times, I could answer you in my sleep, but you never take the time to write it down, or even try to remember how to pronounce the name!" Charlie was staring at me, his eyes wide. I think his face was a bit paler than usual. I plowed on. "You set this weekly meeting up for 9:30 and every goddam week you leave me sitting in you outer office for at least a half hour, sometimes more. When I finally do get in, you ask me the same dumb-ass questions week after week, and you either aren't smart enough or don't care enough to remember the answers.

"I've hinted around at least ten times, but now I'm going to tell you directly: My job isn't using that shit. My job is disposing of that shit! Week after week we do the same old dance," I shoved the copies off his desk, "but now things are going to change." My eyes bored into his.

"First of all, you are going to tell me what is so goddam important that you drag me over here at 9:30 every Monday, then keep me waiting until after 10:00! Well... ?"

Charlie's face was white and his mouth was hanging open. His jaw started flapping like a fish out of water. Finally, his brain caught up. "P-p-p-paper... Sun-Sunday p-paper," he stuttered as he fumbled at his desk drawer. "I... I d-do the p-puzzle... crossword puzzle." He tossed the paper on the blotter in front of him, quarter-folded to the Sunday Crossword. I will give him credit. He had most of it done -- in ink, even.

Then I looked closer. "Wait a minute, this is last Sunday's paper. You keep me waiting for a puzzle that's over a week old?"

Charlie looked own and mumbled something while he fumbled in his desk drawer again.

"Look at me when you talk to me!"

"The... the an-answers," Charlie replied as he pulled yesterday's paper from the drawer and looked up at me. He looked like a puppy dog caught with a chewed up slipper in his mouth. "They d-don't print the answers until a week later."

"Let me get this straight: You get me over here every week and have me cooling my heels out there while you copy the answers into last week's crossword puzzle?" Charlie could tell I was furious. He looked back down at his desk and slowly nodded his head. "Why?"

Charlie looked back and forth between the two newspapers for a few moments, then looked back up at me. I could tell he was desperately looking for a way to regain the upper hand, but I had him, just like I knew I had Greg Saturday night. He looked back into my eyes and had to tell the truth -- at least the truth as he knew it.

"Because I'm the manager and you're the subordinate," came the surprising answer. "It wouldn't look right for me to be waiting for you. You have to wait for me."