Do Stupid Things Faster With More Energy

By Sasha Ockenden

Stanley pressed the “on” button on his monitor, pulled the keyboard towards him and entered an uninterrupted series of keystrokes for fifteen minutes, followed by six mouse clicks. Then he stood up.

Two people worked in the office: Stanley, whose ID card on the desk in front of him read “Communications Innovator,” and Charlotte. Assistant Communications Innovator Charlotte wasn’t at her desk. This was odd, because the company’s mandatory working hours, under the latest “Making Work Work For You” directive, began at 9:30. The digital clock high up on the wall read 9:45.

Stanley went over to the laserjet printer and entered three more keystrokes. He laid the card with his clean-shaven, smiling face on the printer, which emitted three beeps and began printing. Stanley extracted the page from the tray: blank. He sighed, and repeated the process, with the same result. He looked up. The clock still read 9:45. Why did these things never work the way they were meant to?

He walked back past Assistant Communications Innovator Charlotte’s desk, which had an empty mug with the words: “Drink Coffee: Do Stupid Things Faster With More Energy.” He passed his silver flatscreen computer with its ergonomic keyboard and went out to the corridor. Or, rather, he tried to, but the door wouldn’t open. He banged on it in case anyone was passing, but head office had soundproofed the doors to improve concentration. Well, he could get something done in the meantime. Stanley looked around the grey-walled office, and back at the mug. There was always time for a quick coffee.

The coffee machine offered six types of coffee. He pressed the button for a black Americano and placed a paper cup under the spout. The cup filled up, overflowed, and Stanley snatched it away, scalding his hand. He looked for a stop button on the machine, but there wasn’t one. Ridiculous. He set the cup down and pressed buttons at random as coffee splashed off the metal and soaked into the geometric patterns of the carpet.

Stanley returned to his office chair and opened up his company email account. As the coffee puddle continued to grow, he dashed off a message to his line manager, importance: urgent.

Am locked in office. Coffee machine won’t stop: risk of serious damage to carpet and office. Please send help.
Best wishes, Stanley.

And then, as an afterthought:

P.S. Printer also malfunctioning.

Next: the office phone. He dialed 0 for technical support, but the automated options only covered call forwarding and how to change the ringtone. Stanley didn’t know any of his colleagues’ numbers by heart, and he couldn’t find a directory. Stupid machine.

By 9:45, the piping hot Americano had subsumed the entire carpet and crept up to ankle height. Stanley took refuge on his revolving office chair. At least the room smelled nice, better than that artificial rose air freshener that Assistant Creative Innovator Charlotte was always complaining about. A beep: one new mail.

Oh no! We couldn’t deliver your message. Please check the address and try again later.

Underneath was a sad-face emoji. As the brown-black sea reached the bottom tray of the printer, it began beeping, too. Another blank page was ejected with such force that it overshot the top tray and floated down to the floor, where it began to melt into coffee.

Stanley began Googling the brand name and model of the coffee machine. He found a manual which explained how to make the milk frothier, but nothing about stopping the endless caffeinated lake from rising up the now-ruined grey walls. Using two binders as paddles, he sailed the chair back over to the coffee machine. He looked for a plug in the wall, a cable to wrench out: nothing. Hot angry coffee continued to flood out of the metal spout. In frustration, he smacked the machine with one of the binders. It spluttered for a second, released a puff of steam, and then boiling milk began to waterfall out of the second nozzle.

The sea of coffee, a lighter brown now, had almost reached the ceiling. The printer, floating free, was still beeping and firing out occasional blank sheets. The desk, monitors, and keyboard were jetsam on the bubbling surface. Only the telephone had sunk.

Well, Stanley wasn’t sorry to see it go. Stupid machine. He was more concerned with the merciless tide of Americano surrounding the posture-optimised seat of his chair. His legs were tucked up under his chin, and he was still grasping his cordless mouse out of habit. He’d removed his shirt, tie, jacket and trousers to cope with the sheer heat rising from the surface. His joint-favourite suit, too. The only thing in its rightful place was the clock at the top of the wall, in the few feet of scorching air between coffee and ceiling. He looked at the display as his plastic ID card rose to the surface for a moment and sank again—

A crackle from the intercom. A familiar female voice.

This is a message for Communications Innovator Stanley.

Startled, Stanley lost his balance for a moment and the chair tilted. His mouse dropped into the scalding liquid, which breached the soft black material of the seat. He shifted his weight to the other side just in time.

Please report to Head Office by 9:45 to collect your complementary medium-sized coffee, brought to you by the “Making Work Work For You” directive.

The sodden chair began to sink.

Thank you, and have a productive day!

Sasha Ockenden studied French and German literature at the University of Oxford, where one of his stories was published in the Failed Novelists Society’s Failed Anthology and he won an international DAAD prize for creative writing in German. His flash fiction pieces have appeared or are forthcoming in (mic)ro(mic), Flash Flood, Bending Genres, and Riggwelter. He is currently based in Berlin and still working on becoming a failed novelist.

Photo by Karl Bewick on Unsplash.