TBAY: Starting Fresh

[carolynwhite2]

--- In HPFGU-Catalogue at yahoogroups.com, "Jen Reese" <stevejjen at e...> 
wrote:
>Jen proceeds to her cupboard a bit guiltily, tiptoeing past Ms.
>Havisham's door lest she be the one to set the whip cracking. 

>The door to her dark cupboard creeks open and Jen settles
>into her dimly lit, though comfy space. She takes a batch of codes
>and gets back to work.......

Jen had just settled back into her routine when the door to the 
cupboard is abruptly jerked open. Blanching, she sees Miss Havisham 
very much awake, definitely the worse for wear and brandishing a 
pistol left over from her Wuthering Heights' anger management class.

'Right you 'orrible little cataloguer..just where do you think you've 
been?' 
'How do you expect me to manage in here? Just with Ginger, Debbie and 
Potioncat??' 

Jen can see the three of them nodding feverishly and continuing to 
hammer away at their keyboards. She licks her lips nervously.

'Well, what with one thing or another ...end of school looming 
ahead..' her words trail away uselessly..

'ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER?' Miss Havisham's voice rises to a dangerous 
shriek. 'ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER!! I'LL GIVE YOU ONE THING AFTER 
ANOTHER'...she grabs Jen firmly by the ear and hauls her into her 
office.

It's an awful sight. Builders have installed a shute through the 
outside wall and a constant flow of parchment flutters down to form 
heaps all over the carpet. Some are clearly howlers and are still 
smoking dangerously, despite being doused with copious mugs of 
drinking chocolate.

'What do you expect me to do about all this, huh? The main list is 
about to hit 130000 posts, and here we are with only 47000 coded! And 
I suppose you'll all want *holidays* from July 16th? Or compassionate 
leave..'

Miss Havisham's face twisted into a brief and nasty smile before she 
turned and glared at the remnants of the team, now peering timidly in 
through the door.

She grabbed a bulging file from her desk, labelled 'Pathetic Excuses' 
in some kind of dark red substance. 'Just look at all this rubbish' 
she spluttered: 
'My husband's forgotten who I am..' 
'my children need me..' 
'I used to have a job and a career...' 
'my computer doesn't work properly anymore..' 
'I can't find a pen ...' 
'Fluffy ate my homework..'
'I am awaiting trial for homicide..' 
'I told you, sod off..'

'Bet I know who that last one's from', says Jen slyly. Miss Havisham 
makes a sudden movement to conceal her hand under the file she is 
holding. 'Wait a minute..' says Jen, eyes suddenly wide with horror. 
She grabs the file and turns over the old woman's hand. Barely healed 
and still oozing blood are etched the words 'I think, therefore I 
annoy'.

'It's nothing,' said Miss Havisham hastily. 'There's no one left for 
him to argue with at the moment, makes him a bit fractious that's 
all...at least he's never dull'. Wincing, she wrapped her hand 
tightly with a not very clean hankie. 'Anyway, I've managed to get 
the permanent sticking charm off his drinks cabinet door - ' 

This was pretty self-evident.

'Well, what are we going to do?' said Jen, seeing the need to take 
charge of the situation.

'How about a party..' said Potioncat enthusiastically..
'I could sing some songs..' said Ginger
'Admin would supply free Butterbeer..' said Debbie, recklessly.

'Oh no,' said Miss Havisham softly. 'I have a much better idea. I am 
going to promote you all..give you management positions...put you in 
charge..'

The smiles on their faces wavered uncertainly. This sounded like work.

Clutching her tattered old clothes around her, she climbed perilously 
onto a desk and waved the bottle of Gordon's at them..

'A new era.. a new dawn in this organisation's history. I'm inverting 
the pyramid and creating a horizontally-integrated empowered learning 
network of knowledge-workers that will work from the ground upwards 
to support our delighted, loyal end-user customers of our fully-
featured new solution platform..'

Miss Havisham tottered and crashed to the floor..

'Sorry', she whispered. 'My last assignment at Jurisfiction took me 
into the Harvard Business Review. I haven't fully recovered yet.