Logan was about to get out of his chair when he remembered that he left his desk for two and a half minutes for a bathroom break earlier in the hour. He hurriedly got into his timesheet and logged the proper minutes to the “Unproductive Time” project, since he couldn’t technically charge the government for any minute he spent not on a project. The company would have to eat the cost, but that was only because the acquisition was taking so long and the in-office Bluetooth enabled bathrooms hadn’t been rolled out to his department yet. Logan heard from IT that there were some migration issues. Apparently one guy simply broke his toilet in frustration. Acquisitions were always like this. He was about to start work when Kenny stopped by the office door.
“Have a good weekend?”
“Almost,” Logan said. “I lost a little sleep. I made an error on my schematic on Friday. Kyle is going to rip my asshole for it tomorrow.”
“He’s never satisfied. When are you switching teams?”
“Once May approves it. You have a good weekend?”
Kenny shrugged. “Watched some movies. Wrote a little on my book, that’s about it. Anyways, I better not keep you. The suits are wandering today.”
“This conversation goes on the Unproductive Time project, right?”
“UT is actually low on money right now. Charge half of it to overhead.”
Logan opened his schematic software and, while the computer pinged servers halfway across the continent through two firewalls just to query back to servers on the other side of his office wall, he opened his timesheet and logged three minutes to the Program Boot Time project. That one was getting a lot of attention from the suits; they were accusing managers of abusing it instead of logging to the Coffee Break, Stretch Break, or Water Cooler Talk projects. But none of those contributed to your paid hours for the week, so no one charged to them. Once a month, he was told, May and her section heads were required to gather everyone and present a 15 minute PowerPoint on proper time charging policies. The walk to the conference room wasn’t paid, though. Most people just skipped it.
A knock at his door brought his attention to a man in purple and brown: the new corporate colors. He reeked of HR with his plastic smile, plastic hair, and plastic wave. In fact, he was plastic. Two facilities men were moving a mannequin into Logan’s office. Following them was a mannequin from human resources.
“You must be Logan!” the man shouted. “Eric Buckwell, HR assistant vice president. He/Him pronouns, but I’ll also accept they in the plural. May told me a lot about you! You’re an engineer 3, right? Whatcha working on?”
“Oh, uh, just a—”
“It’s all complicated I’m sure,” Eric said quickly. “Look, I thought I’d come by and introduce myself. I’m gonna be your POC from now on. That’s point of contact, not person of color. Just wanna say—your job is staying the same, alright? Nothing’s gonna change. Oh fellas, to the left a bit. Now turn him on!”
The facilities guys turned on the mannequin and the corporate jingle came tumbling out of the frozen smile and mouth. A series of lights lit up the damned thing from within.
“I thought May was my boss,” Logan said.
“You didn’t hear? She retired! She’s been with your company for so long that when we bought you, her stocks shot up through the roof. Good for her. I say she’s missing out on all the fun we’re gonna have! Alright, gotta jet. Gotta meet the others.”
“What do I charge this to?”
“Just to the Greetings project. Oh, no, you’re not in HR! Alright uh, just Unproductive Time for now.”
“I thought that was short on money.”
“It is?” Eric said. “Figures. Nobody gets anything done on Mondays.” He stalked off quickly down the hall and in a second Logan heard him shouting greetings in the same tone and tempo as he had done with him. The two facilities guys were sitting on Logan’s spare desk smoking cigarettes.
“Do you mind?” Logan said.
“Mind your business, buddy.”
“Yeah, mind it,” said the other. “We’re union. We know our rights, scab.”
“The smoking bothers me.”
“Find another office then. We’re on our break.”
“Our union break,” the other emphasized.
At the end of the hour, Eric and Kyle called Logan into an office. They were both standing behind a desk with folded arms and there was just one chair to sit in. Reluctantly, Logan sat in it.
“You’re charging a lot to Unproductive Time today,” Eric said seriously. “You do know we’re trying to get real work done here, right? Our customer depends on us to draw these schematics. This isn’t the pee wee leagues. This is national security stuff.”
“And your schematics haven’t been up to par at all,” Kyle said. “You can’t even tell me what half of this stuff does. You did go to college, right? You should be able to look at this and know the difference between a T-shortage and a spin-1 hydrogen quark. They teach you this stuff on day one. I’ve been pretty lenient with you so far, but that’s starting to wane.”
“I’m sorry,” Logan said. “I’ve only been interning for a few days. I’m still learning.”
“Well, we’re here to help you learn,” Eric added. “Now your contributions to the team so far have been appreciated, but you need to get your shit together or you’re out here. That’s all we wanted to say.”
As Logan got up, he dreaded the question but it came anyways: “What do I charge this meeting to?”
“Boss One-on-One is fine,” Kyle said. “Oh, no, this wasn’t a one-on-one. And I’m not your boss. Are you on the Extended Projects team? Charge it to the Threeway Non-Technical Employee Performance Impromptu Meeting charge tree. And use your labor category. You do know what that is right?”
“Or he could just put it on UT,” Eric said. “No, half on UT, half on overhead.”
“Do we charge this discussion to UT?”
“Probably to the Boss-on-Boss charge code. Logan, what the hell are you still doing standing there? Get out there and go work, for God’s sake.”