The Labyrinth of Temp Work

Let’s give the “gig economy” thing another go, with The Regional Accounts Director of Firetop Mountain. Again, I’m a desperate temp heading into my first day at the rather sketchy Firetop Mountain PLC.

The office is a castle carved into the living stone of the downtown business district. The buzzer at the front door is wired for 240 volts and shocks the heck out of me. The receptionist has boiled-fish eyes, all white with no pupils and she never blinks. Then I’m shown to my cubicle, and told not to leave it for any reason, and my adventure (err, I mean work day) begins.

I get started with some idle small talk with the guy in the cubicle next to me. He’s a nice enough fella, and although his meter-long neck is kind of distracting, I try not to be a weirdo about it. I finally get to work, and notice that I’m bleeding profusely because some wise guy has rigged up razor blades into my chair! What a crappy office prank!

Then the power goes out. I swear, if I were motivated to get any work done, I’d never get any work done around here!

I find my way to the restroom and beat the hell out of a guy in a toilet stall, so I can get to the toilet paper and patch up my wounds. But whack! from behind, as the office manager smacks me with the wooden plank he uses for a clipboard. I go down in one hit, and wake up in the basement, inside a gigantic toilet. Like storm giant sized, with a Christmas tree for a toilet brush. Eew!

I swim out, and find my way across the hall to the server room. A troll is unclogging a blood pipe, to turn the power back on and to power up some sort of interdimensional portal. I’m not really put off by the guy being a troll, and you know, pipes full of blood is renewable and relatively clean energy. So yay for FTM PLC.

But I am still bleeding. I find a stationery closet and desperately patch myself up with Post It Notes, but it costs me 5 endurance points. That’s really brutal, since a mediocre 7 would become a 2, and even a badass 12 would become a mediocre 7. It’s really brutal too, since I step outside and run into a minotaur with a big ol’ chip on his shoulder, who proceeds to kick my ass with a 14-point margin.

My Post It Note tourniquet gives way, the blood flows, and I guess I’m gonna call in sick for the rest of the day… and the rest of my life.

My work day ends here.