A wise fur once said, "Work is the bane of the drinking class."

Plonq might have agreed except that he had a tendency to be a bit hazy on
the concept of work.  It is not that he was a lazy cat - well, okay maybe he
was.  The fact that no other fur in the office could find fault with his
work stemmed largely from the fact that he did no apparent work with which
to find fault.

The little snow leopard strode into the office at exactly one minute to
eight as he did every morning, humming his favourite Marilyn Manson song.
As usual he was swinging his briefcase and twitching his tail in time with
his tuneless hum.  He paused by Giblet's cubicle to see if the resident
chain-smoking, coffee-drinking, stressed-out paranoid otter morph was
feeling any better.  The otter was sitting at his desk, sucking on an unlit
cigarette and toying with a piece of nylon rope.

"Good morning, Giblet," mewled Plonq pleasantly.  "Is that a noose you're
tying?"  The other morph jumped like he'd been shot, then turned and looked
at Plonq, his red-rimmed eyes boring into the snow leopard intently.

"Is it ten loops or thirteen?  I can't remember!  I need another coffee!
You'd think a big company like this would have a few nooses in their fucking
so-called well-stocked supply room!"  He threw the rope down on his desk and
wrung his hands nervously.  "I can't deal with this.  I need another
coffee."

"You've already got a coffee," said the cat, pointing to the otter's
two-litre mug.  The otter shook his head and tapped his forearm.

"I'm talking intravenous, man!  I tell you, I'm gonna kill someone or
they're gonna kill me today.  There's gonna be fur and blood and brains
splattering in this fucking office," said Giblet.  "Oh God - I'm thirty
seconds overdue for my Valium.  Where's my caffeine supplements?  I need a
fix!  Mark my words, it's coming man - it's coming."

"What's coming?"  asked Plonq.  He took a couple of nervous steps back from
the otter's cubicle.

"Job cuts," barked Giblet like a old-time evangelist pronouncing the wrath
of God on the unbathen masses.  "I'm talking down-sizing, right-sizing,
out-sourcing, roll-backs and major fucking layoffs!  Every day they come by
piling more and more work on my desk, and I know very well that I'm on their
hit list."  His voice dropped to a conspiratorial tone.  "That's why I don't
do the work that they bring me.  They figure if I can handle it, then any
snot-nosed, straight-whiskered kit off the street can do the job."  He
chewed nervously on his unlit smoke.  "I've had it with this fucking place!
I've had it!  I've had it!  I've had it!  I've had it!"

"We just hired twenty new furs," admitted the snow leopard thoughtfully.  He
was clutching the briefcase to his chest like a talisman of warding.

"That's it!  May as well start handing out resumes, Plonqster.  The end is
upon us!  We're done like dinner!"

"Speaking of dinner, let me know when you want to go for lunch," said Plonq.
He paused again when he noticed the teetering stack of cigarette cartons at
the back of the otter's cubicle.  "When did you start smoking that brand?"
The otter turned around and lovingly ran a trembling hand over the stack of
cartons.

"Twice the tar and four times the nicotine of the other brand," he answered
dreamily.  "Cigarettes calm my nerves.  I'm heading out to smoke a pack
right now.  You coming?"

"I quit smoking," said the snow leopard half-truthfully, "and I just got
here anyway.  I better get to my desk and see if there's anything on my
voice mail that I need to erase without listening to it."

Plonq's work area was in the corner of the office, with a large north-facing
window.  Most furs in the office agreed that he had the best view, but none
could recall how he had managed to procure that desk.  The sides of his
cubicle were plastered with photographs of his two cats, and strewn about
his workstation were plushies, knickknacks, and a cloudy jar of formaldehyde
containing an unappetizing mass and an equally-unappetizing label of, "My
First Hairball."

The little morph dropped his briefcase on the desk to his left, and settled
himself down into his rolling "cat-friendly" chair.  His attention was
immediately captured by a yellow Post-It note stuck to the middle of his
monitor, which read,

"Departmental Meeting.  09:00.  Room 24.  Be there or die."

"Hrm" said the snow leopard.  He checked the time on his phone and saw that
it was already eight fifty-five.  By the time he settled himself in, fetched
himself a coffee and checked his email, it would be well past nine o'clock.
"Phew," he mewled in relief, tossing the note into the garbage.  "No point
going to THAT meeting - I'd never get there in time."

Plonq opened his date book and checked his list of priorities for the day.
A couple of mouse clicks and key taps later he was ready to address his
first task for the day.

"Woo hoo - Quake!"  he purred happily.  The cat morph liked the game well
enough, though he had to admit that he missed the chainsaw from Doom.  There
was just something a bit too impersonal about the super nailgun, as
effective a weapon as it might be.  Plonq giggled in a tone that a
psychologist could write books about.

"Hehehehe... die die die!  Frag frag frag!"  he chortled happily, cracking
his knuckles over the keyboard in anticipation of mayhem.  Then in his best
macho-morph baritone he added, "It is time to kick some marketing buttocks."

"PLONQ!"

"Ack!"  said the cat, jumping clear out of his chair.  "Oh - it's just you
Fig," he said sourly.  "What do you want?"

Fig was the resident rhino morph.  He was a large, smelly, near-sighted,
foul-tempered dullard.  In short, he was perfect management material.

"Get your shit together, you've got to be at the meeting in two minutes,"
growled Fig in a tone that advertised the fact that he knew that Plonq had
no intention of attending the meeting.

"Can't go," replied Plonq petulantly.  "Way too busy.  Got more important
things to do today than attend a long, boring, unproductive meeting."

"You can play Quake any time," said Fig insistently.  "Everyfur in the
Planning and Development Group is required to attend."

"Go away.  It's a minute after nine, so I don't have to go now.  Thank you
for stopping by my cubicle.  Help yourself to the bowl of complimentary
paperclips on your way - ACK!"

Fig nonchalantly latched onto the snow leopard's large tail and began
walking toward the meeting room, pulling the hapless cat right out of his
chair.

"No no no no nooooo!"  wailed Plonq.  He scrabbled futilely at the floor
with his claws, but the rhino morph outweighed him by nearly a five to one
ratio.  The snow leopard continued to protest, even as his nails left deep
ruts in the carpet.  "Meeting bad!  Meeting boring!  Help!  Help!  I'm
being oppressed!"

A mouse and a doe morph stood placidly by one of the laser printers,
watching the small drama unfold.

"Yo, Fig dude," said the mouse, "where are you taking the Plonqster?"

The rhino stopped and blinked, rubbing his horn with his free hand as if the
question required a great deal of thought.  After a moment he gruffly
answered,

"Team meeting.  A little involvement in departmental activities for a change
won't kill him."

Plonq took advantage of the break to roll over onto his back.  He spasmed
violently and clutched at his chest.

"Alas, a touch - I do confess it, I fear I breathe my last!  Ack!"  Having
spoke, the cat gave another violent twitch and then went limp.  His feline
head lolled to one side and his tongue hung dramatically out of the corner
of his mouth.

"Oops, looks like it DID kill him," said the doe, stifling a giggle.

The rhino morph snorted derisively and stomped off, dragging the limp cat
behind him.

Fortunately for Plonq it was not a long haul to the meeting room, and they
arrived shortly thereafter to find the rest of the department furs already
in attendance.  The department head, a large walrus morph with a bad hair
piece, called out a greeting to the final two furs as they entered.

"Ah, there you are," he said with a nod of approval.  He adjusted his
plastic rimmed glasses and peered down his walrus nose at the snow leopard
on the floor.  "What's wrong with Plonq?"

"He's feigning dead to try and get out of the meeting," said Fig, with
ill-disguised disgust.

"Is this true, Plonq?"  asked the walrus.

"No, I'm really dead," said Plonq earnestly.  The boss scratched the side of
his walrus nose in thought.

"He insists he's really dead, Fig," he said at last.  "If he claims that he's
dead then I see no reason to question his assertion."  He sat up straight and
assumed his lecturing pose.  "Our department is founded on mutual trust and
integrity.  I believe that Plonq is in the best position to judge his own
metabolic state, and if he avers that he's dead then I see no reason why we
should question his assessment."

"Well," hedged the rhino, "okay, I guess I'll take his word for it.  But if
I find out that he's faking..."

"Well... fuck!"  cursed Korn, the tiger morph.  He slammed a striped, hammy
fist down on the table in disgust.  "You mean all I had to do was die to get
out of this meeting?"

"Now, now," said the walrus, "nobody is 'getting out' of anything.  These
meetings are meant to be a productive, team-building experience."

"Can I have his desk?"  asked a voice from the end of the table.

"Doesn't Olga know CPR?"  asked another morph.

"All hail the stinky weasel, queen of halitosis," intoned the whole table
nervously.

Olga, the eldest employee in the office, was a cantankerous old weasel with
three teeth, a face that could stop Big Ben from two kilometres, and breath
that could melt lead ingots at ten paces.  She was a perennial busybody who
had a knack for being everywhere at once.  Rumour said that simply uttering
her name was enough to summon her, and though most disavowed any credence in
the story, the "hail Olga" ritual was religiously observed in the office.

"She can give him mouth-to-mouth," sniggered Korn.  "That will either revive
him or kill him for real."

"Ack!"  said the snow leopard, sitting bolt upright.  Everyfur in the room
blinked.

"Why... Plonq," said the walrus in apparent puzzlement, "I thought you were
dead."

"I got eight more lives left," said the cat morph.  He pulled himself to his
feet and cast a withering look in Korn's direction as he slunk around the
table to his assigned seat.  The tiger morph simply stuck his tongue out at
the other cat.

"This is good," said the boss enthusiastically.  "We always like to have
everyone in a living state when we begin our meeting.  Oh, and Plonq, now
that you're alive would you please take down the minutes for this meeting?"

"Ack!"

The boss half-turned and waved one of his flipper hands at a rather pretty,
petit ermine morph sitting beside him at the table.

"As you may have noticed <they had> we have a guest at this meeting.  Allow
me to make introductions."  He pointed in the general direction of the
assembled furs and said, "I am he, as you are he, as you are me, as we are
all together."

"Egad," said Korn, leaning across to Plonq, "that almost made sense."

"What do you down down at IS?"  asked Fig, addressing the ermine as he
furiously scribbled down notes. She stood and cleared her throat daintily.

"Thank you for calling Information Services," she said in a familiar voice.
"All of our agents are currently busy, but your call is important to us.
Please remain on the line and you will be routed to the first available
agent."  She gave a shy shrug and sat down again.

"I always thought that was a recording," blurted Korn indignantly. The boss
interrupted and, operating from the simple instruction set that seems
ubiquitous in bosses, he said,

"Could we please have a reading of the minutes from the last meeting?  Fig,
do you have them in front of you?"  The rhino nodded, and began to read
aloud.

"Meeting commenced at nine o'clock.  Meeting adjourned at fifteen o'clock.
Nothing accomplished.  Action item for next meeting:  try to accomplish
something at the meeting."

"A laudable goal," said the boss, nodding appreciatively.  "Now is there any
old business?"

Dead silence reigned around the table.

"Okay, is there any new business?"

There was a nanosecond of silence, and Korn stood up saying,

"No?  Good!  Then I vote we adjourn."

"Well I've got some new business," began Bryce, the resident brown-nosing
hare morph over a few harsh whispers of,

"Shut up.  No you don't."

"What new business do you have?"  asked the walrus, doing a very impressive
job of feigning interest.  Plonq suddenly found himself tuning out.

"Well," said Bryce, "blah blah blah root cause analysis blab blah blah
operating ratio blah blah blah year two-thousand considerations blah blah
blah Twinkie blah blah blah."

Hrm?  What did he say?

"Did you say Twinkie?"  mewled Plonq.

There was a long pause, as everyfur at the table blinked at the snow
leopard.

"No..."  said the hare morph slowly, "but did you get that last action item
down?"

Plonq glanced down at the meeting notes in front of him.  There were little
squiggles in the borders, and a half-finished sketch of a busty snow
leopardess babe, but no action items.  He decided to take a stab in the
dark.

"Fig is going to end world hunger," he said.

"Asshole, that wasn't what we were discussing at all!"

"Well hold on, Fig," said the boss conciliatorily, "if it's in the minutes
then we must have been discussing it.  World hunger is a very important
issue, and I think that we as a corporation need to address it.  I'll expect
you to write a business case on how ending world hunger will affect our core
business unit.  I'll need it on my desk by..."  he plucked a dart from a
stack on the table and flung it over his shoulder at a large wall calendar
hung behind him.  "I'll need that on my desk by July twelfth," he concluded
with a glance over his shoulder.

"Hehehehehe..."  cackled the snow leopard, writing furiously.

"And Plonq will assist you."

"Ack!"

"Oh well," reasoned the little morph as the meeting melted into the
periphery of his senses again, "if you're going to get saddled with an
action item at a meeting, you may as well make it a noble one."

* Plonq
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