From: Snowcat To: snowcat@total.net Subject: Plonqs Promotion Date: August 2, 1998 5:48 PM "... and so I think it is safe to say that I have conclusively proven a positive link between the Roswel aliens and recent rumors of staffing cuts in our office," said Giblet, enunciating carefully into the handset. "And further on that -- damn it!" He pressed the disconnect button and began dialing, muttering to himself as he punched the buttons. "I hate it when people put a ten minute message limit on their voice mail..." "GIBLET!" "Eek!" yelped the otter morph. He started so badly that the handset flew from his grasp, nearly upsetting his monster coffee cup. "Whoa, keep beating, big fella," he said, giving his chest a pair of sound thumps with a balled fist. "Who's there, and why are you taking years off my life?" To his utter lack of surprise, Plonq tore around the corner into his cubicle. The cat was in a state of distress, complete with disheveled fur and thrashing tail. "Giblet," repeated the snow leopard breathlessly, "You gotta come quick -- something's wrong!" "Puh," snorted the otter. "Did somefur step in one of your hairballs and hurt himself? I've heard that the Health & Safety committee has a special file devoted entirely to youuu... ack!" The snow leopard did not wait for the other morph to complete his sentence. He grabbed his friend by the wrist and dragged him bodily out of his chair. "Come on," he exhorted, pulling the protesting otter along behind him. "My telephone is doing something really weird, and I don't know what it means!" "You could call IS, I mean, phones fall under their jurisdiction you know," scowled Giblet. He had abandoned his attempts to extricate his wrist from the felines grasp and was loping along behind the other morph, trying (with limited motivation) not to step on Plonq's long tail. They arrived at the feline's cubicle and stopped about three steps away from the entrance. Scattered papers and an overturned -- but mercifully empty -- coffee mug bespoke of a hasty departure. "So what's your phone doing? It's just sitting there," said Giblet snidely. "Just wait," said Plonq nervously. He still had a firm grip on the otter's wrist, and was unconsciously holding it to his chest like a ward. For many heartbeats nothing happened, then, "TRILL!!!" said the phone, in one of those perky little office-standard rings that is designed to wake the dead. "Rowr!" yelped Plonq, tail bushing out in panic as he leapt gracefully off the floor and into the hapless otter's arms. "Plonq you great furry imbecile, what're you doing? Get offa me, damnit!" yelled the otter. He tried to peel the cat from himself, but it was like trying to remove living Velcro. "Damnit!" he said again, "what IS it with cats and phones?" "TRILL!!!" said the phone again. The snow leopard responded with a quick spasm, then scrambled awkwardly over his friend's head, landing behind him on the floor. Giblet handled the action with as much grace as might be expected under the circumstances. "Ow! Ow - not the claws! What're you doing? Get down! Ow!" As the otter began visually inspecting himself for puncture wounds, Plonq leapt back to his feet and crouched behind him, peering over the other morph's shoulder with trepidation. "So, what's it doing?" he whispered. "I believe this is what they call... ringing," said Giblet acerbically. Plonq shook his head emphatically in denial. "But it CAN'T be," he replied. "My phone NEVER rings." He paused, and his grey-green eyes dilated in horror as a thought struck him. "Suppose it's someone calling to give me work to do?" he asked. His great tail began thrashing anew. "Whoa, back up. What do you mean it never rings?" demanded Giblet, turning to face the snow leopard. He planted his hands firmly on his furry hips and glared at the little cat morph. "How long have you been working here? And your phone has never rung in all that time? Have you got some kind of connection in the phone company who blocks all your calls for you?" "Well, actually..." began Plonq, but he was interrupted by the phone again. "Ack! Can't you do something?" The otter sighed, and stepped into the feline's cubicle. "Hullo, Plonq's phone," he said, snatching up the handset and pressing it to his ear. "No, he's here," he added after a short pause, "he's just having one of his episodes. Is there something that I can help you with?" He stopped to listen again, adding an occasional, "uh huh" and "I see" before he snapped his head around and gaped at the snow leopard with an expression of mixed surprise and disbelief. "Are you SURE?" he said, pressing the receiver back to his ear. "I see. No, that's okay. I'll send him in and you can tell him. Good bye." He hung up the phone and stared at the cradled handset for a moment, shaking his head in silence. "There just ain't no justice in this world," he muttered darkly. He glanced over his dark, furry shoulder at the snow leopard, his piercing otter eyes boring into the cat. "The boss wants to see you," he said flatly. The feline was clutching the end of his own tail, wringing it nervously. "About what?" he asked. "We'll just have to let him tell you that," said Giblet. He turned from the cubicle and began to stride past the cat, but he stopped at the last second and rested a hand on his friend's shoulder. "I'm not bitter," he said slowly, "this is just the way I am. I gotta go -- my coffee's getting cold." The short walk to the boss's office was one of the longest subjective journeys of Plonq's life. In the back of his mind, he could distinctly hear the haunting vocalization of the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, whose singing voice graced the soundtrack of the movie "Dead Cat Walking". The boss never asked to see anybody with good news. His furry brain played over a number of scenarios -- none of them pleasant. "Not only are we firing you, Plonq, but we're going to execute you too, so that none of your potential descendants can try and apply here for work either." "Noooooo!" wailed Plonq in distress, trailing off into a mewl of embarrassment when he realized he was still standing in the middle of the office. "Er, the boss has asked to see me," he explained to the file clerk he had startled. The young lupine gave a nod of understanding and quickly crossed himself. An eternity later, he found himself standing outside the boss's door. He tugged momentarily at the necktie that seemed to have been taken over by a hostile presence that was bent on choking him, then knocked timidly on the wooden frame. "Come in," called a deep, walrus voice from beyond the portal. The cat morph opened the door -- closing it behind him at the tusked-one's request -- and stepped into the well-appointed office. For a few tense moments, he stood, fidgeting just inside the room, until the boss invited him to take a seat at the end of his large, mahogany desk. "Sit down, Plonq," he said amiably. "Thank you," mewled the snow leopard politely. As he sat, his sensitive nose caught the unmistakable odor of... "Fish!" he drooled. "Uh, yes, indeed," said the walrus. He waved toward a barrel, brimming with murky liquid, that stood within easy reaching distance of both seats. "Fresh herrings in brine," he explained, "help yourself if you like." "Hrm?" said Plonq hesitantly, but the boss nodded encouragingly and waved toward the barrel again. "Oh well," thought the snow leopard, "if I'm going to get fired today, I may as well get a couple of herrings out of the deal." He rolled up his sleeve and plunged an arm into the brine, splashing liquid over the rim, and soaking the carpet. "Yum! Fish!" he purred. The walrus coughed. "Plonq," he said, "the tongs..." The snow leopard blinked, and looked where the boss was pointing. He quickly spied the set of long tongs, hanging in the wall in clear sight, with a large sign over them bearing the script, "Fish Tongs" "Ack!" he expostulated, lifting his arm out of the water -- albeit with a wriggling herring clutched firmly in his grip. He held the fish over the barrel, trying to ensure that the generous rivulets of water pouring from his drenched fur didn't land on the floor. Spying something other than water wriggling in his fur, he leaned forward for a closer look and spied a pair of brine shrimp. Brine shrimp? "Sea monkeys!" he said in amazement. In his moment of distraction, the fish wriggled from his grasp and landed back in the water with a hearty, "plonk." "Uh, yes," nodded the walrus sadly. "Plonq, let me tell you something. Not everything that this life advertises comes exactly as pictured. I suppose you are wondering why I summoned you," he added. "My fish!" wailed Plonq. He leaned forward and clutched the edge of the barrel with both hands, holding his muzzle close to the water and peering into its murky depths. "Um, is it okay if I get another one?" The boss gave him a quick nod of assent, and then began to pontificate. "As you are probably aware, if you've been watching CNN anyway, we had an unscheduled staff reduction in the Y2K team. One of the... the tongs?" "Ack!" "Anyway, as everyone knows, Jakal the jaguar morph became distressed from the pressures of workload and deadlines, and rather than the preferred route of taking his concerns to the company's reasonably-priced Employee and Family Assistance Program, he chose to -- I believe the term is -- 'go postal' on us. Furthermore, since he is apparently still at large after having eaten his entire operating department, we are experiencing some difficulty in enticing outside consultants to take on the project." The walrus morph ran his stubby fingers over some loose-leaf graphs strewn about his desk. "We did some budgetary analysis, and concluded that the entire department can be replaced by a single specialist," he continued. "You probably saw the email broadcast advertising for the position. It was the bulletin containing the job description with a longer list of qualifications and duties than most mortals could handle. I won't say that we were overwhelmed with applicants," he added, with a slightly befuddled tone in his voice, "but that's just as well, because we decided to fill the position locally, to avoid the added expense of paid relocation." "Uh, okay," said Plonq, who was not entirely listening to the walrus. The feline, who had lined up three fish on the edge of the desk in front of himself, was wringing his soggy hands and licking his muzzle in anticipation. "Urm, locally? You mean out of our office?" he mewled. "Yes," said the walrus. Okay, so maybe he HAD been listening. "But there's nobody here who's qualified for a position like that," said Plonq, biting the head off one of his herrings. He gave the fish head a few thoughtful chews before he swallowed. Waving the headless herring for emphasis, he added, "I suppose you could always get somefur from Data Capture, but... eep!" To his horror, the cat saw that he had just splattered herring intestines across his boss's desk. "Can't do, Plonq," said the boss, quickly picking up his important papers and brushing off the gore. To the cat's relief, the walrus did not appear outwardly upset by his gaffe. "They've barricaded themselves in their office ever since the incident with our Y2K team. Since we can't get one of them, and we are not allowed to hire from outside our office," he sighed, "and since we have nobody remotely qualified for the position in our own ranks, we decided to award the job by way of a lottery. Well guess what? You won! Congratulations." "You're... promoting me?" squeaked Plonq in disbelief. "B.. but I'm happy in my current job." "Well I'm pleased to hear that," said the walrus, clapping his flipper-hands together in delight, "because you'll be taking all of your current duties to the new position with you. Now there's a raise in pay with this promotion..." "Oooh!" said Plonq, quickly warming to the idea of the promotion. "... but it's insubstantial enough that, with the resulting change in your tax bracket, you'll end up netting less than you do on your current job. Also, we'll expect you to put in twenty-two hour work days." "Ack!" "You will need to read and sign this," said the boss, tossing a small booklet onto the desk. The snow leopard picked it up and read the cover aloud. "The Sycophant's Handbook," he quoted, "A beginning manager's guide to bluffing, brown-nosing, and bullying your way up the corporate ladder." "Appendix B has a listing of all the corporate buzz-words you'll be expected to memorize," said the walrus. He stood and walked around the desk. Plonq stood as well, clutching his new book in one hand, and a half-eaten herring in the other. "Welcome to the team, boy," said the boss, clapping him firmly on the shoulder. He kept his hand on the snow leopard's shoulder long enough to steer him over to the exit. He opened the door for the cat, and just as Plonq was leaving, he said, "Now go out there and cut us some FTEs." "FTE?" said the cat uncertainly. "Appendix B," was all the walrus said in reply, before closing the door behind the feline. Plonq stood in solemn silence outside the door for a few moments, then wielded his fish dramatically and said, "I vow before the omnipotent powers of corporate benevolence that I shall use my new-found powers in this company for good, instead of evil," he said grimly. Then he turned and wandered off in pursuit of Giblet so that he could lord it over the hapless otter. The End