From: Plonq Subject: Love Stinks Date: February 4, 1999 23:43 And yet another return to the office. 8<--- snip and discard --- "It's that time, Plonq." "Nooooooooo!" cried the snow leopard, frantically crawling under his desk. "I think I had something more pleasant to do today, like get a root canal," said the feline morph as he hunkered under his workstation. "You can't avoid it," said the gopher. He stood over the cowering cat and crossed his short arms over his chest. "Now get back out here and stop acting like a cub. Everyone else has theirs filled out and we're just waiting for yours. I'll help if you like." Plonq peered out from his hiding place, pushing his errant glasses back up his muzzle. His tail thrashed with indecision while he pondered his options. He could easily overpower the gopher, but there were a dozen other less-desirable managers who would be eager to fill the vacancy. "I'll fill one out," he mewled, "but you won't hold me to it, will you?" "Of course we will," said the gopher sternly, "that's the whole point of a PMP. Come on." He held out a hand to the reluctant snow leopard and gently pulled him out from under the desk. "It's much easier to do one up this year - they've set up a special database in Notes for it. We'll just rough one out for now, and you can transfer it to Notes later." "Erf," groused Plonq, but he seated himself in front of the terminal and called up a blank notepad. With a final growl of protest, he began to type. "My PMP, by Plonq." "Very good," encouraged the gopher. "Now what do you plan to accomplish this year? You can base it on past accomplishments." The snow leopard sat motionless for a long while. "Or not," said the gopher, who was also at a loss to think of any past accomplishments by the feline. "Just make something up. It doesn't have to be too ambitious." "Business Development Case Number One," typed Plonq, "Do some stuff. Expected time of completion: first quarter." The gopher sighed and shook his head. "A little more specific than that," he said. "Do some important stuff," amended Plonq. "Expected time of completion: second quarter." "It takes longer to do important stuff," he explained primly. "Phew - that wasn't so bad. Are we done now?" "Plonq, you're missing the point," said the gopher. He nudged the feline out of the way and pulled over another chair from a neighbouring desk. "Let me show you how it's done. You have to put down goals that sound impressive, but are impossible to measure. Look at what you've written. When this thing comes up for review, you'll be expected to produce evidence that you actually did some important stuff." "Ack!" "My point exactly!" The little gopher cracked his knuckles and squinted myopically at the screen. "Now sit back and watch an expert at work. You're in Performance Tracking now, aren't you? They LOVE reports." His little stubby fingers flew over the keyboard as he typed, "Produce reports to assist proactive tracking of vital data that facilitates timeliness of reporting and improves customer satisfaction." "But what does that mean?" asked Plonq, his fuzzy ears lying back in confusion. "Nothing," admitted the gopher, "but it's got all those buzz-words that your team leader will want to see. Probably want to weigh this one at fifty percent, since it's virtually impossible to measure." "Ooh!" purred Plonq. "Can I try again?" He pushed the gopher aside and pounced on the keyboard as if it was escaping prey. He sucked on the end of his index finger in thought for a moment, and then began to type enthusiastically as his soggy finger fur left wet blotches on the keys. "Streamline report collecting processes to assist root-cause tracking of data integrity issues." "Not bad," said the gopher with grudging admiration, "but don't get cocky. Weigh that one at thirty percent. Now one more and you're done. Not such a painful process, is it?" "Implement proactive..." Plonq began to type, but the gopher had an apparent seizure and brusquely slapped his hands away from the keyboard. "Argh! Don't EVER use the word 'implement' in your PMP - that gives them a concrete rule to measure your performance against." "Eep!" yelped Plonq, partly in surprise. He quickly erased what he had written and pushed the keyboard away. "I'll finish this tomorrow," he mewled. "Don't be silly," admonished the gopher, "you're two-thirds of the way there. Got to be something innocuous that you can slide in there for your third business objective. Think." "Um," mewled Plonq. "No, it can't include fish," said the gopher quickly. "Ack!" The gopher rose from his seat and patted the snow leopard on the shoulder. "I'll leave you to fill out the last one on your own," he said, "I have to wander over and fire somebody in the Admin department now. Just remember to keep it ambiguous." The little snow leopard morph stared miserably at his screen for long minutes after the gopher left. Twice he made abortive reaches for the keyboard before he remembered that his PMP couldn't include any fish. He chewed on the tip of his tail in thought - a nervous habit that he had been fruitlessly trying to break for some time. Random buzzwords played through his feline brain, but they all sounded too proactive and measurable. While he was meditating, the mail skunk approached his desk and gingerly balanced an envelope on top of the teetering stack in his inbox. Plonq - being utterly lost in thought - might not have spared the pert little skunk a second look had the proverbial "straw and camel's back" scenario not chosen that moment to play itself out in dramatic fashion. The plastic shelf holding his impressive pile of mail collapsed with a staccato "snap!" and dumped several reams of paper and envelopes onto the hapless skunk. She stumbled back under the onslaught and would have fallen if the snow leopard's reflexes had been any slower. With speed that belied his chunkiness, Plonq pounced from his chair and caught the little skunk before her fluffy tail touched the floor. He held the musky little morph in his arms while the two of them blinked in disbelief at the carnage that had, moments before, been his desk. A moment later the snow leopard's eyes began to water as he noticed that the mustelid lass had become more than moderately pungent in her distressed state. It was only through an act of chivalry that he managed to avoid dropping her. If skunks could blush, her face would have been burning. "I'm sorry, Plonq," she said sheepishly, "but that scared the you-know-what out of me." "I... I noticed..." gasped the feline, struggling to force out the words between laboured breaths. "Oh - that's gross!" thundered Fig from the other side of the partition that separated his desk from Plonq's. "I'm going for a break!" The rhino stomped away, holding his nose and calling for the cleaners. "Uh, Plonqie, you can put me down now," said the skunk. The feline complied with robot-like obedience. He stood, blinking stupidly as the lady morph repeatedly apologised and busied herself picking up stray papers and envelopes. She held one up and shook her head. "Hey, this one has a postmark almost two years old - and it's stamped 'urgent'. You should go through this mail once in awhile," she said with an accusatory tone. The mail skunk apparently took unread mail as a personal affront. "I don't feel very good," mewled Plonq pathetically, "and I smell bad. I think I'll go home and shower for a couple of days." "You can't go home smelling like that," said the skunk quickly. She turned to face the cat, clutching an armload of mail tightly to her abdomen. "You'll stink up your whole house - trust me, I know about these things." Perhaps it was because his eyes were still watering, or maybe it was the way the armload of papers she was clutching accentuated part of her anatomy, but Plonq suddenly found himself admiring the little skunk's proportions. When she turned to deposit the mass of unread mail on his desk, he decided that she was comely from that angle too. "Ack! Don't think about things like that," he berated himself, "she's engaged. Besides, she may be cute, but she's stinky." "Come with me," said the skunk as she turned and gently grabbed the snow leopard's elbow. "Let's take the back way out of here. I've got some special shampoo at home that will wash the smell out, and I think that some of the creep's clothes will fit you." "The creep?" mewled Plonq as he let the little morph lead him toward the back stairwell. "My ex," explained the skunk with a sigh. "I can't believe I was going to marry that asshole. I guess I'm just doomed to spinsterhood. It's tough being aromatic - furs take one sniff and turn-tail." She giggled softly, and in a rye voice added, "on the upside, I never have to fight for a seat in the cafeteria." The snow leopard had noticed the skunk sitting by herself on many occasions, but he had always assumed that she just wanted to keep to herself. He felt a twinge of empathy for the skunk as he remembered the number of times he had found himself sitting alone in a bar, or in his own private corner at a social gathering. It seems that he shared something in common with this furry lass: she kept people away with her smell, and he kept them at bay with his personality. They were kindred spirits in a curious way. The shampoo was not quite as effective as she had promised. Plonq was left with a lingering reminder for days of - what he later learned was - his first date with Sapphire. But that's another story.