THE COMPANY CHRONICLES
Micro-dramas from the modern workplace

Greater Susan
Susan was a grafter. She got through more work than anyone else in the company, statistically.
Quality wasn’t a consideration – this was a numbers game. A game of putting ticks in boxes and hoping that nobody ever opened those boxes to look inside. If they did, they’d find one of Susan’s freshly dropped work turds, and the game would be up. No second lives. No “but she’s so nice to have around the office”. No nothing.
If they saw the true scale of her fucktardery, there would be no way back for her.
Susan wasn’t nice to have around the office, you see. In fact she was deeply unpleasant. She spoke at the tone and pace of a fire alarm and had an offensively floral aroma, which people would forgive if only she wasn’t constantly trying to expand her territory like a medieval warlord.
Since 2017, Susan had colonised three work pods in addition to the one she was assigned. Two of the original occupants had left the company during Susan’s ‘Hot February’ campaign, whilst Clive had submitted himself entirely to her sovereignty. Clive now appeared in greyscale, barely noticeable amongst Susan’s overflow of controversial desk ornaments and crusted mayonnaise spoons. He wasn’t really Clive anymore, he was just another impoverished suburb of Greater Susan.

The Bypass
Davies was a boss. His job title was made up of four words, placing him only a few steps below the pinnacle of the company structure. Through well-timed silences and well-chosen ties, Davies had risen steadily through the ranks. From here, his job title would become shorter if he gained importance. That was the order of things—four words presented the brow of the hill in that regard.
But the company was no hill, it was a mountain, and the real pinnacle was out of reach for people like Davies. The exalted positions at the pinnacle of the company were reserved for an elite band of men who refused death against all common logic, and whose eventual successors had been written in blood long ago.
Davies was perplexed by his success. Each elevation in his status had followed a long period of inaction on his part, and he had begun to withdraw ever further from company operations as a result. He no longer knew profit margins or any of the key metrics used to measure growth. He wasn’t completely sure that there was growth, but it wasn’t really his concern anymore.
In December 2018, Davies had taken steps to effectively bypass himself in the chain of command—an operation that involved a long and opaquely-written “URGENT” e-mail sent just minutes before the Christmas break. As a result of his e-mail, Davies now answered to nobody, or at least nobody that wanted to be answered to. Nobody answered to Davies anymore either—they had all been diverted to other links in the chain. His work life now involved wearing crisp suits and exchanging silent nods with his apparent co-workers as he arrived each morning, and again when he left in the afternoon.
For the remainder of his day, Davies would socialise with his personal assistant, Jonathan, who was also a beneficiary of the deception. The two would often sit in work-like positions and talk in serious tones to maintain an image for passers-by, but their conversations would cover anything from popular culture to hypothetical inter-species breeding.
Jonathan had been an excellent choice for the role. Highly skilled at deflecting inquiries, and also wonderful company through the long and often dull days.
On the rare occasions that Jonathan’s defences failed and Davies was forced to attend a meeting, he found himself unable to contribute and relied almost entirely on the thoughtful stare that had now become his trademark. Meetings at the company were populous affairs, often with thirty or more attendants, and Davies had yet to be asked a question since his unannounced withdrawal from work duties. He believed that he had mastered the art of looking unquestionable—a skill that would be key to maintaining his life of highly-paid irrelevance.

Office Romance (Brian’s Story)
I passed Brenda five times a week, in almost the same part of the corridor at almost the exact same time, barring holidays and illness. This had been the case since the winter of 2016, when Brenda started working at the company, or at least when I first noticed her.
Neither Brenda nor I were particularly attractive, so at first the prospect of romance seemed logical and I must admit that I tried to catch her eye on three separate occasions, as well as one aborted attempt which I won’t count to maintain accuracy.
However, Brenda’s eye was seemingly uncatchable. Whether through nervousness, lack of interest, or the practical barrier of her desperately undersized eyes, it proved impossible to find her gaze. I took this as a sign and resolved not to attempt conversation under any circumstance, and to accept that Brenda’s role in my life would remain stagnant. I discovered her name by accident in March 2019, when a colleague called after her to return an item she had lost on her journey.
Perhaps it was the name “Brenda”, or perhaps it was the jaunty tropical-themed design I glimpsed on her briefly-abandoned notepad, but in that moment any romantic feelings towards her collapsed.
She left the company later the same year, in October 2019, but I do not believe it had anything to do me. It’s also possible that she changed her walking route but remains with the company. I suppose this is something I will never know.

Carol’s Salon
Carol had been contracted to the company since the summer of 2013, initially hired as a tax-friendly morale booster for the remaining employees after what became known as The Spring Massacre, which followed what became known as The Winter of Apprehension, sparked by the events of what became known as The Darkest Christmas. Many things became known at that time, and free professional haircuts proved an effective remedy to the simmering dissent among the workforce.
Although she had no formal hairdressing experience, Carol had applied to a bafflingly vague and manically-written job advert on a local curry menu, and she was surprised to receive a formal letter just two days later confirming her temporary contract at an unnecessarily generous hourly rate. A thin man had given her an induction on her first day but she had never seen him since, and Carol had been left to carry out her work entirely independently in a very spacious corner office on the 30th floor.
She would offer a selection of three company-approved haircuts for men, and two for women. Initially, this was a popular benefit among the employees, but Carol struggled to pull off the approved styles and made a series of catastrophic errors. However, errors were seemingly devoid of consequence at the company. Undisturbed by any form of evaluation, Carol continued her work through days that turned into months and eventually years, with her inflated invoices always paid without question and within the hour.
Whether it was the terrible reputation she had forged or a sudden shift in business haircut fashion was unclear, but the strong early uptake of Carol’s hair service declined swiftly and irreversibly after around six months of operation. Those who remained loyal to her had been few, and over the years became fewer and fewer until what turned out to be her final haircut in January 2017.
Carol had married Felipe in March 2018 after a short online affair, and it was he who suggested that the couple use the office as their living space. Aside from needing to wear business attire at all times, avoiding detection was simple and Felipe even formed some close friendships within the company through his regular bathroom excursions.
Life became more complicated after the twins were born in July 2019, and the children had only witnessed daylight through the frame of the window since returning from hospital. This remained the case for over a year after their birth. Carol worried constantly about the normality of their upbringing, and eventually Felipe agreed that they would leave their office residence behind in favour of a more traditional home in October 2020.
Carol’s one-time salon would continue to fund a comfortable lifestyle for the family until March 2023, when the company severed ties with all external contractors following a controversial and much-publicised incident involving the rooftop barista.