The presentation included slides of a beach in Panama, mountains in Colorado, and a wide shot of Mexico City. Each one flashed on the screen at the front of the conference room for a few moments, with the Mexico City one being last and staying up as Roz spoke.
“Anyone want to guess what these pictures have in common?” she asked.
The guy behind the counter at the coffee place seemed nice enough. That was until I placed my order. Then he had the look of one of my kids telling me they had put a fresh dent in the car. There was disappointing news coming, I could feel it.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, glancing at Wilson next to me, maybe for support. “But I can’t make that right now.”
The knock on the door came Tuesday morning, a little before seven. I was in my robe, coffee in hand. The kids were getting ready for school, the wife upstairs applying makeup.
I peered out the little window by the door and saw two guys, both late twenties, maybe thirty. Parked at the curb was a Toyota that appeared to have been built during the Clinton administration. Hmmmm.
Wilson showed up at the house early Saturday morning, eager to go. A little too early for my liking as I was only half a cup in on my coffee.
I opened the door just in the nick of time before he could get another ring of the doorbell off and wake everyone. Butch looked on indifferently from his little dog bed up on the landing at the top of the stairs.
It started as barking, then turned into growling. Now I heard howling mixed in. I glanced around the table in the conference room. Big Mike, Suck-Up Andy, and Wilson all had their ‘best to ignore it’ looks going.
Roz was going through a slide of a bar chart with numbers and dates on it, and hashing out how many of our colleagues were expected back in the office, and exactly when we’d be welcoming them back from remote work.
The lights in the office dimmed. Again. It was the third time in the last ten minutes. This time I found myself sitting in a yellowish glow while the lights flickered and came back to full strength.
I pushed back from the desk and went to investigate. The hall was dark and quiet. We were still a few weeks away from the first wave of colleagues coming back from their remote set-ups. Maybe the IT guys were testing the grid, making sure everything was in working order for the big day.