After about thirty seconds of searching on Deliveroo, something cracked inside me. Allowing myself to be extorted, even if only for a pizza, ceased to be an option. Nor did I have any intention of giving Mr X and his cronies the satisfaction of a histrionic complaint. He knew that such a small thing would be put down to office hijinks. I would be induced to calm down by a mild-mannered person from HR who would bring me a cup of tea. There was also the fact that Mr X would simply repeat this little stunt whenever he wanted free food. I was no longer willing to curl up and wait for the abuse to stop. A third option started to take shape in my mind. The kidnapper had chosen the wrong person to mess with.
It all began with a Post-it note on my desk. The yellow square was the first thing I saw when I arrived this morning and it launched me into grumpiness. I thought the petty drama was over, that life might just begin to settle down. Our department had been moved to this floor a month ago and the indignity of the office politics which followed beggars belief. The biggest point of contention was the desk by the big window which was prime real estate, so really it should go to the most senior member of staff, but was that Marg or Larry since they were equal in the Org chart? A merry game of musical desks followed during which my request to work from home was unceremoniously denied. I didn’t care which desk I was assigned so long as it could become mine. This went on for weeks, but I thought we had reached a status quo.
Clearly this Post-it was an invasion, bang in the middle of my oasis. There was no way it was going to be good news. It could be a complaint about how I sat on my chair, or maybe I was being told that I’d have to move again because it had been agreed that I was in the wrong place for some obscure reason.
Knowing I couldn’t avoid it indefinitely, I picked up the note.
At noon, have a Margherita Pizza delivered to the office for Mr X.
Tell no-one.
I have Pookey.
My initial rush of anger promptly gave way to desolation. I understood this for what it was: an infantile joke. What Mr X wanted was for me to wail and complain. Pookey would be returned unharmed and X would get to watch, giggling from some corner with his playground buddies. I sighed and began looking up pizza options on Deliveroo.
That was when something cracked.
In spite of my combative stance, I was worried about Pookey. I suspected that X would have no compunction about hurting him if things got ugly. This thought gave me pause, but I shoved it away. You don’t negotiate with terrorists, however tiny their ambitions. You squash them. You make sure they never consider such behaviour again. You hurl the wrath of a thousand titans down upon them.
I used a cheeky programme I’d written to search everyone’s emails for the word ‘Pookey’. Too easy. Mr X was revealed, gloating about ‘…hav[ing] the weirdo in IT make a scene. What kind of name is Pookey anyway, even for …’ So be it, Terence from accounting with whom I currently shared a floor. I have no shame about my oddities. Let the games begin.
First things first, Terence was going to get his lunch. I rejected a passing thought that I should order 100 pizzas. I wasn’t willing to spend the money on this counter-play and I had a far more devious scheme in mind anyway. One pizza for 11:45 then, with instructions that the Deliveroo driver was to convey it to “Mr X”. I briefly dreaded a call demanding to know what the hell was going on, but after a little consideration I realised that Deliveroo drivers probably receive all manner of strange requests.
Ransom acquired, I settled in to read Terrence’s emails. It seemed to me that someone like him would have ample material for blackmail. Surprisingly, I only had meagre success at first. The worst I found in his sent-and-received were refences to other pranks; pouring salt over Susie’s special yoghurt, his comic genius at covering the ladies toilets in cling film, the veiled references to kidnapping Pookey. I could give him a serious headache with HR, but there was not enough for a real coup de grâce.
It should have occurred to me then that I was swooping down into his mud pit. He had succeeded in getting a rise out of me, if not the one he had intended. I should have quieted my rage long enough to recognise that he wouldn’t cease hostilities if I humiliated him. I should have reminded myself that stealing Pookey was the action of a pathetic, fragile little man. I should have admitted that I was more hurt than I wanted to let on, even to myself.
Terrence’s drafts folder proved wonderfully fruitful:
To the stupid bitch:
You dragged me to couple’s therapy to belittle me, and so that Dr Thundercunt McClellan could tell me I’m ‘not in touch with my feelings’. I know what I feel, you just don’t like it. That radical feminist quack of yours said we had to write a secret love letter to each other. Well, here I am doing my homework, you cow. You want to know what I think of this shitshow? You really want to know? Marrying you was the biggest mistake of my life. Remember when we bought that wine called Fat Bastard and sat by the fire guzzling it? I don’t know what spell you cast on me, you pagan witch, but I look back on our evening doodling hippos on napkins with unadulterated hate. Yes hate, my toxic hippo. You know what, you can keep
It trailed off mid-sentence.
A quick Google search identified a Dr Sophia McClellan, couple’s psychologist. Jackpot. There could be no denying his authorship. Who else would know about the hippo doodles?
I printed a few copies of the draft email, finalising the details of my plan in my head. A sadistic little smile bloomed on my face. I knew how to put the fear of god into him and leave his wife out of it. I printed the following on the back of one of my copies:
I’m ready to send this to her.
Your move.
Y
I folded my evil little missive and put it in an envelope.
Just before midday, I went to the front of the building ‘for a cigarette break’. I didn’t actually say this to anyone. I had concocted the story in case anyone asked. I paced up and down, rehearsing what I would say to the delivery driver. I was uncontrollably fidgety. I wished I did smoke, if only to have something to do with my hands.
After what felt like for ever, a flustered Deliveroo driver rushed towards my building. I dashed over, pretending to be in a flap:
They were delivering to this building? Was it for Mr X? Thank goodness. I was late for a meeting with a client. In my rush, I had a forgotten to give an important letter to Mr X. Oh, we all called him X because of his signature, haha. Could I slip it in the pizza box?
I thought it was an award-worthy performance, however the driver simply looked bemused at my onslaught as they opened the box to admit the letter. In hindsight, they didn’t care. Why should they?
I felt a rush of exhilaration as I walked off in search of lunch. Let Terence chew on that. But what about Pookey? My stomach lurched. What if, rather than backing down to preserve himself, Terence escalated everything? Damnit! I’d been careful not to leave a trail, but it would be messy if he started screaming blue murder. He could also fire unexpected shots back. I had gambled that the threat of exposure would be so daunting that he would calculate it best to leave me alone. What on earth had made me think I could count on him to be mature?
As I walked, I realised something unexpected. Deep down, I wanted to be found out. There was relief in the prospect of being fired. In truth, Terrence wasn’t the root problem. I had to get out of this place where Terrences bottled up their toxic frustration, releasing it through juvenile practical jokes. This job where I was overpaid to ask people whether things were plugged in, whether they had tried turning them off and on again.
What surprised me was that I was not ashamed. People tend not to stand up to the Terrences of the world. It’s not cowardice, it’s just not worth it. They are living embodiments of cutting off your nose to spite your face. For a moment I felt what might be characterised as ‘the pride of the underdog’.
I was also poking the bear and it would be Pookey who would suffer the consequences. Oh Pookey, you didn’t do anything except cheer me up. Today began with a silly prank which I had amplified into a bare-knuckle fist fight. None of this seemed worth it when weighed against the harm which might come to you.
I stopped walking abruptly, resulting in a startled yelp behind me. A frazzled woman with a pram navigated around me, offering apologies. What was she apologising for? I was the one who had got in her way. She turned a corner before I could do anything.
I checked the time on my phone. Half of my lunch break was gone. I’d been so lost in contemplation that I hadn’t even thought about eating. I started back towards the office.
It seemed to me that I should quit, but then what? If I was so desperate for change, I should have lined up something else before burning bridges. I should have spent nights, weekends, all my free time figuring out what would be next. Instead, I had lit an extremely short fuse and there was no time left.
I arrived back at the office in a state of distraction. I trudged to my desk, not having any answers. Pookey was there in my oasis, with a yellow note taped to his tummy:
I’m sowwie .
I stared at it for ages without moving. My large, fluffy, lime-green frog was back. Was this another trick? Had I won? He looked up at me lovingly, smiling comfort and calm.
Eventually, I reached out to pick Pookey up, and his head toppled off. I grabbed his chest instinctively, but his stubby arms and legs remained on the desk. After a moment of shock, I was able to comprehend that his head and limbs had been neatly severed. I took in the scene. Terence had obviously carefully stacked up the body parts in anticipation of my arrival.
He would have wanted to see this. I whipped my head up to look around the office. My colleagues were studiously engrossed in their own work. Too engrossed. Someone ducked into the kitchen.
I wanted to burst out laughing. A little sewing was all that was required to return Pookey to normal. This was the push I needed to get out of this place. I typed out a resignation letter. I read it back and removed the following phrases:
“Cube of bastards”
“Talentless, misogynistic perverts”
“Festering sewer of humanity”
It was terse, but no longer insulting. I printed it. I signed it.
I was about to take the letter to HR when I thought, “Fuck it. Fuck them”. I modified my search programme so that it would forward each person every email referring to them by name. A far more sophisticated prank than the theft and dismemberment of a plushie, I thought.
I could have done better if I’d had more time to work on it. In this crude state, it was indiscriminate. Confidential salary negotiations; disciplinary proceedings; jokes, jibes, personal comments. It was an imperfect act of war which would incur civilian casualties. There were multiple Harrys in the company, and they would each get everything. Fuck it. Fuck them. Everyone could know everything. This would spawn years of lawsuits and acrimony. It would probably send me to jail. Fuck it. Fuck them.
My finger hovered over the return key. One button to bring down this company. Jail seemed like a price worth paying to burn this place to the ground. But something was niggling at the back of my mind. Was it really the company I had beef with? Should I rather find ways of targeting Terence specifically?
Nope, it was the whole corporate culture.
I desperately wanted to commit this act of destruction. I yearned for everything to be their fault, for this to be righteousness rained down, judgement for their dank, unrepentant souls. I was only airing dirty laundry. I could have done far worse. I could have encrypted all files and randomised passwords.
I looked at Pookey, mutilated as he was. I looked at my resignation letter. I imagined a theatrical moment where I swept everything off my desk and bellowed my rage at the office.
My life is not a Hollywood movie.
I deleted the programme. I printed a copy of Terrence’s address, folded a copy of his diatribe, and prepared the envelope. I calmly licked a stamp. This, he deserved.
I took a breath. I stood up.
Terrence was coming over. He must have been hiding in the kitchen for an hour or more. He looked haggard and small. He stood sheepishly in front of me, clearly unsure what to say. As he stumbled over hello, how are you, I realised two things. Firstly, his difficulty in greeting me was because he didn’t know my name. I was just the weirdo in I.T. Secondly, he’d mutilated Pookey before I’d even done anything in response. He’d been so sure that nothing would happen to him that causing me additional distress was always part of the plan.
I gathered Pookey into my bag and walked past him without saying a word. I left my resignation letter with HR. At the post-box in front of the building, I dropped the letter.