Hank spoke to HR about the pencil situation, with the shortages and terrible writing quality, and they say that they will discuss it, and talk to Hank's supervisor 'anonymously' that one of the six people he manages wants to bring pencils from home. After two weeks, Hank once again finds himself in a meeting with the Human Resources department. This is one week after his supervisor Gary mentions during a 'friendly' chat that he had to have a meeting with Human Resources to start that day of his.
The HR director Phil let's out a short cough, and begins to calmly detail the finer points of his meeting with the supervisor, Seems Gary talked about how he really felt about the matter, and how it affected everyone in the office. Gary would have to take all of his employees feelings into consideration before he could be sure pencils could be brought into the workplace from now on. Gary went on, at length, about the situation, and even spoke of a lawless time that both Phil and Hank were too young for. A time when folks were more than free to bring in pencils from the outside world. He was heard to say...
"The pencils they brought were sometimes colorful and cheerful, perhaps they were thoughtful presents from a spouse or loved one. The men wrote notes triumphantly with bold professional pencils that reflected sunlight, well, fluorescent light, from their gleaming surfaces. In the hallways I would even hear about hungry young accountants working hard to earn a bonus, just to use it on a fine new pencil. Such beauty is fleeting though, as pencil after pencil went missing from desks and from drawers. Even a coat pocket was no safe haven for the devastation of lost pencils. People eyed one other with suspicion. Entire departments turned against each other in vile power struggles. Long story short, turns out it was Lyle, a former senior of market account managing, like Hank. Took four months to catch the b*****d. Oh? And his excuse? That he was forgetful, and he didn't want to walk all the way to the supply room. Disgusting.” Gary said before hesitating, “The worker's moral was at an all time low at the time you know."
Hank, as not only a Senior of Market Account Managing, but also Manager of Trends Analysis and Work Efficiency, knew that worker morale had been on a steady decline in the offices for the past eight years.
"Looks like we are at an impasse Hank," began Phil, "Seems both sides provide valid arguments on this area of interoffice supplies and trends. We'll have to assess the rigor of these positions and the needs of all personnel involved until we can reach an agreement or compromise that both parties may be satisfied with."
Two weeks have now passed since that second meeting with no news of the inner workings of HR and what must surely be the heady topics on the docket today. Just as Hank really begins to get into the groove of the work day, which is known around the office as Trendsheet Tuesday, he receives a message to make his way to HR.
Hank slides through the break in the glass door that marks the entrance to the small low-lit office of Phil's and sits down in the rigid wood seat. Phil leans forward in his chair, placing both elbows on the large wooden desk and begins, "Appears Gary has ceded his fears, He said he 'trusts all his employees, and they certainly would never imagine stealing one another's pencils.' So with that, it appears you are free to bring in any type of pencil you like. Well, at least as soon as we look at the subsection of rules regarding pencils and other necessary work items, and discuss how best to phrase the addendum in regard to this new rule."
Hank stood up, thanking Phil for the surely tireless efforts before marching back towards his cubicle. As he rounded the final corner he came face to face with Gary, who was standing by the coffee machine. The coffee machine which had apparently been moved next to Hank's cubicle during the meeting.
"So, Hank, just got word about a change in policy. Looks like someone has a lot to look forward to," Gary said while staring into his light brown cup of coffee, "I trust that a better work environment means better productivity, don't you?"
Hank nodded in agreement with Gary's veiled threat, but before he could mention the coffee machine, Gary was already walking away from Hank and back towards his office.
After a few arduous weeks, the new policy was officially in effect. Hank now had his mechanical pencil, but it would quickly become a hollow victory.
Like any bold young man, Hank had bought some pencil. A real pencil. The type with a soft stylish grip, a heavy, weighted body, and an eraser that erased with vigor. He even opted for the less obliging ease of the 0.5 lead version. The pencil wrote skillful and smoothly worded notes for several days, as it's metallic finish reflected the light of the computer screen in bright whites and blues.
Just as thoughtfully, Hank was sure, the pencil was stolen right off his desk. It hadn't happen immediately, it took over a week after some hushed talk began around the coffee machine (which was now moved in front of his coworker Harriet's desk on Gary's request).
Discussion circled the continuing pencil shortage in the supply room. Seemed that a supplies order form was filled out incorrectly, lost in the now legendary, and possibly mythical office of misplaced files and improper document procedures. These comments were followed by several of Hank's coworkers leaning against the wall in the break room, whistling a sigh, and commenting on being down to their last pencil. What will they do if this pencil is lost, or damaged. Who will be the first to be sacrificed to the ancient deity of office supplies once work descends into an orgy of anarchy and fear.
Days after such apocalyptic talk, Hank's pencil was nowhere to be found. He had searched through all the drawers of his desk thoroughly, as well as his many pockets, and even his lunch bag. No trace of the pencil was left. Hank hesitantly chalked it up to his own ineptitude. It was, of course, not the first time he lost a pencil, so he did his best to shrug it off. Hank was undaunted, he was not a man to go into war with just one bullet. Just the same, he was prepared for this situation. Pulling a key from his pocket, he reached to his bottom drawer, the only one with a lock on it. He unlocked and slid the drawer open slowly.
What Hank had not known in his several months of work was that this locked drawer was not as private as it seemed. The company, in actuality, kept a second key for every locked desk drawer in the entire building. It was company policy. Company policy was also to inspect the locked desk drawers once a month, Interestingly enough, the right to have a private drawer was finally reached after several tense debates in 1984, when female workers demanded a place to keep their womanly essentials. This was called the Fair Privacy in the Workplace Policy, and with that, every desk was installed with one private drawer for which to store such unmentionables.
A later debate in 1990 had created a strange amendment to this policy though. This amendment was reached at the behest of company advisers, and claimed that all things brought onto company premises are deemed essential tools for the job at hand, and are therefore subject to inspection in a timely and non-invasive manner. This stipulation was outlined in page 304-e of the workplace manual, and was called the Open Privacy Amendment.
Luckily for Hank, the workers in charge of company inspections were not the most well liked, nor well compensated of employees, and as such, had not performed their weekly duty of nightly desk inspections for several months. Hank had no knowledge of any of this as he reached inside the drawer quietly and gently. From it's dark empty cavern he produced a single pencil box. Within it a single pencil, an exact duplicate to his now missing one. Encased in it's plastic and paper packaging, untouched by human hands. Hank tore open the packaging and discarded it in his waste bin. He placed the now empty pencil case into the drawer, and locked it once again.
Hank inserted his much beloved 0.5mm lead into the pencil, let the weight of this brand new writing utensil settle in his hand, and penned a note he had needed to write all day. A quick message to Cynthia in filing that was in regard to the trend report files being placed in the "C" folder for "current reports" when it should be in the "D" file, labelled as "daily current reports." Hank sat in proud admiration of his forethought. No pencil thief would get the best of him this day.
The pencil went missing an hour later.
Hank now had to make the emasculating trip down to the third floor, where office supplies was located. Here he was greeted by Stan, Office Supplies Manager.
"Hey Hank! Haven't seen you down here in some time, I was starting to think you were forgetting about your old pal Stan!"
"Sorry Stan, I've been swamped with work lately, been a real mess on the fifth floor lately, with the merger we have been trying to readjust and reassess the other companies documents to our management system so we can began to plot a trend of employee work habits within both companies office structure."
Stan had already become lost, and nodded in agreement with whatever it was Hank had just said. He quickly shifted the conversation to matters more his own speed. "So Hank, what brings you down here today? I hope it's staples. we have had a huge overstock of staples lately, and it seems that everyone has been going with those fancy project folders these days so they just keep piling up. I sent a memo to the interoffice ordering manager, but he is an old fogey and refuses to believe an office would never use staples, it's absurd."
Hank shook his head, he was only there for pencils he explained. Pencil supplies were still low, but after some hard bargaining Hank was able to walk away with a handful of number 2 pencils (several unsharpened), as well a few cases of staples he would never use. Hank arrived back at his desk, tossed the staples into the least used drawer of his desk, and thought about how much the staples would be worth as scrap metal. This was a fleeting thought though, as Hank knew that anyone caught taking office supplies from work would be on automatic probation. Instead he reserved himself to keeping the staples, in case of some future staple apocalypse in which everyone would then have to turn to him for help. Then he would be holding all the cards. Hank enjoyed having these types of plans.
Finally, his mind turned to the case of the missing pencils. The working theory was that our culprit had stolen the first pencil while Hank was at a meeting. This liberator of fine pencils had come by Hank's desk again, while Hank had excused himself to the bathroom to think about some reports. It was at this point that the thief had, to his confusion, and much more, to his chagrin, saw the very same pencil he had just absconded with sitting on Hank's desk once again. The thief must have been as disgusted as he was baffled. The mysterious pencil rustler made off with the pencil once again, and this time he broke it in half and flushed it down a toilet. Of course, this was all merely heresay in Hanks mind, and unfortunately he had no concrete evidence of any malicious activity.
A month later, Hank stepped down to a lower grade of pencils. Eventually giving up the whole lovely thought of fine pencils and instead began to buy the economy size bags of mechanical pencils from the local drug store. The pencils were still a notch above the companies supplies, with their constant need of sharpening, and poor erasers, and constant smudges. Though this fact was little consolation to a man who had once stood atop the highest highs and looked down on a world of dull smudgy pencils with disdain.
Every now and then though, even these inexpensive bulk pencils would continue to go missing. Hank continued to wonder what malevolent coworker was behind this terrible and costly (not that costly, probably 35 cents a week) mind game. Was it Harriet, in a desperate bid to regain Gary's favor? Perhaps it was actually Stan, in a two timing move to procure more pencils should the company shortage become ever more dire. Was it in fact, a shadowy cabal of men who exist only to rule the world through masterful symphonies of office politics and supply theft? Maybe it was simply a man, a lone, misunderstood fool who had not come to understand the value of returning an item after borrowing it.
Hank filed all these thoughts into a folder of reasonable explanations in his mind, but still lacked the proof to know more. It wasn't for several more weeks, as this thief became more daring, and the frequency of lost items rose for every person in the fifth floor cubicles. After tense negotiation, it was decided that a camera system would be placed in key spots (most of which consisted of being placed right above several workers desks). This strategy paid off quickly however, as the culprit had finally been found.
Much to the shock of the older employees, and the shrugging of the younger ones, the culprit was Lyle, the original thief who had once made life a hellish nightmare for employees many years ago. It seemed that he had been hired by Intertech, the company that Technology Interests, Hanks company, had just merged with. Lyle had been stalking around the cubicles on several floors collecting many odd trinkets from several desks. Coins, pencils, staplers, all in a strange bid to gain the upper hand once the merger had finalized and Lyle would surely be let go once again after it was found out he had already once been fired from Technology Interests.
With that, office work went back to normal for Hank and all the other folks on the fifth floor, all except the fact that the cameras installed to capture Lyle were now equipped with a lens capable of viewing office computers without glare or refresh rates hindering their view.
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