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Piper 90: Mods ([personal profile] goneawaymod) wrote in [community profile] goneawayworld2020-04-17 08:20 pm

SHEETCAKE PARTY #1


SHEET CAKE MEETUP


“Who the fuck is Linda?”

The question pops up every few minutes, a little tack of punctuation above the offensively-inoffensive music being piped in*. The room the hires have been ushered into is clearly just a conference room, with a layout that requires either sitting at awkwardly-spaced intervals around a giant table or milling and scooting around the smaller folding table, where the “big surprise” the corporate officers promised them is on display: a sheet cake.

A sheet cake that that still bears HAPPY BIRTH DAY LINDA in blue icing across the top, although someone has, at least, gone to the effort of writing welcome, to the team new hires in Sharpie on a purple flashcard and used a Popsicle stick and tape to plant it like a dismal flag right in the middle of Linda’s “DAY”. Dedication aside, the cake itself looks pretty suspect too, not as if it were poisoned but more like if it were salvaged. The cake part looks dry, and the frosting seems strangely...sweaty. No one’s eating yet, and yet there’s already a piece missing.

However, there’s no lack of enthusiasm around the room. A projector hooked up to a laptop casts an off-center, warped rectangle of WELCOME TO, THE BEST TEAM. NEW HIRES!! onto a wall. The many paper plates have a festive print, although they all seem to be Christmas themed. The table cloth looks as if it came from both 4th of July and potentially a war, given the scuffs and tears. The shot-glass sized paper cups are inadequate to hold a satisfying amount of sparkling cider, but at least they don’t leak. There are many more plastic knives than forks, which could prompt some hires to give in to their animal instincts and just use their hands, or perhaps start a barter economy for the better utensils.

“I’m so jealous,” a corporate employee keeps saying as she ushers hires into the room. “We haven’t had a good party in this office since Kelly’s baby shower, and that little girl practically has teeth now!”

(An eagle-eyed hire may suspect that the box of donuts next to the sheet cake might have come from said baby shower, on account of the fact that the few stale hunks of donut remaining have Pepto-Bismol pink strawberry icing and that there’s still the paper envelope for a gift card with ITS A GIRL written on it.)

Most of corporate slips out after the hires get set up - this is clearly an event for the hires to do some “team building” and work on “rapport” in addition to filling their bellies with cake that tastes remarkably like sand. There’s a karaoke machine in the corner, but hires are instructed not to touch it because, as an employee points out, last year’s Christmas party demonstrated that karaoke is the worst thing in the entire world for morale (“in any world! even before this one got eaten away by the bombs!”).

There’s an additional big glass jar filled with scraps of paper, which the hires are informed are filled with prompts for ice breakers and activities in case the party needs a pick-me-up. Any hire who investigates will find that most of the ice breaker activities start with three benign questions (“what’s your name?” “where are you from?” “what’s your favorite animal?”) and somehow, always a fourth question that feels a little invasive (“what are your feelings on unions?” “under what circumstances would you kill an innocent person?” “do you use the same passwords for all your accounts?”).

“Please enjoy yourselves and all the desserts Jorgmund has generously supplied you with,” one of the employees says on her way out, “and don’t worry about making a mess, janitorial gets paid too much to sit around as is.”

*All music that can be summarized as ’grocerycore’.
wheyoftheadept: (Default)

[personal profile] wheyoftheadept 2020-04-23 03:35 pm (UTC)(link)
"Well, now that you've said it, the brass listening in probably think it's a great idea."

She cocks her head to one side. "Can you pop that wolfwoman shit any time you feel like, then?"
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[personal profile] credit_not_blame 2020-04-24 07:32 am (UTC)(link)
"I doubt that they want to encourage us to modify our jumpsuits, but I'll let you know if that's how they decide to take their revenge."

Stacia grins. "Yep. Back and forth at will. At least now I don't have to figure out how to gently break the news to everyone individually, huh?"
wheyoftheadept: (Default)

[personal profile] wheyoftheadept 2020-04-24 03:03 pm (UTC)(link)
"Hell of an advantage," Saturday pronounces. "I think I'm jealous. What do you do about clothes, though?"
credit_not_blame: the new moon at night (new moon)

[personal profile] credit_not_blame 2020-04-27 02:17 am (UTC)(link)
"The clothes aren't a problem as long as I'm wearing something I like," Stacia says. "If they mean something to me, then I can get them to shift with me."

By performing a ritual on them. If anyone asks why the Jorgmund-provided underwear means something to her, she can just say it's because it means a lot to her to not be completely naked.

"Who knows, maybe they'll give me my romper back to save on repairs and replacements?"
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[personal profile] wheyoftheadept 2020-04-27 03:50 am (UTC)(link)
"They'll make you stitch the brand on." Saturday taps the skewed logo on her jumpsuit. "Gotta have us marked. Property of Jorg."

She sweeps a hand vaguely at the room. "What *do* you think of it all, so far? Didn't get to ask."
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[personal profile] credit_not_blame 2020-05-07 12:55 am (UTC)(link)
"If we're fantasizing anyway, I'll wear a jacket," Stacia says, waving a hand (the not-bloody one). "Something I can shrug out of really quickly."

She raises her eyebrows. "Remember when you were explaining what 'Corp' meant and I said I didn't think I'd be a very good fit for it? I think that applies pretty well here, too."
wheyoftheadept: (Default)

[personal profile] wheyoftheadept 2020-05-07 02:16 am (UTC)(link)
"Mmm. Same thought. Seems we're not the only one." Saturday looks up towards the ceiling in a contemplative manner. "Might be worth noting down some names, hmm?"
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[personal profile] credit_not_blame 2020-05-16 03:50 am (UTC)(link)
Stacia smiles sweetly, tapping her chin with her index finger. "Oh, I think I've got some names. I wasn't just breaking all that ice because I'm a cute and perky pack animal."
wheyoftheadept: (Default)

[personal profile] wheyoftheadept 2020-05-16 06:04 am (UTC)(link)
Saturday snorts. "I thought something like that might be the case. Haven't seen this many operators in one room since my dad's last class reunion."

She grins. "We should swap notes, sometimes."
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[personal profile] credit_not_blame 2020-05-21 04:58 am (UTC)(link)
"It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out," Stacia says. "But count me in for the study group."