SHEETCAKE PARTY #1

[goneawaymod]

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’.

Comments

[greatlyexaggerated]

Cain is concerned at first about Saturday's shaking hands, and is most certainly miffed when he hears her trying not to laugh from her position below them. But it's a good sign that she's coming back to her right senses, whatever on Holy Terra possessed her to do what she did besides.

While part of his mind is focused on watching Saturday shuffling about on the floor mopping up the remnants, he sees the hesitation and goes in for the kill.

"Surely it won't be a problem if I'm with you?" he asks demurely, like he's under the impression that she has the authority of the Lord General himself. "I wouldn't want to make any inconvenience, but it's only polite to escort a lady to her destination."

He lets go of her elbow, but then offers his own with an inviting smile. As distasteful as it is, it's a decent opportunity to learn something. She looks around the room, clearly a little torn about protocol, though Warp knows where she's expecting to find an answer. He can see that it's evidently a struggle of titanic proportions in her mind, but Cain's charm wins out in the end.

"I suppose - it can't do any harm..."

With some hesitance, she puts her hand through the crook of his elbow, seeming to forget almost entirely about Saturday, and he invites her to lead the way with a little dramatic flourish. "I just hope it's not inappropriate to be seen leaving a party early with me," he starts to joke as they walk away. And the staffer - honest to the God-Emperor - giggles. And just as they leave, at a moment of distraction, Cain turns his head to give Saturday a long-suffering look, and silently mouths a choice curse word.

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday gives him a truly apologetic look and expansive shrug, all gratitude and apologetic embarrassment. She's still shaken, but he doesn't need to know that. All earlier friction over her ears is completely forgotten.