goneawaymod: (Default)
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’.
becauseimacoward: (38)

[personal profile] becauseimacoward 2020-04-20 12:55 am (UTC)(link)
"This is bullshit"

They're doing this on purpose, no doubt. What's wrong with the Jorgmund people?

Still, it seems there's more to come from the jar of questions. May as well find out what kind of other nonsense they got in there.
somnioergosum: (Default)

[personal profile] somnioergosum 2020-04-20 04:21 pm (UTC)(link)
"And is that surprising?" Ronan meant for it to be a joke but his mouth twisted on the words and they came out a little too bitter.

Yes, this was funny, yes, he was also pissed about all of it. He had to remind himself not that he had to protect his family and that involved not getting killed by some implant in his body. That meant he had to rely on some old coping mechanisms, like reveling in annoying people.

He looked over the irrelevant questions to get to the worst offender. "How much would you sacrifice for your employer? Never saw that as a security question."
becauseimacoward: (26)

[personal profile] becauseimacoward 2020-04-21 03:12 am (UTC)(link)
"They can't expect a serious answer to that. Everything they have done ensures their new hires have zero loyalty towards them. The only thing that remains for them to do is..."

Dojima trails off, not wanting to give them any ideas in case they're listening. Still, his expression gets cold while he mulls what's in his head:

What remains for Jorgmund to do is make an example out of someone, to show what happens if you don't have loyalty towards them.
somnioergosum: (professional asshole)

[personal profile] somnioergosum 2020-04-22 04:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Ronan lifted one eyebrow in response to that. He could think of several things Jorgmund to do next, ranging from absurd to cruel, but one of them was along the same lines as Dojima's thoughts. Absolutely nothing he had seen indicated they were remotely invested in keeping them alive and happy.

"I don't plan on sticking around for that," Ronan said, as if he had any choice in the matter. He tossed the scrap of paper aside. It didn't count as littering if they were inside.
becauseimacoward: (32)

[personal profile] becauseimacoward 2020-04-23 05:20 am (UTC)(link)
Dojima raises his eyebrows, a little bit alarmed.

"Already planning to fight back?"

Ronan's choice of words is rather telling! Those are the words of someone who won't lie down and let Jorgmund tell him what to do, at least not before some serious punishment and threats.

It's impressive, it's just what they need. And also can be famous last words.
somnioergosum: (His words don't connect to his eyes)

[personal profile] somnioergosum 2020-04-24 12:22 am (UTC)(link)
Ronan shrugged. He had this creeping realization that he probably shouldn't have said that out loud but that didn't mean it wasn't the truth. He didn't lie.

...He tried not to lie.

"I don't make plans," he said, which probably came across as even stupider than he meant it.

He wasn't a leader by any stretch of the imagination and while he could be a great thinker, it was almost always only when it came to creative intelligence. He was sorely lacking in most other kinds. For example, thinking over the implications of his words.