Shem the Penman
1st Level Red Feather
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2001
- Messages
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OFFICE POLITICS
another one of those stories
IF YOU'RE UNDER 18, AMSCRAY. THAT'S "SCRAM," FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVEN'T STUDIED LATIN.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Preston. I just don't think this would be a good risk for us," Elise Brenner said firmly. "I've been looking over past sales campaigns, and -- "
"But this is completely _new_, Ellie! You can't predict how it will do from looking at what happened in the past." From her seat, Andi Mallory glared at Elise, while Mr. Preston leaned back behind his desk, listening to them with an expression of benevolent impartiality.
Elise glared back at Andi. Marketing types gave her enough of a pain as it was, and it didn't help that Andi was blond and petite enough to make tall, slender Elise feel like a lurching scarecrow. Plus she had a stupid name and kept calling her "Ellie." "Our current market strategy is still working well. Why should we change?"
"It's _stale_!" Andi bounced in her seat. "People are getting tired of it. Maybe you don't understand that, Ellie, being new here and all"--Elise gritted her teeth--"but we've been doing this advertising campaign for _eighteen months_. We should at least look into trying something new."
"Which means paying a couple million to consultants and ad agencies," Elise said. "I don't think -- "
"Ladies," Mr. Preston said, leaning forward, "you've been going back and forth over this for half an hour now. You've both made good points, but I can't say I'm convinced one way or the other. Why don't you take it down to the thirteenth floor?"
Elise frowned. "Um, Mr. Preston ... " The building didn't even have a thirteenth floor. Did it?
"Oh, that's right, Ms. Brenner -- you haven't been there yet, have you? I'm sure Ms. Mallory will be glad to explain it to you. Why don't you go now, and let me know how things come out?"
"Oh, _yes_!" Andi bounced right out of her chair, grinning from ear to ear. "C'mon, Ellie! Bye, Mr. Preston!"
Elise followed Andi to the elevator bank, shaking her head in puzzlement. "What is this all about? What's on the thirteenth floor -- Mr. Palmer himself?" she asked, referring to the legendary and never-seen founder of Palmer Industries.
Andi shook her head as they stepped into the elevator. She pressed the buttons for 12 and 14 simultaneously, then turned to Elise. "At Palmer Industries, we like to resolve conflicts quickly. You've worked at other companies, maybe you know what it's like -- backstabbing, arguing, yelling, sneaking around, all that office politics stuff. It's just a waste of the company's time and money."
"So what do we do, pistols at ten paces?"
"Close." The doors slid open, and the two women stepped out into a corridor with two doors, one marked with the male symbol and the other with the female. Elise followed Andi through the female door and found herself in a large locker room. "You've been through the interview process, right? Can't you guess?"
Elise thought back to her ticklish interview, goosebumps rising on her skin, and then
gasped. "You can't mean -- "
Andi grinned. "Yup. A tickle fight. First one to yell uncle gives in." She went to a rack along one of the walls, glanced back at Elise, began to rummage through the plastic-wrapped packages.
"No way." Elise folded her arms.
"Then I win by default -- and everyone will know you're a pushover." Andi handed Elise one of the packages she'd selected. "Or you can put this on and put your body where your mouth is."
Elise stared at the smaller woman. This couldn't be happening. But Andi seemed so matter-of-fact about it. And Elise didn't like the thought of giving up. Then a thought struck her: if Andi was working at Palmer, she must have gone through the interview process too ... which meant that she must be pretty ticklish herself. Maybe it wasn't as unfair as it seemed at first.
"Okay, you're on."
"Great, get changed. And get ready to yell for mercy." Andi skipped off. Elise, sighing, unwrapped her package and found a dark blue leotard and tights within. She undressed, hanging her clothes in the nearest locker, and pulled on the leotard and tights. The leotard was sleeveless and cut low on the sides and back, while the tights left her feet bare. Elise hadn't worn clothes like these since she was a little girl in ballet class. Grinning at the memory, she struck a shaky fifth position -- and yelped as fingers tickled under her upraised arms. Dropping her arms, she spun to face Andi.
The blonde was in pink, looking to Elise's jaundiced eye like an underdone sausage, and was smirking.
"Oh, I'm sorry ... did that tickle?"
Elise took a breath. "You just surprised me."
"Sure. Come on, let's find a room. Do you want to do this with restraints or free-for-all?"
"What's the difference?" Elise asked, following Andi toward the end of the room.
"With restraints, we take turns binding and tickling one another. That's what I do when I have to come here with some big, heavy guy like Karl in Administrative, otherwise he'd just sit on me and poke my ribs until I gave up. Free-for-all, we just go at it until someone surrenders. Just tickling, of course -- no kicking, punching, biting, or anything like that." They exited the locker room into a smaller room lined with numbered doors. Andi picked up a clipboard and studied it. Elise studied Andi. She didn't outweigh her by that much -- Andi was a little chubby, while Elise was slim -- but she definitely had a reach advantage. Why not work from that?
"Free-for-all."
"My favorite!" Andi scribbled something on the clipboard. "Room 5's open. Here, put your initials on this." Elise wrote where Andi pointed. "After you," Andi said, gesturing to the door marked 5.
Elise opened the door to see a small room, perhaps fifteen feet square, thickly padded on walls and floor. Light came from recessed fixtures protected by wire cages. Otherwise, the room was featureless. "So how do we -- " she began, and then Andi hit her. The smaller woman's arms wrapped around her waist, propelling her into the room and to the floor. The door swung closed soundlessly, but Elise didn't notice. All her attention was given to Andi's hands digging into her sides. She squealed and twisted, throwing the other woman off and rolling over -- but before she could pick herself up, Andi was on her again, tickling her ribs, the thin, stretchy fabric of the leotard no protection at all. Breathless with surprise, Elise gasped and giggled, grabbing at Andi's hands. Andi was too fast to be caught, though, darting from ribs to belly to waist so it felt as if Elise's entire midsection was being tortured at once. "Cheater!" she managed to get out between shrieks of laughter.
"What a wimp," Andi said, grinning. "I know you're new, Ellie, but I thought you'd give me more trouble than th -- aaah!" Getting smart, Elise had finally given up on intercepting Andi's hands and gone for a more stationary target: Andi's pink-clad tummy. What her attack lacked in precision it more than made up for in vehemence, and Elise was able to sit up, dumping Andi off once more. She tried to press her advantage, but Andi curled up and rolled away beyond Elise's reach, coming up in an almost martial crouch. Elise threw herself at Andi's ankles in an awkward tackle, missed, and landed facedown. Andi landed on her shoulders, seized one arm above the elbow, and yanked it up, her other hand crawling into the bare hollow of Elise's armpit and down her side. Elise screamed hysterically, her free arm flailing, trying to grab some piece of Andi. By some miracle, her hand clamped around one of Andi's ankles. Elise gave a jerk, and Andi went over backward as Elise lunged for the foot she held, determined not to lose her advantage this time.
Now it was Andi's turn to wriggle and yell helplessly. Her long blond hair swirled around her as she tossed her head wildly, parting for an instant now and then to reveal a glimpse of her laughing face, rapidly approaching the hot pink of her leotard. Elise's nails scrambled all over the sole of Andi's tiny foot, Elise feeling wicked glee at the torment she was inflicting on her rival. Andi's free foot kicked at Elise's hands frantically. Elise tried to grab it too, hoping to double the dose of torture, but succeeded only in losing her grasp on the foot she already held. Andi scrambled away, and Elise knew she should pursue, but she needed a breather. Rising up on her knees, she wiped her hands over her sweating face, watching Andi do the same a short distance away.
"Okay, Ellie -- you got lucky. It's not going to happen again." Andi stood, her hands clawed and flexing.
"Come and get it, honey." Elise would have been surprised at the tone of her voice normally, but now all she was thinking of was tickling Andi into a shuddering lump of flesh. She stood as well.
Andi charged, obviously hoping to get close before Elise could get a hold on her. She was too slow, though, and Elise's hands darted out to grab her ribs. Elise, acting on instinct, took a half-step to the side as the other woman's momentum whirled them around, and found herself standing behind a doubled-over Andi, mercilessly tickling her ribs. Andi squealed, hopping from one foot to another, grabbing at Elise's hands and trying to reach back to her, all without lessening the terrible tickling an iota. She took hold of Elise's wrists and tried to pull them off her body, but with her strength drained by constant laughter, she couldn't quite do it. "Gotcha," Elise giggled. "Don't give up too fast, because I owe you." She pressed down, trying to force the smaller woman to the floor, where she could pin her and tickle her at leisure.
Andi's legs were widely planted, too wide for Elise to push her over easily. Elise raised a foot to hook one of Andi's ankles, and at that moment Andi yanked forward on the wrists she held. Elise, off balance, toppled and crashed into Andi, the two of them going to the floor in a wild tangle of limbs. Hands found ticklish spots, and the room resounded to both Andi's high-pitched giggle and Elise's sharper yelps of laughter as both women bore down with no thought to protecting themselves. Elise was in agony; Andi's fingers were buried in a sensitive spot under her navel, and all her wriggling and squirming couldn't dislodge them. She could feel herself weakening, and her hands were tiring ... it was an effort to keep tickling Andi, although the other woman's touch on her was steady and relentless as a machine's. Andi was still laughing too, but her struggles seemed to be slacking off, as if Elise's tickling were no longer bothering her so much ....
Desperate, Elise let go and tried to writhe loose. It was a mistake. Andi pounced on her ankles like a blonde hawk, and Elise, breathless again, couldn't kick loose before the other woman got a firm grip. Andi sat on Elise's shins, and before Elise could do anything, both soles were being tormented by Andi's burgundy-red nails. Elise's feet were her absolute worst ticklish spot, and the ensuing scream let Andi know she had struck paydirt. Elise pulled at her legs with the strength of frenzy, but Andi, chubby Andi, was firmly planted where she was, fingers gliding up and down Elise's long, narrow, supersensitive arches.
Elise's fists pounded the padded floor as she shrieked. If she could just sit up, grab Andi again ... but the nails dancing on her feet stole every bit of strength remaining in her body. She had lost. Why wouldn't Andi stop? Stop ... "STOOOOOOOPPPP!" Elise screamed.
"What's that, Ellie? I can't hear you over all the noise in here." Andi's fingers curled around Elise's long toes, caressing the undersides. Elise threw her head back and yelled with laughter.
"I GIVE UPPPPPPPPHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YOU WIN!"
"I know that." Andi continued tickling Elise's feet, lightly scratching the tougher skin of the balls and heel and smiling at the convulsions that resulted. "But I'm not finished with these big tickly feet. Can they really be ticklish all over?"
Several of the worst minutes of Elise's life passed before Andi finally stood up, leaving Elise lying crimson-faced and shuddering, her leotard marked with huge sweat patches. Andi grinned down at her. "That was fun. Come on, let's go to the showers, and then you buy me lunch at Le Lion d'Or or I'll tell everyone how sensitive those feet of yours are."
"Go ... to ... hell," Elise croaked.
"Suit yourself." Andi shrugged. "Don't come whining to me when everyone on the floor decides to challenge you." She skipped off, while Elise covered her face and moaned.
High above, Mr. Preston snapped off the picture in his desk monitor, smiling to himself. The Brenner woman had spirit, if not sense. She could go far. Perhaps he ought to test her himself, start finding fault with her work ....
another one of those stories
IF YOU'RE UNDER 18, AMSCRAY. THAT'S "SCRAM," FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVEN'T STUDIED LATIN.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Preston. I just don't think this would be a good risk for us," Elise Brenner said firmly. "I've been looking over past sales campaigns, and -- "
"But this is completely _new_, Ellie! You can't predict how it will do from looking at what happened in the past." From her seat, Andi Mallory glared at Elise, while Mr. Preston leaned back behind his desk, listening to them with an expression of benevolent impartiality.
Elise glared back at Andi. Marketing types gave her enough of a pain as it was, and it didn't help that Andi was blond and petite enough to make tall, slender Elise feel like a lurching scarecrow. Plus she had a stupid name and kept calling her "Ellie." "Our current market strategy is still working well. Why should we change?"
"It's _stale_!" Andi bounced in her seat. "People are getting tired of it. Maybe you don't understand that, Ellie, being new here and all"--Elise gritted her teeth--"but we've been doing this advertising campaign for _eighteen months_. We should at least look into trying something new."
"Which means paying a couple million to consultants and ad agencies," Elise said. "I don't think -- "
"Ladies," Mr. Preston said, leaning forward, "you've been going back and forth over this for half an hour now. You've both made good points, but I can't say I'm convinced one way or the other. Why don't you take it down to the thirteenth floor?"
Elise frowned. "Um, Mr. Preston ... " The building didn't even have a thirteenth floor. Did it?
"Oh, that's right, Ms. Brenner -- you haven't been there yet, have you? I'm sure Ms. Mallory will be glad to explain it to you. Why don't you go now, and let me know how things come out?"
"Oh, _yes_!" Andi bounced right out of her chair, grinning from ear to ear. "C'mon, Ellie! Bye, Mr. Preston!"
Elise followed Andi to the elevator bank, shaking her head in puzzlement. "What is this all about? What's on the thirteenth floor -- Mr. Palmer himself?" she asked, referring to the legendary and never-seen founder of Palmer Industries.
Andi shook her head as they stepped into the elevator. She pressed the buttons for 12 and 14 simultaneously, then turned to Elise. "At Palmer Industries, we like to resolve conflicts quickly. You've worked at other companies, maybe you know what it's like -- backstabbing, arguing, yelling, sneaking around, all that office politics stuff. It's just a waste of the company's time and money."
"So what do we do, pistols at ten paces?"
"Close." The doors slid open, and the two women stepped out into a corridor with two doors, one marked with the male symbol and the other with the female. Elise followed Andi through the female door and found herself in a large locker room. "You've been through the interview process, right? Can't you guess?"
Elise thought back to her ticklish interview, goosebumps rising on her skin, and then
gasped. "You can't mean -- "
Andi grinned. "Yup. A tickle fight. First one to yell uncle gives in." She went to a rack along one of the walls, glanced back at Elise, began to rummage through the plastic-wrapped packages.
"No way." Elise folded her arms.
"Then I win by default -- and everyone will know you're a pushover." Andi handed Elise one of the packages she'd selected. "Or you can put this on and put your body where your mouth is."
Elise stared at the smaller woman. This couldn't be happening. But Andi seemed so matter-of-fact about it. And Elise didn't like the thought of giving up. Then a thought struck her: if Andi was working at Palmer, she must have gone through the interview process too ... which meant that she must be pretty ticklish herself. Maybe it wasn't as unfair as it seemed at first.
"Okay, you're on."
"Great, get changed. And get ready to yell for mercy." Andi skipped off. Elise, sighing, unwrapped her package and found a dark blue leotard and tights within. She undressed, hanging her clothes in the nearest locker, and pulled on the leotard and tights. The leotard was sleeveless and cut low on the sides and back, while the tights left her feet bare. Elise hadn't worn clothes like these since she was a little girl in ballet class. Grinning at the memory, she struck a shaky fifth position -- and yelped as fingers tickled under her upraised arms. Dropping her arms, she spun to face Andi.
The blonde was in pink, looking to Elise's jaundiced eye like an underdone sausage, and was smirking.
"Oh, I'm sorry ... did that tickle?"
Elise took a breath. "You just surprised me."
"Sure. Come on, let's find a room. Do you want to do this with restraints or free-for-all?"
"What's the difference?" Elise asked, following Andi toward the end of the room.
"With restraints, we take turns binding and tickling one another. That's what I do when I have to come here with some big, heavy guy like Karl in Administrative, otherwise he'd just sit on me and poke my ribs until I gave up. Free-for-all, we just go at it until someone surrenders. Just tickling, of course -- no kicking, punching, biting, or anything like that." They exited the locker room into a smaller room lined with numbered doors. Andi picked up a clipboard and studied it. Elise studied Andi. She didn't outweigh her by that much -- Andi was a little chubby, while Elise was slim -- but she definitely had a reach advantage. Why not work from that?
"Free-for-all."
"My favorite!" Andi scribbled something on the clipboard. "Room 5's open. Here, put your initials on this." Elise wrote where Andi pointed. "After you," Andi said, gesturing to the door marked 5.
Elise opened the door to see a small room, perhaps fifteen feet square, thickly padded on walls and floor. Light came from recessed fixtures protected by wire cages. Otherwise, the room was featureless. "So how do we -- " she began, and then Andi hit her. The smaller woman's arms wrapped around her waist, propelling her into the room and to the floor. The door swung closed soundlessly, but Elise didn't notice. All her attention was given to Andi's hands digging into her sides. She squealed and twisted, throwing the other woman off and rolling over -- but before she could pick herself up, Andi was on her again, tickling her ribs, the thin, stretchy fabric of the leotard no protection at all. Breathless with surprise, Elise gasped and giggled, grabbing at Andi's hands. Andi was too fast to be caught, though, darting from ribs to belly to waist so it felt as if Elise's entire midsection was being tortured at once. "Cheater!" she managed to get out between shrieks of laughter.
"What a wimp," Andi said, grinning. "I know you're new, Ellie, but I thought you'd give me more trouble than th -- aaah!" Getting smart, Elise had finally given up on intercepting Andi's hands and gone for a more stationary target: Andi's pink-clad tummy. What her attack lacked in precision it more than made up for in vehemence, and Elise was able to sit up, dumping Andi off once more. She tried to press her advantage, but Andi curled up and rolled away beyond Elise's reach, coming up in an almost martial crouch. Elise threw herself at Andi's ankles in an awkward tackle, missed, and landed facedown. Andi landed on her shoulders, seized one arm above the elbow, and yanked it up, her other hand crawling into the bare hollow of Elise's armpit and down her side. Elise screamed hysterically, her free arm flailing, trying to grab some piece of Andi. By some miracle, her hand clamped around one of Andi's ankles. Elise gave a jerk, and Andi went over backward as Elise lunged for the foot she held, determined not to lose her advantage this time.
Now it was Andi's turn to wriggle and yell helplessly. Her long blond hair swirled around her as she tossed her head wildly, parting for an instant now and then to reveal a glimpse of her laughing face, rapidly approaching the hot pink of her leotard. Elise's nails scrambled all over the sole of Andi's tiny foot, Elise feeling wicked glee at the torment she was inflicting on her rival. Andi's free foot kicked at Elise's hands frantically. Elise tried to grab it too, hoping to double the dose of torture, but succeeded only in losing her grasp on the foot she already held. Andi scrambled away, and Elise knew she should pursue, but she needed a breather. Rising up on her knees, she wiped her hands over her sweating face, watching Andi do the same a short distance away.
"Okay, Ellie -- you got lucky. It's not going to happen again." Andi stood, her hands clawed and flexing.
"Come and get it, honey." Elise would have been surprised at the tone of her voice normally, but now all she was thinking of was tickling Andi into a shuddering lump of flesh. She stood as well.
Andi charged, obviously hoping to get close before Elise could get a hold on her. She was too slow, though, and Elise's hands darted out to grab her ribs. Elise, acting on instinct, took a half-step to the side as the other woman's momentum whirled them around, and found herself standing behind a doubled-over Andi, mercilessly tickling her ribs. Andi squealed, hopping from one foot to another, grabbing at Elise's hands and trying to reach back to her, all without lessening the terrible tickling an iota. She took hold of Elise's wrists and tried to pull them off her body, but with her strength drained by constant laughter, she couldn't quite do it. "Gotcha," Elise giggled. "Don't give up too fast, because I owe you." She pressed down, trying to force the smaller woman to the floor, where she could pin her and tickle her at leisure.
Andi's legs were widely planted, too wide for Elise to push her over easily. Elise raised a foot to hook one of Andi's ankles, and at that moment Andi yanked forward on the wrists she held. Elise, off balance, toppled and crashed into Andi, the two of them going to the floor in a wild tangle of limbs. Hands found ticklish spots, and the room resounded to both Andi's high-pitched giggle and Elise's sharper yelps of laughter as both women bore down with no thought to protecting themselves. Elise was in agony; Andi's fingers were buried in a sensitive spot under her navel, and all her wriggling and squirming couldn't dislodge them. She could feel herself weakening, and her hands were tiring ... it was an effort to keep tickling Andi, although the other woman's touch on her was steady and relentless as a machine's. Andi was still laughing too, but her struggles seemed to be slacking off, as if Elise's tickling were no longer bothering her so much ....
Desperate, Elise let go and tried to writhe loose. It was a mistake. Andi pounced on her ankles like a blonde hawk, and Elise, breathless again, couldn't kick loose before the other woman got a firm grip. Andi sat on Elise's shins, and before Elise could do anything, both soles were being tormented by Andi's burgundy-red nails. Elise's feet were her absolute worst ticklish spot, and the ensuing scream let Andi know she had struck paydirt. Elise pulled at her legs with the strength of frenzy, but Andi, chubby Andi, was firmly planted where she was, fingers gliding up and down Elise's long, narrow, supersensitive arches.
Elise's fists pounded the padded floor as she shrieked. If she could just sit up, grab Andi again ... but the nails dancing on her feet stole every bit of strength remaining in her body. She had lost. Why wouldn't Andi stop? Stop ... "STOOOOOOOPPPP!" Elise screamed.
"What's that, Ellie? I can't hear you over all the noise in here." Andi's fingers curled around Elise's long toes, caressing the undersides. Elise threw her head back and yelled with laughter.
"I GIVE UPPPPPPPPHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YOU WIN!"
"I know that." Andi continued tickling Elise's feet, lightly scratching the tougher skin of the balls and heel and smiling at the convulsions that resulted. "But I'm not finished with these big tickly feet. Can they really be ticklish all over?"
Several of the worst minutes of Elise's life passed before Andi finally stood up, leaving Elise lying crimson-faced and shuddering, her leotard marked with huge sweat patches. Andi grinned down at her. "That was fun. Come on, let's go to the showers, and then you buy me lunch at Le Lion d'Or or I'll tell everyone how sensitive those feet of yours are."
"Go ... to ... hell," Elise croaked.
"Suit yourself." Andi shrugged. "Don't come whining to me when everyone on the floor decides to challenge you." She skipped off, while Elise covered her face and moaned.
High above, Mr. Preston snapped off the picture in his desk monitor, smiling to himself. The Brenner woman had spirit, if not sense. She could go far. Perhaps he ought to test her himself, start finding fault with her work ....
