Let me tell you about Kavey, my coworker. He’s the biggest pile of crap to land on this side of the West Coast since the literal shitstorm at some restaurant that made the news two years ago. We worked on a project together once where I literally said a sentence and he decided to fuck up the rest of my month by sending me long-winded emails about how my work ethic was lacking and how I should consider leaving the job, et fucking cetera.
In fact, he was the shitbag who decided to make us all have to download the SOFA program for mandatory training because Jim was three years older than the literal grave and didn’t know how to use Excel. He should’ve asked anyone but Kavey for help. But he didn’t, and we all had to do the program for three hours, every day for weeks straight, and that meant we had to do overtime to actually get some stuff done.
If I had to rank things in terms of being the least fucking monstrous, it would be Frankenstein Junior and then Kavey. Fuck him and his stupid program.
The reason this is relevant to literally anything is because in the ninth hour of being stuck in the godawful 4pm time loop while trying to not piss my pants every time Frankie Jr. looked my way, management decided to terrorize me with a newer version of SOFA. The last time I posted here, I left off with me getting the six-digit number right and seeing Mister Gator outside my cubicle–about 15 minutes later, I jumped out of my seat when my phone rang. Thankfully, I don’t think anything can hear what goes on in my cubicle through its boundaries, which is good.
I picked up the phone, and wished I hadn’t. A robotic voice greeted me by telling me I had an “urgent task to accomplish”, and gave me the rundown: when I would open my computer again, I would need to look at a downloaded program called TOFA, and do what it told me to do. Then I got the whole kind regards, management spiel, and heard the dial tone literally three seconds later.
When I opened the program, I realized it was literally SOFA 2.0 with a little difference; in SOFA, you have to watch about thirty-some videos about data and how to analyze it, and then you’d get a mini-quiz after each video. In TOFA, there were two ten-minute videos, and then a little mini-quiz at the end of both. I figured it had to have been easier than what I’d just done.
I was so wrong. The first video was just the AP Stats class I’d taken in high school dumbed down, and shortened by a lot with a huge focus on sequences, but the second video was where things…got off-theme.
It opened up with a movie-esque shot of a chicken, of all things. Then it zoomed out and the quality of it got grainier and grainier as it turned into one of those revolving PowerPoint presentation videos. There was that awful highlighted font again, talking about bird-men and giant jawbreakers and burrowing ants or something–I did actually try my hardest to pay attention, but it was the kind of ten minutes where zoning out becomes an automatic reaction.
After the video played, I clicked yes on the option box when it asked me if I was ready to take the mini-quiz. It said it was 4 questions long, and I was a bit relieved that there was no visible timer anywhere. I clicked start, and the first question popped up:
WHAT WAS YOUR GRANDMOTHER’S MIDDLE NAME?
Of course it wouldn’t have been a normal mini-quiz. There were no multiple choice options, but this was something I knew after I racked my head for a minute, so I had no trouble typing in Norma and then clicking enter.
Ding! The next question showed up.
WHAT MADE YOUR BROTHER DROWN YOUR FISH IN THE TOILET WHEN YOU WERE THREE?
That was actually news to me–I didn’t remember having any fish. In fact, I’d never had any pets growing up. Yeah, there would occasionally be the desire to have a golden retriever puppy to pet when I was, like, twelve, but as I grew up, I realized I was 1) irresponsible, and 2) a cat person. The question was creeping me the fuck out, and I was ready to to exit out of the TOFA software at that point, but there genuinely was not an option on the screen for that. My computer wouldn’t shut off and I wasn’t about to throw something at it to break it because God knows what else management had planned for me if I did.
But I didn’t know the answer to the question. I figured it was okay if I got this question “wrong”, because to pass the quiz, I only needed to get three questions right, and I was positive the first one was correct.
So I typed in idk and hit enter.
I don’t know how to describe what happened to me in the split second after I did that–it was like an electric shock passing through my body from head to toe, but everything hurt at the same time. I probably screeched at a note high enough to break the Plexiglass. After a few moments, the shock stopped, but the pain remained. Even as I’m typing this now, the tips of my fingers ache like crazy. I don’t know how long it was until my vision cleared and I was able to squint at the screen to see the next question.
OUT OF THE FOUR SPECIES INTRODUCED TO YOU IN THE SECOND VIDEO, WHICH ONE SEEMS THE LEAST DANGEROUS?
At this point in time, I was biting my nails and overthinking. It seemed like the kind of question where the answer was subjective and based on my opinion, but that could be a trick too, and I didn’t think I would survive another shock. I must’ve spent a good half hour thinking about it and genuinely considering drawing a T-chart. But I didn’t draw it, because then I would’ve ended up being like Kavey and that was just against my principles. Fuck T-charts.
I figured, in the end, that it had to be a subjective opinion. I typed in the only species name I remembered–bird-men, and didn’t get shocked, which was great. Then I saw the fourth question and I knew I would get shocked, which was not so great. Also, if I didn’t get shocked, I would probably die regardless, either from a heart attack or from … well, non natural causes, because this was the question:
OUT OF THE THREE MONSTERS CURRENTLY AROUND YOU, WHICH ONE WOULD YOU PREFER TO BE KILLED BY?
When I saw that, I didn’t give a shit about noise levels. I screeched so loud I wish I’d broken the plexiglass. I only knew of the weird gator mish-mash-man walking around outside my cubicle, and that it had killed the custodian. The idea that there were two more of those, possibly, had me thinking I was having a heart attack.
I jumped under my desk and I sat there, holding my head in my hands and sweating like crazy. I didn’t know how long I sat there, wondering what my death was going to look like. Would I be ripped to shreds? Would something intangible come and suffocate me slowly while I didn’t know where to look? Was I really going to die like this?
Eventually, my hands stopped shaking. It’s honestly more sad than scary, to debate how you’d die and then actually have to tell someone else it. I figured I’d go out fighting something I knew about and could see, rather than some weird ghost.
My heart dropped to my stomach as I typed in Frankie Jr. and hit enter. I didn’t really care about getting shocked now. Well, obviously, I did, but I think I would rather have a shock give me a heart attack and kill me rather than any of the other options.
I sat down on the chair and almost started biting my nails again as the loading wheel icon popped up, processing my answer. Luckily, I’m here, typing this, so you can guess what happened–I don’t know if this was a miracle or management’s fault, but the fucking computer dinged and the screen turned black. I don’t know if it exited the program or not–I haven’t touched it for like, a day. I’m too scared shitless.
(Also, I’ve updated my list of Things Ranked In Order Of Monstrosity: it’s now Kavey, Frankie Jr., and management. You know, prioritizing things like a normal person.)
Like I said, I haven’t touched my computer since. I haven’t even been sitting on my chair–now that I know there’s three fucking things around me, and I can only see one, I’ve kind of revamped my cubicle. I wasn’t able to pull the desk out because it’s either bolted to the floor or weighs three hundred kilograms, plus the only thing I’ve had to eat for like 36 hours has been two of those weird nutty candy bars I found in my desk that were a welcome gift for me a month ago. Instead, I’ve built a kind of wall around myself–I’m hiding under the desk again, it’s incredibly cramped but my back will thank me if I live. The wall is basically my chair and a bunch of binders and one filing cabinet all stacked and interlocked with each other.
It’s incredibly inefficient, but I think it just gives me some mental relief. Which is great and something I need a lot more of, considering management found a way to text me a minute ago as I was typing this. I know I have to look at their message now, and I’m hoping that it leads me to find a way out of here–I just hope I don’t get, you know, hunted down before then.