5.

  "Like the QUEEN THE QUEEN?" Bill interjected. His phone was no longer in his hands as this topic had his full excitement. Violence and royalty, they always seem to gain the attention of the deficient.

  "I guess?" Ryan said. Looking around the text, rereading all around the section, trying to comprehend how the holy document of FFI could have this vague description for an act of restitution for an employee who committed violence. Ryan read and read again.

  "This must surely be some kind of joke……Right?" Kevin found himself standing over Ryan now, asking to sit next him while the man of HR was reading through again and again, hoping a thirtieth reading of the text would provide illumination currently left in darkness for Mr. Willard. Yet, no further revelation descended from on high unto the mind of the handler of the sacred policy manual of Fuchsia Frontiers International. "Slay queen, isn't a thing. It’s a dumb phrase internet people say at each to support foolish actions between each other." Kevin's eyes grew seven sizes as he tried to wrap his mind upon the fragmented idea placed between him and a solid footing for his future. He was Ishmael, upon the flotsam of his own Ahab's wrath and fury, yearning and extending his hand for salvation from a foreign vessel approaching his ragged and worn form, and hearing rather than words of safety all he heard was the gibberish tongue of "Slay Queen."

  "Kevin…." Ryan dropped the need to last-name the prey of his office, he looked into the eyes of the sweating and confused manager with equal confusion and surprise. This was the policy manual, the holy document of affairs and ethics, the standards and practices Bible of FFI, a document 940 pages thick. This document alone was the very thing that gave the role of Ryan Willard structure to his depressing life. How could it now, in this unique and strange hour not provide clearly defined guidance? This was wrong, this cannot be.

  "I need to call the CFO." Ryan spoke, slapping his hands on the top of the binder holding the massive collection of pages. He didn't know what else to do, he needed to ask a person higher up in the food chain of FFI. Kevin as Ryan rose to his feet and went over to his desk and started looking through his in house company directory took the book, the holy book of FFI and started reading the page himself and sure enough the phrase "Slay Queen" was the only words available in the section listing his ways to keep his job after his actions. This couldn't be, he had just finally gotten a long awaited pay raise. Kevin could not let this accident ruin his life.

  "CFO Yuri Stein's office," a voice calls out on the speaker of the office phone.

  "Hi there, Ryan Willard, Human Resources. I know this might be a bad time but we need to speak to CFO Stein immediately, we have an issue regarding the policy manual and how to implement the writing inside."

  "Is this really of pressing concern Mr. Willard?" Ryan could tell the secretary was well trained to push away random requests for Stein's time. Surely the man is a very busy person.

  "Yes! It is important, if we don't get clarification we may have to fire someone or an employee to keep his job incorrectly and thus open ourselves to a massive lawsuit."

  "Let me check with him then." The woman on the other end got up from the desk, the sound of her feet tapping on the floor below her feet echo into the receiver and out of the speaker on the other side with Ryan, a smiling Bill, and a sweating Kevin, his shirt fully drenched in the pits as he senses the growing magnitude of the situation. "Mr. Stein, there is an urgent request for you regarding policy." Another voice can be heard in the receiver, masculine, calm, but agitated with being disturbed from whatever is going on in his office. "Uh-HUH. Uh-Huh. Yes Sir." The words of the secretary despite her being far from the desk are the only ones spoken clear enough to be fully understood. Tap. Tap Tap. Her feet patter on the floor of her office as she returns to her desk. "I'm gonna patch you through hon."

  "WHAT DO YOU HR NUTJOBS WANT TODAY? WE GAVE YOU CASUAL FRIDAY AND YOU ALREADY BOTHERED ME TO REMOVE IT!" Ryan shied away from the phone, knowing that it was him who both put in the request to start the relaxed dress day, and then decided to take it away after all the complaining or 'girl-talk' he was privy to after each eventful day of dress. "ARE YOU STILL THERE?" The voice sounded as Ryan signaled for the policy manual to be returned to him for this conversation. "DAMNIT YOU! I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF A FOOT PROCEDURE TO ADJUST A BUNION AND NOW I HAVE TO DEAL WITH YOUR MEALY-MOUTHED TIME WAISTING BOLOGNA!"

  "Uhhh, Sorry Sir, I just needed to get notes." Ryan was more nervous than Kevin had ever seen him; somehow seeing the man that had been persecuting him for the last series of time on the defense himself calmed the spirit of the middle manager. "Right, so we have an employee that has committed office violence upon another staff member, a direct report actually…" Stein grunted, showcasing that he disliked the call already, but also that the topic of office violence annoyed him as well. Or was it the podiatrist in his office addressing the bunion?

  "Is there a solution in the wonderful policy manual or not? In all matters we follow the policy manual." Stein spoke with less aggression now, giving clearer direction absent knowledge of the contents of the issue.

  "Yes, there is in a way, I guess." Ryan replied with great uncertainty in his voice.

  "You GUESS?" Stein was not appeased. "NOW LISTEN HERE MISTER. That policy manual cost us thousands and thousands in research and editing and legal fees to compile, it is the perfect rule book for how we operate as a company. So we WILL follow it always! Do you understand?"

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Yes, sir, but what is the instructions are unclear?"

  "UNCLEAR? Mr. HR person, are you a literate man?"

  "What?"

  "Can you READ? Or are you another chimpanzee that snuck out of the zoo and onto our payroll?" Stein was not being racist or hyperbolic….this…. somehow happened a few years back. Dexter, a four year old chimpanzee from the Lexington Zoo got really bored and snuck out of his enclosure during a cage cleaning. On his adventure he found his way to the Fuchsia Frontiers campus, and ended up inside the facility in the tech support department. The staff leader at the time thought it was funny seeing a monkey in the office and decided to fraudulently….as a prank fill out employment forms and put the chimpanzee on payroll for the company, as a senior call specialist, a job that received compensation of $18.50 an hour back when the employment was filed…..Dexter remained on staff, actually receiving phone calls for tech support after being giving a headset and a desk for a full two weeks. Until other coworkers in the department, a department notorious for not actually coming into work and having their office phones routed to their cell phones, came in for a bi-monthly workplace audit and found all their desks in disarray with the department head laughing at the all the chaos caused by the chimpanzee. Somehow also customer satisfaction from the calls taken by Dexter was 14% higher than normal…apparently the customers felt more confident interacting and troubleshooting the issues when they were being scream at by chimpanzee.

  One of the employees remembered a news report of a missing monkey from the zoo and the return was arranged for Dexter…who merely laughed and acted as though the two weeks of flinging feces around the office desks was a grand ol' vacation for him. The Zoo then demanded that Dexter's accumulated pay be donated to the Zoo. After a long legal battle and negotiation. The employee in charge of the department was allowed to pursue financial opportunities elsewhere, and the salary of what Dexter would have earned in a year was pledged to the zoo every year for the life of the chimp. In fact the incident, which took place in 2016 was the reason why the policy manual was forcibly created.

  So when CFO Stein, who at that time was Senior Accounting Advisor Stein, asked if Ryan was another chimp, there was a clear reason to ask this question. "DAMMIT ARE YOU A MAN OR ANOTHR CHIMPANZEE? CAN YOU READ?"

  "Yes sir, I can read."

  "Good! Then follow the policy manual and if it requires this employee of ours to be waxed then wax him good." Kevin stomped his foot in frustration, he knew c-suite talk, and could tell this Stein was in no way going to listen to the actual issue and give clear advise.

  "But sir, I don’t understand the policy manual's instructions for this particular scenario."

  "I swear….are we just hiring ignoramuses these days?" Stein mumbled to himself.

  POP!

  A scream followed by an immense sigh and deep breathing pounded through the speaker. The podiatrist had used the distraction of the call to snap the bunion and reset the toes to proper location. The attitude of Stein changed from confrontational, to soothed, like a pacified lion after having the thorn removed from his paw. "That…..feels…..better." Stein spoke. With heavy breathes between words. The sound of a high five was heard through the speaker as Stein applauded the effort of the doctor in his office.

  "Sir...." Ryan remained on the line, shrugging his shoulders to both Bill and Kevin. None of the three in the room understood anything going on right then.

  "Okay….listen here…maybe I am being too hard on you HR Man Person….." Stein spoke as though he had just taken four painkillers, all of which activated at that exact moment. His voice no longer had an edge but seemed to be that of a younger and more lackadaisical, free-floating kind of man. "Many of those pages can be difficult to comprehend, so just set up a meeting with a representative from the legal department."

  "But what about the employee in question, sir?" Ryan looked at Kevin and signaled that Kevin needed to change his shirt due and get a better deodorant. Ryan then reached into his desk drawer and tossed Kevin a used deodorant stick. Kevin smiled as Stein prepared to reply and simply put the stick back on Ryan's desk, out of the way.

  "Well…until the meeting can be arranged to figure things out. Send him home on probation, with pay, docking him vacation days for each day he must wait before the legal meeting." Ryan scribbled the notes on how to proceed. He thanked Stein for his help in this scenario and the call was quickly ended as Stein had a tee time at the local country club in thirty minutes.

  This was how Kevin got the opportunity to have the next four business days off of work. Which worked out very well for him, because the main elevator to the floors of the general staff was taped off an out of commission as Kevin moved to leave for the day, having heard the arrangement for the meeting on the following Tuesday the 14th of June.

  "Yo Kev-dog, did you hear the news?" Bill spoke as he slapped Kevin on the shoulder as he silently was walking toward the stairwell.

  "Yeah…that I am out four vacation days at the least."

  "No bro. I am talking about the elevator." Kevin looked over at the yellow tape around the elevator. He really hadn't noticed other than the tape, his mind adrift with his current predicament, his employment uncertain and his only clue to keeping his job being the words 'Slay Queen.' These things made the elevator not being in use, a minor note in his brain. "Dude, apparently someone threw mustard gas in there."

  "Mustard gas?" Kevin stood up straight and turned fully toward the elevator just as a man in a hazmat suit appeared near the doorway.

  "Yeah, a couple of the peeps from R&D hopped into the elevator about an hour ago, and started choking. Two of them passed out and all of them experienced a sudden urge to purge their entire lunches." Kevin couldn't help but take a deep whiff and caught a wandering smidge of the foul odor that floated from the elevator area.

  "So it seems the elevator is shut down to be professionally scrubbed over the next few days, and security is going to be working with the FBI to figure out who the terrorist was." Bill then paused for a moment and began tapping his chin with his fingers. "Or maybe it was the ATF….I don't really remember what they told me a minute ago, I was too busy laughing at the mess I saw. Anyway I think it’s the department that shoots dogs, that’s the one they're bringing in." Bill began looking around the floor, trying to figure out if he could figure out any clues to the wicked chemist preying upon simple office workers. "Maybe we saw the madman….I mean when did we arrive on this floor Kev-bro?"

  GULP!

  "About an hour ago…." Kevin began pacing toward the stairwell, not letting Bill keep him from his unscheduled vacation any longer….

  "Note to self….no more chorizo breakfast tacos when under extreme stress."