The Office Part 1

This is a new story idea I'm playing around with. I was thinking about continuing the story, if people like it, or maybe even continuing it as a comic. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

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It was Dave’s first day at work, so of course he was running late. He thought he’d left plenty early, but San Francisco Traffic had a way of defying expectations. Not the best way to make a first impression, thought Dave. Late on the first day, not very professional at all. It would be one thing as an entry-level employee, but as a manager…

The building didn’t look like much, but a small, dingy sign said it was the right place. “Rutherford.” It was an older brick building, tucked away in an odd backstreet near Chinatown. The place was in bad shape, and looked almost abandoned. But at least it had free parking. Dave parked his car and hurried to the building’s entrance. Two men were waiting for him, a handsome, gray-haired man in a business suit. A suit that, Dave noted, was far nicer than his own.

The older man greeted him cheerfully. “You must be Dave, the new Employee Relations Specialist. My name is Charles Rutherford, and I’m the president of Rutherford Incorporated. I spoke with you during the phone interview. This is Brent Hazelwood, another new hire. We’ve been hiring a lot of new people lately. There’s been a lot of turnover, a lot of people leaving the company, typical business stuff.  Now we’re already running a bit late, so let’s not waste any more time, shall we?”

Charles started towards the entrance, and Dave followed. Dave tried to apologize, but Charles didn’t let him get a word in edgewise. “Now Rutherford Corporation has been a family-owned company for nearly 200 years. We started out as a whale oil business, but of course we stopped doing that a long time ago. Whale oil stopped being profitable in the ‘80s, thanks to those tree-huggers at Greenpeace. But luckily, just as whale oil was going out, fish oil was coming in! So now we sell fish oil, to the same Greenies that almost put us out of business.

‘It’s been rough-going these last few years, though. There was a bit of a scare, a while back. It turned out that about 67% of the fish oil actually consisted of dolphins. I said, ‘Great! Dolphin is brain food!’ But PETA didn’t see it the same way, and since then it’s been lawsuit this and boycott that…”

An attractive young secretary came rushing towards them. Dave was already fond of her. She was a cute  little thing, short and thin, with a slender face and a nose that curved out to an adorable point at the tip,. She wore a simple black skirt, clean and professional, with matching pumps. Her skin was a light brown, like coffee with just a bit of milk swirled in.

“Charles, Sir? Clair would like to have a word with you. She said she wants to speak with you later, once you’re done showing the new employee around. It… sounded important.”

“She does… I mean, sure thing! Now get on back to work, Aisha, will you?” With that, Charles lightly spanked her butt. What kind of a business is this?

“Sir, I don’t believe that’s considered appropriate behavior in the workplace.”

“Oh, Aisha, you and I know it’s all in good fun. Now carry those tight little buns out of here before I spank them again.”

Aisha gave him the eye, then quickly hurried inside.

“You’ve got to watch out for that one, she’s a bit of a firecracker. I haven’t tamed that stallion just yet, but one of these days... Then again, maybe I’m getting too old for that business. Anyway… On with the tour. So Rutherford used to be located in a huge office suite on Broadway. But after the budget woes, we had to move into a more… modestly priced building. This place doesn’t look like much, but it’s grown on me. These old buildings are charming, even if they have their quirks now and again. And the Chinese food around here is a hell of a lot better than the shit they serve on Broadway! Although I do miss being a block away from the strip clubs.

They made their way to the entrance, and Charles opened the door. ‘Now watch your head.  These doorways were built by Chinamen, for Chinamen, so they aren’t exactly fit for a giant.” Chinamen? Did his boss just use the word Chinamen in a sentence? Twice? Dave wondered what he was getting into, as he made his way through the doorway. And that’s when Dave’s world went black, if only for an instant.

Dave opened his eyes. He was looking up at the ceiling. It took him a moment to realize the doorframe he had been walking under, the doorframe that seemed so high up. Had he really hit his head so hard on the doorframe that he fell down?  Except, no, he was still standing up. It took him a moment to make sense of what he was seeing. The doorframe, that tiny doorframe he could barely fit through a minute earlier, now seemed as high as a skyscraper. The interior of the dinky office building was like the inside of an aircraft hangar.

Dave jolted in terror as Charles came up behind him, setting a hand on Dave’s shoulder. “So, this is the office… Dave? You alright? Oh, right, that. The size thing. You know, I don’t even notice it anymore. That’s the thing about these old buildings, they always have their little quirks…”

Dave wasn’t listening. He was still taking in the scene around him. What was this place? How could they do this? All around were little people going about their business, acting as if everything was perfectly normal. Little people, little men. It dawned upon Dave that they were all men, as if that were somehow the strangest thing about the situation. But then he realized: what about Aisha?

A huge object crashed to the ground, landing just in front of them. Dave nearly lost his footing, and Charles stumbled into the object. It was a huge, black, monolithic object, as big and long as a city bus. And it was in the shape of a high heel. A high heel attached, Dave realized, that was attached to a foot, which was attached to a leg, which was attached to an… Aisha.

“Going somewhere, Charles?” The booming voice was unmistakably Aisha’s. Dave looked up, up, up, until he was craning his neck back as far as he could. Her body seemed to stretch on forever. If it wasn’t for the tiled ceiling above her, Dave would have thought she reached well into the sky.

Aisha bent down to see him, a stern expression on her face. “Charles? What you did earlier was sexual harassment, and I’d appreciate it if you could refrain from sexual harassment in the future.”

“Oh Aisha, you know I’m just joking around with you…”

She picked him up by the back of his jacket. Slowly, she stood up, dangling him in front of her face.

“You were ‘joking?’ Well let me tell you, I wasn’t joking when I told you six months ago that your advances made me uncomfortable. I wasn’t joking last week when I threatened to sue you for sexual harassment. And I’m not joking right now when I say that if you ever slap my ass again, I’m going to have an ‘accident.’ The kind that ends with you as a stain on the floor. You understand?”

“Of course, honey.”

“What’s my name?”

“Aisha. Of course Aisha.”

She set him back down. “I hope you’re serious this time, for my sake. I bet it’s a pain, having to clean boss off your heels…” With that, she walked away, the floor shaking with her every step.

“Ha! She likes to play hard to get. We’ve been through this before. But sooner or later, she’ll give into my charms. They always do. Umm, anyway, the tour. So, as you can see, this office has a bit of a shrinking problem. It only happens to men, for some reason. We’re still not really sure why. Some kind of polar vortex, voodoo curse, Indian burial ground… who knows. Honestly, I don’t know and I don’t care. All that matters to me is that we get an amazing deal on this place, and I don’t want OSHA shutting it down. So we keep all this hush-hush, got it?”

“I think I should go now... I’ll go back to normal if I leave, right?”

“Oh, come on, give this place a chance, it grows on you. Let me at least finish the tour.”

“No way am I staying here.” With that Dave turned around, and quickly made his way to the door. Even as small as he was, it wasn’t too far.

“Fine, Dave, but good luck getting out on your own…”

As Dave got closer, he realized what Charles meant. To get up, he would have to climb a step. It wasn’t even a full-size step, it was just a few inches high. But as Dave got closer to the doorway, he realized just how small he was. Even if he jumped, that four-inch step was just barely too high for him to reach. And even if he managed to get up, he’d somehow have to open the door. At his size, that was just about impossible…

Dave felt the ground shaking, and he suddenly realized how dangerous it was to be standing right next to the doorway. But before he could run, the he door flew open. Dave looked up, just in time to see a gigantic heel about to come down on him.