Stall Talk

 "I went to the bathroom at the little one's school the other day," Carl Finklebakker, President of Wooden Pallet and Shipping Enterprises, said to an auditorium full of all, every single one of WP&S Enterprises' employees.

"There was a paper printed in the bathroom, this was in one of the teachers' restrooms, not the children's because of rules and such," he continued, "and so I couldn't help but to read this sign, flyer, what have you -- call it what you like, it said the following, well rather first, let me describe the image associated with it because the whole experience was rather very profound for me, the image was of Elmo, the furry red puppet from Sesame Street, and he, she, whatever Elmo is, Elmo was sitting on a hopper, struggling it seemed to have a bowel movement. And the text on the sign said, 'Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, so that's why I poop on the Company's time.'"

Carl paused. He observed some employees squirming uncomfortably in their chairs, which confirmed his suspicion that a similar, if not wholly identical sign likely existed in one or perhaps several of the employee restrooms in the main cafeteria.

"This struck me as rather significant for three reasons. One, it implies that there is something human, relatable or common with the notion that defecation, the orderly emptying of bowels consumes such a sizable quantity of time that it interferes with the rest of daily life. It's nothing short of astounding to me, to be frank about it, that a person's daily constitutional could possibly necessitate more than half a minute, two minutes at the extreme most. What is everybody eating that is causing them to get so gummed up, I wondered."

It's necessary here, at this point, to be able to glean a bit of what the WP&S Enterprises employees were truly feeling and thinking at the moment. Carl Finklebakker was ninety-two and half years old. He had started celebrating his half birthdays at the request of a great-grandchild (the aforementioned "little one) who was concerned that he might die before she was old enough to drink the eggnog at his party. Three-year-old's have a firm grasp on the notions surrounding relativity and time, but less of an understanding regarding reality and its effect on days and so forth.

So here was ninety-two and half years old, President Carl Finklebakker, standing up at the podium, addressing every single employee from CEO to hourly-paid window cleaners, dressed in his usual: tweed sports coat over top one of the several dozen "World's Best Grandpop" (and derivatives such as: Grandpa,Granddad, etc.) t-shirts which he owned, a pair of ankle-cuffed sweatpants with complete disregard to matching the color of the tweed coat, and special wide-toe-box sneakers, because he had no truck with the concept of jamming one's feet into a triangle. "Hooves," he would say, "were for the Devil and things which we eat, not at all for human feet." And he would say it proudly because he was quite fond of the little rhyme he had invented.

Now we return to the story, to Carl Finklebakker, President of WP&S Enterprises, talking to all of his employees about poop, with all the seriousness that he would normally use to discuss quarterly profits or the difference between tomato ketchup from when he was a boy and the sugary garbage getting passed off today.

"I'll tell you all what I eat, not that I'm telling you all what to eat, but every weekday morning for seventy-eight years, I've had a bowl of plain oatmeal, nothing in it except ginger and cinnamon, for breakfast with ten blueberries, twelve if they're small on the side. Only one-third cup of oats, not the full half-cup that the box tells ya. With a measured cup of milk kefir and sixteen ounces of hot green tea, no sweetener. Every morning. It's a routine. Then I exercise. Then I relieve myself, wind my watch to it. Forty-five seconds on average, with nothing to wipe. Figured all this time it was the same for everybody. Then I saw that sign in the bathroom. Who knew? Not me. The body needs routine. And it needs the right food."

He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of a large screen displaying some slides that an unlucky intern had been given the responsibility to make based on an index card which had said, or more so suggested, in looping swirls of graphite that were more flourish than letter, that the presentation topics would be: healthy bowel function and economics. President Finklebakker had also said to include the photo of man named "Grindle or something of the sort" who was an expert in the field of the human intestinal microbiome.  

"This man," Carl continued, then glanced at the screen, "no, no, next, move it along there." He rolled his hand in the air until a photo appeared on the screen, "Nope, not that one, next." The slide deck flicked to the end, and the unfortunate intern wondered what had been the purpose of researching the correlations between poop and money and trying to make sensical charts and graphs out of the information.

"Huh, well, so much for that. There's a man, his name is Greggors or Granstone, he is a doctor, the medical kind, not this PhD kind that talk all the time about problems they've invented to get paid to solve 'em. This man has spent his life studying the efficient movement of the digestive system. Who knew such a character existed? Takes all kinds, doesn't it."

"Well, he'll be coming here. Mandatory presentation, all of you must attend, there will be multiple dates to choose from. He'll be discussing a thing called a lectin. Gums up the body. He'll be speaking about it, and then we'll have a company challenge, ninety days. The cafeteria will be providing lectin-free and low-lectin meals, if you eat one every weekday for the three months and complete the pre and post surveys for the doctor's research, then you'll receive a two-thousand dollar bonus at the end of the fiscal year, a nice bump to take with you into the summer months for vacation."

The WP&S Enterprise employees stared at their president. This was a man who called the current CEO, Tom Kolbernhoffer, arguably his right-hand man, "Pete." He had been calling him "Pete" for twenty-three years, and had called the CEO before Tom, "Pete" for twenty-seven years, because the original CEO that Carl had hired, and who had only stayed with the company for two years, had been named, Petrov Malskovic. And now, President Finklebakker was hiring a special doctor and supplying special food to help reduce employee constipation. He would retire (or perhaps die, if such a thing was even possible) before learning any of their names, that much was certain, but it was possible that he would know -- for reasons none of the employees could, would or wanted to fathom -- all about their individual bathroom habits.

"So," Carl went on, "the goal is that within three months or so's time, you'll all be right as rain when it comes to cleaning out the sewer pipes. Something you can set your watches to, that's the goal here." He waved his hand at the black, slideless screen, oblivious to the fact that he was living in an era where no one owned a watch, let alone had a need to set it, because their phones managed time for them. 

 

"But remember, I'd said there were three pieces that stuck out to me about that sign in the bathroom, it's about time we get on with the other two."

The employees tried to vaguely recall the beginning of the speech. Had there been something about a puppet? In a bathroom? The president had had the shit scared out of him in the bathroom by a puppet -- that had been it, right?

"Number two," he said, with no sense of the pun, "is the part about the Boss making a dollar and the employee making a dime. That's a big discrepancy, common enough in place these days, but when I started at this company, at fourteen, during the big GD, nothin' like the little one we've been mucking about and denying since '08, such a difference wasn't dreamed of. Ten times! Ten times more than the employee -- what a sinful, despicable thing we would have said, shame on him that Boss, we would have said. But not today. Today, people think a ten times difference is reasonable, people except for the employees, apparently."

At this point, the Board of Directors, Tom the CEO and other financially-involved members of the upper administration were becoming a bit concerned. They all had assumed that the emergency meeting was being called to announce President Finklebakker's "early" retirement due to some rapidly-debilitating, end-stage pancreatic cancer. 

But it had been wistfully naive thinking. The man had only lost a single inch from his impressive six-foot-four, ramrod straight stature, which he had miraculously crammed into a fighter jet cockpit during WWII. At the company picnic, which he had attended sans-shirt, sporting instead an "I Heart Gramps" baseball camp, beneath the wiry silver hair covering his torso, they all had seen the Rocky Mountain abdomen the nonagenarian possessed, along with the scar from a bullet wound that had punctured his lung and caused him to crash-land his plane, dislocating his hip, in the ocean and swim five miles to shore. He had survived on the island for three weeks before being rescued. The harsh reality was that cancer was afraid of battling Carl Finklebakker. 

"The truth is," Carl rattled on, "I make about twenty-five or so more times, maybe fifty in some cases, depending on the year, more than the average employee working here."

While the majority of employees struggled with a series of emotions ranging from shock to anger, and even mild appreciation for the honest disclosure, the "financially-involved" constituents felt their blood pressure rising to dangerous levels.

"And that sort of thing, it needs to end. Enough of that."

 

He spat on the polished stage and ground his foot in it like it was a dirt floor.

 

"Having people upset and feelin' bad that they are making a pittance, but who knew? I never thought anyone was feeling bad. You all hustle about, seemed like peaches and cream to me. Average worker here, makes the same as a teacher. About fifty-thousand or so dollars per year. Folks, back during my time, would have thought they were dreaming to make half that kind of money. But I hadn't really taken a look at inflation, cost of living, the economics of it all these days."

Of course he hadn't. He had built his house by hand. Still rode his bicycle to work, cut his own hair, grew his own fruits and vegetables, and only owned one 4-inch screen black-and-white TV, for watching "PBS programmes." What on Earth did the man actually need any money for? It was quite possible, the employees' minds, that Carl Finklebakker had not purchased a single product other than bicycle tires and the occasional bag of dirt for the past thirty years.

"You see, in 1960, we paid our average employee nine thousand dollars per year. Nine thousand and that was good money, then. A house cost around twelve thousand. Average-size, family home, three bedrooms, two bathrooms or so, nice yard for a garden, that kind of setup. Today though, it's nothing short of criminal, when you do the numbers. Fifty-thousand a year trying to afford a home, same size as before, for TWO-HUNDRED-FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. That's not right. Plain as the sun is yellow, not right."

The employees were trying to connect a public discussion about defecation with a financial inequity crisis. It was hard to do. The reliance on a puppet as the connecting thread was overly tasking for their brains. Members of the upper administration on the other hand were struggling to maintain consciousness. Many of them were feeling faint, there was an increasing tightness in some of their chests.

"So you can all see of course, how this is connected to my third and final point, about the Company time bit."

No, no they really could not see. Not the employees. Not the upper administration. None of them, no one at all could see now, let alone would have predicted ages ago when the speech had begun, where this Wonderland-twisting discussion was headed. 

"Your time is valuable. And some of you are working fifty, sixty, seventy hours, and even some of the uppity-ups," he pointed to the light-headed front row, "eighty hours thinking it will help them step into my shoes, and that doesn't seem right, all those hours and no time for family, for fun, for life."

 

He waved his hand again at the empty screen. The intern was feeling viscerally sick with embarrassment.

"How do you all get along living these days? Stress. And that doctor, Dr. Gristmill or wossname, he says stress plugs up the system. That's no good. We can't have you feelin' you don't have time enough in your day to pass your bowels. All worked up because there aren't enough hours in the day nor enough money in your pockets to handle expenses."

"Think about those numbers like I said, nine thousand dollars pay, twelve thousand dollars house. Today, if an average size home costs around two-hundred-fifty thousand dollars, that means your pay for the average employee ought to be one-hundred-eighty thousand dollars per year. That's what's fair, it is. Right as the sun is yellow. And you can't be working extra hours for it. Forty hours is plenty. More'n enough if you ask me. Too many kids without a parent at home to look after them, too many people paying someone else to cook their meals, and mow their lawns and those sorts of things."

The accountants were thinking about the numbers. Huge, enormous numbers were racing like cheetahs through their minds performing algebraic gymnastics and crunching themselves up into numbers that heretofore the accountants never expected to see in their entire lives. Certainly never on a company spreadsheet that they would be responsible for balancing.

"These days, I'm up in years now. I work about five or ten hours per week. My base salary, base, before bonuses or whatnot from good year-end profits is one-point-two million, but usually, closer to between ten or twenty million, we'll say fifteen million when all is said and done. For about seven hours of work weekly. And the same goes for the rest 'em." 

He pointed once more to the front row. It was incredibly difficult for the "uppity-ups" to remember much of what was said after that uncomfortably transparent disclosure. Some were slumped forward. Others were ghastly-pale, and some found their pipes were working in reverse, breakfast rushing up through their esophagus to come out.

"Not fair. Not right, not if you all can't afford a decent home to live in and good food that doesn't plug you up. That's another bit the doctor, Grishmall says all the fertilizers to make your foods are making you sick. Organics cost a boatload but they keep you healthy. Well, that's all we'll be serving from here on out in the cafeteria. Goes in easy, comes out smooth."

 

He jutted a thumb in the direction of the blank presentation screen. What could he have possibly wanted up there, the intern wondered.

 "Well," Carl cleared his throat, "I've been doing quite a bit of talking. The upshot of all this is, effective July 1: anyone making between average, plus or minus ten percent, will be getting ninety thousand, and you'll only be working twenty-five hours per week, full pay, full benefits, full vacation and retirement, so on and so forth, just less hours. Now, everyone making between that and ninety will get bumped to ninety. I know," he said, holding up a hand, "not quite right because that means someone working longer or more senior will be making the same as a greenhorn, but it'll all be alright because we're doing best we can to make things better than they are. Raises will always be at minimum the cost of living, but then it'll be up to supervisors, based on merit and the rest, please yourselves, to determine up to ten percent raises annually or bonuses such like as it goes. We can't get you all up to one-eighty, that's the God's honest truth, I wish we could, but we can't, so that's why the less hours, so it balances."

The accountants were sweating now. July was three-and-half months away, there were no magic-budget laws they could exploit in so short a span of time to declare anything other than wildfire red on the books.

"Now, folks between ninety and one-eighty, you'll stay where you're at, same rules apply about the raises and such and so forth, including the reduced hours. For the folks making less than average, I've got an old slide rule, from back when I was a bean counter, and so long as you're making salary, then same rules regarding time and benefits, but as for pay, we'll be getting you up to the current average plus or minus some percents. We're trying to be as right as possible, might not feel fair, certainly won't be equal. There'll be kinks to work out along the way, but anyone making less than ninety thousand will be getting some sort of raise, no one, no matter how much they are making will be working more than twenty-five hours, some though might be working less but without harm to their wallets or benefits et cetera. Folks making hourly, we're bumping you all up to twenty-dollars an hour, and we can discuss some of the other particulars later, much more case by case in that realm."

The question, at this point, on the minds of everyone who was still conscious, was "where's the money coming from?!"

"I can see your faces," Carl said. "I'm no fool, haven't lost my marbles. Money is coming out of my pocket, out of the uppity-ups' pockets, out of company spending on luxuries, fancy retreats for the elite, fancy pickle ball courts for no one whoever uses 'em, and it'll mean that we won't be reporting increased profits on the stock exchange anymore. Stable profits, occasionally maybe only break even. No more of this stress about increasing sales. Rush, rush, rush. Grow, grow, grow and getting more people to buy more wooden pallets. We're gonna be resting for awhile. Being moderate. Focusing on what matters. Health. Time. Feeling like you can afford to survive. Now, this is news to all of you, including the folks at the top. It'll take some time to digest. Remember, let it go in easy, chew it up real good, think about it nice and slow, and everything will come out smooth."

He pointed one last time to the front row many of whom had by this time fully emptied their bowels into their pants.

"Well, that's enough talking of these things for now. More to come, but I think it would be best if everyone took the rest of the day off. Won't be able to get any work done with all these words whizzing around in your heads now."

It was only 11:00 AM. Zombie-like, all the employees moved from their seats and made their way to the exits as a single pulsating mass. Administrative Assistants came by to escort the shaking or in some cases catatonic upper administrators away. The accountants were unable to speak in anything other than numerals for several days.

Carl Finklebakker took the stairs to his fifth floor office, a short Elf was waiting for him by the door.

"Took the elevator? I've got no trust for 'em, watched a friend lose an arm between the doors once. Blood, not as much as you would think, but the poor man messed himself. Howled like a wolf in a snare."

Fllinngyth shook his head.

"I can teleport."

"Ah, well that's a thing then is it?"  

 

Fllinngyth nodded.

 

"Well," Carl said, "what happens next?"

 

"Our accounting team will be on call to assist with the numbers and our 'Orientation and Transitions' team will be by in case any of the uppity-ups as you called them, struggle to adapt."

 

"Now, how long has this operation of yours been in business? This is a big job. Your lot has experience consulting with a company our size, I know you say so, but I can't be dealin' with some fly-by-night devils. Here one day, gone the next. Just out to make mischief and what have you."

"Presently, we are offering consulting services to a variety of small-to-mid sized businesses, several municipalities and a few countries."

 

"And what about Bagillion, Rainforest, Pear, the rest of the techno bullies an' those international conglomerate muckity-mucks? Noticed they were left off the roll call. You all workin' for them, tryin' to run us small guys to the ground and bend the governments to your will?"

 

The Elf shook his head.

 

"There is a great deal less consulting going on there. The 'Orientation and Transitions' team is almost exclusively handling them. A long-term, high-impact approach. Changes are forthcoming, results will roll-out over the course of several five-year cycles. I believe O&T has chosen a hybrid Agile-waterfall methodology. One deliverable, for example, is that Rainforest will become: Rubber Tree, Poison Dart Frog, Spider Monkey, Cup Fungi, and the list goes on from there, for quite a while, as you may imagine."

"Hmmm." Carl sucked his teeth. "And what's in it for you elfs? All this redistribution of wealth? I mean, there I was on the hopper, reading a sign, thinking a thought, and the next day, poof you're in my office asking me all sorts of questions, whether or not I'm serious and the like. Sus-picious."

Fllinngyth contemplated his answer, choosing to attempt satiating the old man's curiosity with brevity before breadth.

"The Elf Queen commands that we listen intently to the thoughts of human who are...leaning towards her preferred direction."

Carl snorted.

"I've been in enough board rooms to know when I'm being given the run around. Plain, straight and true. That's how I want it, like a fish on a line -- you haven't caught it, till it's in the boat and you can see it for what it's worth, no guessing at the size 'forehand."

Fllinngyth tried again.

"Her Majesty wants to kill all the humans and expel most of the demons from Earth because she says they've made the air smell bad and the water taste funny, but her grandmother wants her to try something...less extreme first."

"And what business does this queen of yours have with Earth? Hasn't she got her own world to breathe on?"

"She has many. She likes this one best of all. Perhaps, although it is hardly within my station to guess at such things, because she was born here."

"Born here? Not in your Elf Land, eh? How's that happen?"

"Well, she's not an Elf. She killed our king, who was also not an Elf. Whoever kills the ruler becomes the ruler."

"And your lot is okay with that sort of malarkey? Disorganized and barbaric if you ask me, no sense to it at all."

 

"The same can be said for capitalism, at least according to the Queen."

 

"And why'd she go and off your king, eh? I'm not about to get myself involved with magical blood feuds and that sort of hubbub."

 

"He wanted to feed her grandmother to his magic staff."

 

"Ridiculous sorts of going's on, if you ask me. So how exactly does this queen reckon that paying my workers more money will clean up the air? Climate change is a hefty undertaking, I'm no fool."

 

"If a person has more money and more time, then eventually, according to the Queen, they will be too happy to bother themselves with having children to prove that they can be better parents than their parents. So over time, the human population will reduce."

 

Carl rolled his eyes.

 

"That is the highly condensed version."

 

"I've no doubt it is. And if my company goes bankrupt with this stunt? Where will your Queen be then? Laughing on some throne?"

 

"Her Majesty is presently bankrolling the country of Scotland's entire re-beaver-ification project, a large, wet, rodent, I'm to understand. And that thirty-year project, all expenses included accounts for a percentage of her budget proportionally equivalent to the annual toothpaste expenditure for a family of four."

 

"I'm to understand you want me to believe that means she would bail WP&S Enterprises out if need be? Although you're not saying yea or nay, are you?"

 

The Elf nodded.

 

"Then, that being the case, why not just buy us up and run the operation how she wants, hmm?"

 

"She prefers to delegate." Fllinngyth paused, collecting his thoughts. He had appointments to keep and responsibilities to tend, which meant reducing, rather than expanding the old man's need to ask questions.

 

"When she came to power, the Elf Queen was upset with the way one of our parliaments was running its assigned province. So she told them how she wanted it run, and during the meeting, anytime someone was foolish enough to vocalize their disinclination to acquiesce, she killed 'em and a random member, until all that was left were those that had voiced their agreement with her, whether they actually did or didn't hardly mattered and the few who'd kept their mouths shut and were lucky enough not to take a knife to the head." 

 

Carl frowned.

 

"She could have paid them off," the Elf continued, "to run things how she wanted, she could have had them fired from their position, but in either scenario she would have had to be involved with governing the province for more than the time she had already spent during that state of affairs meeting."

 

"One of you ought to off her. A terror is what she sounds to be."

 

"She's, in many regards, significantly better than her predecessor the King."

 

"Well, she doesn't sound all that great for us, if she's going to be sending out spies and killin' folks and bribing others just to get her will thrown all about."

 

"The Elf King," Fllinngyth countered, "killed human children and babies by sucking out all their bone marrow. It's five to some, thirteen to one, as you humans say."

 

"That's six to one, half a dozen to the other."

 

Fllinngyth nodded, flipped out a small notebook and jotted the information down.

 

"Any other questions or concerns?" the Elf asked, hoping the answer the would be 'no'.

 

Carl Finklebakker pointed out the window. A large warehouse across the way was beginning to ripple, but seeing has how the WP&S Enterprises building was not shaking, Carl had ruled out anything natural.

 

"Half past already is it? I am quite late. Do be careful going outside for the next half hour or so. These mandatory relocations require portal of such immense size that it is not uncommon for the occasional road or parking lot to also be inadvertently transported to the targeted hell Realm. Unfortunate when it happens, but I do promise you that we are doing our best. The O&T team truly does care about the safe execution of their objectives."

 

"Swallowin' up the whole building and moving it about? To a damnable place?"

 

The Elf shrugged.

 

"They were illegally dumping paint into the sewer system. Most of their staff is being relocated as well. Just remember, in the past, it was innocent babies, now it is guilty adults," Fllinngyth consulted his notebook. "Six to one, half a dozen to the other. Elves kills humans, just part of the natural population control efforts, but it is our understanding that this is a more preferable approach, am I correct?"

 

Carl clicked the roof of his mouth as he watched the warehouse begin shaking more violently.

 

"Correct as you can be," he replied.

 

The Elf vanished. The warehouse fell sideways into an enormous hole ripped open in space-time. Carl Finklebakker walked out of his office and locked the door. He turned to walked down the stairs, then turned back, unlocked the door and flicked off the light.