Frerard Oneshots

This Ain't A Party, Get Off The Dance Floor

Christmas Eve 2014

It scared me to think I had really been in my job for over a year when I sat at the back of the big party hall, it scared me that I knew this was a very usual thing, the Christmas Eve Company party. I hadn't been able to attend the previous year, but I assumed when I was told I had to come really this year, that this was a usual thing, and it certainly seemed that way. There was one reason why I hadn't wanted to go, no actually there were thousands of reason why I hadn't wanted to go, but I went, I had to really. Everyone who was part of the company went to the Christmas Eve party, and I may have been the lowest of the low but I was part of the company. You have so many roles in the administration side of a firm, the CEO, the President, the Manager, then Area managers, then managers of finance, production and marketing and then smaller jobs under each of the previous three areas. Of course I worked for an office supplier which had shops across the entire US, so it wasn't the entire company, no the CEO and President and the huge full company roles were based in California, but where I worked in New York, was the main finance for the company and production for Eastern states. The annual Christmas Eve Party was for everyone who worked in the company in our New York branch.

In the nice tall skyscraper building I worked in in Manhattan, there were several types of people working in many different jobs. At the top was the chief financial officer, who was rumoured to be one of the nicest guys you could ever meet, as well as really young, then the Financial controller and accounting manager, then accounting and financial directors, then chief accountants and then the file clerks, accountants and accounting clerks. I may have implied I was right at the bottom, as an accounting clerk, but nope, I wasn't clever enough for that. Some would argue that I was higher up than that, but I had the same level of pay and wasn't as academically smart as accountants. I was the Accounting director's personal assistant, it was a great job actually, I had decent pay and it wasn't a hard job, except for the fact that everyone treated me like shit. But I wasn't particularly bothered, all I had to do was type out badly written notes written in meetings, get coffee's every two hours and walk around taking papers to different people in different ranks. Honestly it kept me fit, I had got to the point where I was going up and down the building so many times a day it was actually quicker to take the stairs rather than wait for the lift, at least I could burn off the calories I put on when eating donuts on my coffee run.

Never the less, whatever rank I was, I was part of the company and the supposedly lovely chief financial officer liked everyone to attend the Christmas Eve party, as he was adamant that everyone was important and relevant. Actually I really respected him for that view; I thought it was a very good way to look at thinks, if only my boss saw things that way. I got the opinion he didn't like the idea of me attending this even, or any other company events for that matter, but he was probably just scared I seemed threatening because I was actually a nice person. Not that my boss was unpleasant, he just needed some help to get his head out of his ass, he seemed to think that if he made me do everything for him and he acted amazing around the senior staff he'd be promoted. I couldn't help but think that was why he liked me to stay near him or away from social events so people knew that I just wasn't important. It was hilarious how many of the accountants who were below him praised me on being able to be his PA, and bitched to me about him and how they didn't like him, after all I was just quite Frank Iero, who had become a PA as a job once I was out of school, internships were great.

But sat at the back of the hall I was there at the party, I didn't really like parties at all and they were worse when you are just a twenty year old man who's still fairly new to a job with no friends. It was almost eleven when I checked my watch last and I knew the party finished at midnight, I could get out early so easily. Not seeing my boss anywhere, only seeing a few people I knew from my office and some older men in the corner, I slipped out and sat out on the wall to get some fresh air, before sooner or later I would call for a cab to take me home. After being sat on the wall for only a minute or so, a young man with bright red shoulder length hair came out of the hall door; he leaned against the door frame for a minute before stumbling down the steps. He was actually not too tall - although taller than me - and he was fairly thin and rather good looking, I knew him immediately hence why I was particularly worried about him stumbling around. I had really thought he was going to fall down those stairs, whoever he was I would have helped him, but I felt much more compelled to knowing he was the chief financial officer.