The Good Accountant

Chapter Two: Media Mess

Everyone is still shaken from yesterday. I didn't trip over Bob so that's a plus. Jason explained that Jerry sent over his resignation letter this morning and that Amy will be cleaning out his desk sometime this week. It's kind of weird seeing that kind of outburst at least on the first day. I've been through one where someone was quitting and tried to steal his desk chair in the process of leaving and another where the accountant was taken into custody. It's a rare occurrence but it still happens. The office felt like the air was much thinner. There was a lot of tension. Sometime before lunch Amy sent me the files from Jerry's computer. I wonder if he ever found anything? The new stations and papers are probably going to have a field day with this. As the company started to get bigger and bigger people began to react more and more. There has been article after article about the different branches of the company. The way that the company is run has been one of the stronger focuses of the news for the last few months. I have even gotten a few emails about giving out information and seeing files. I'm not sure all of them were actual newspapers. The funny thing is that each applicant is informed that they can share most any document that they have with the press. I don't think many people would believe that kind of behavior. I didn't when I signed my offer letter. There it was, in black and white, I could share any information I wanted to whomever I wanted. Most people think it was a retaliation to the press and others trying to spy on what's going on. What better way to scare people than to make them think that whatever they're looking for is not something they can find through the normal methods of espionage. There have been a lot of different things in the news about how good or bad this company has been. People believe that the only reason for the company existing is to throw out all the values people have left. I'm not sure how book trading does that, but it seems like a lot of people are upset with the changes that the company has caused.

I finished the first part of the work right at lunch and I head over to check out the kitchen. For the most part, I like to pack my lunches. I found that ordering out would cost a lot over time and most of the time when offices had food it would be stuff that was easy to stock. Crackers, soup, and the like there was never anything that would hold someone over for long. This company has been known to talk to their employees more about their choices in meals and snacks that they wanted. Apparently at first people just asked for more sweet and candy. It seems most people don't grow up they just get older. After that, a few people asked for different kinds of soups and stuff like nuts and seeds. The thing that surprised everyone is that the company complied. The requests would cost the company on average much more than any other company to date. People thought Jasmine was insane for fulfilling the requests. It made the employees happy is all she could say in response. I wanted to know if it was true.

The kitchen was well equipped for everything but cooking with fire. There was a microwave, toaster oven, and toaster. Under the island, there was a trash can and a drawer for paper plates and plastic utensils. There was one cabinet dedicated to mugs for employees. You could also keep Tupperware as long as you washed and cleaned them yourself. There was a cabinet for soup. There was a small section of the counter with the sink for coffee and tea and a drawer for most of the dry supplies. The sugar and sweeteners had their respective cups of tiny packets. I guess no one wants to have to think about someone dipping their spoon back into the sugar. There was a lot of food and even a schedule for fruit and veggies in the food to be changed out. All of this information for anyone to see on the cork board against the kitchen wall. The fridge was rather big. There was a number of different kinds of milk or cream like products. I kind of like the fact that they didn't just have soy milk. There seem to have been a poll on what kind of cream like products everyone wanted to add to the fridge. There seem to be a number of polls that were up on the board. Some of them were not just for the kitchen but for the whole office. Office chairs, kinds of pens, an update to the computer mouses as the laser seemed to die every now and again after changing batteries. It seemed like the whole office worked together to figure out what to ask for. People seemed to work on the idea that they could ask for whatever so they wanted to make sure it was something they wanted. The candy drawer, that was now empty, seems to be proof that people might not be as predictable as Jerry thought.