The Ministry of Luxembourg Weather’s corridors and cubicles were unusually quiet. At any given moment there would ordinarily be up to 50 people scurrying to-and-fro.
Given the capricious nature of the Grand Ducal climate this bureau was one where the phrase ‘anything goes’ really meant that anything could. The walls were littered with motivational posters. But, due to cutbacks, these were no longer nicely framed and hung with proper care and attention.
These days, the pompous posturing of pretend portent were hastily thrown on the yellowing walls with blu-tac and chewing gum. Potted plants were gasping for a drink in pots far too small for their crammed in roots. An odd visual metaphor for the current state of play. The office was running on a skeleton crew. Some were too afraid to come to work.
A few were ill (genuine or psychosomatic was up for debate). Some had booked time off way in advance of this new dawn and were sure as merde not changing their plans. Others simply could not be arsed. Board meetings were carried out via computer screen and overlapping terrible ideas and ridiculous tag-lines.
Beryl was a former employee of the month. Her smiling face took up 9/12ths of the previous year’s accolade space and she was not going to let the 10th such award slip from her grasp.
She and Tony were the only two in the office today. Tony was a layabout. Here purely due to rota requirements and a certain performance improvement plan.
Tony was going to put his feet up and get some shut eye. The 14 hours of sleep he’d already enjoyed clearly not enough for this slovenly slob.
Beryl sighed as she scooped up fast food wrappers and disposable one-use coffee cups. The process for which the weather was booted should be undertaken by a team of twelve. These new arrangements meant that it could be carried out by a pair of well seasoned hard workers. If they diligently and thoroughly followed the guidelines found in the Emergency Operating Procedure.
Most of the input had been Beryl’s. Tony had suggested the font (comic sans) and also for the cover pack image - the Sun doing rude stuff to a cloud. He had found it hilarious. Actually peed himself from laughing. The oaf! The image was unsurprisingly not passed through committee but here it was anyway, drawn in Sharpie on the plastic cover.
The Sun with a giant and crudely scribbled penis, dry-humping a rain cloud. Well done Tony, that’s your contribution to the world.
Beryl knew that what she was about to do was against all of her principles but her tether had been reached ages ago... She called up the weather hub iOS and began coding. Entering a varied and complex line of code for a changeable day of weather. A balanced series of events that would bring no discernible change but would nonetheless give the appearance that all was fine.
She wrote, deleted, wrote, deleted, line after line.
Beryl sighed. The type of sigh that only homeworking, homeschooling parents let out at around 3pm... defeated, deflated, desolate.
Beryl hit ctrl+c on yesterday’s weather embed code. She brought up today’s box.
Hit ctrl+v.
Done.
‘Fuck it!’ she said, pulling out her mobile phone and bringing up a word jumble app. She put her feet on the table.
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
