If anyone were going to put a gun to my head and force me to do something, it would be Tommy. Tommy is truly terrifying, and I always seem to catch little snippets of his conversations that make him sound like his hobbies involve strangling women before chopping them up and dumping them in the canal. Tommy is Scottish, and a retired semi-pro rugby player. He’s very tall and broad with big arms, perfect for choking the life out of women. Thanks to his bald head, bulging eyes and big ears, he looks like a pale version of Shrek, and thanks to his accent he sounds like him as well. Apart from being bald too, Rick is Tommy’s polar opposite. He’s short with very little muscle, but he doesn’t have to do the heavy lifting Tommy does. Rick is the manager down here so he mostly just tells people what to do and ‘rides’ the forklift. He always has a helmet on, making him look like an old, Mancunian Bob the Builder.
With no one prepared to explain the blood remark to me, I decide it’s best to get the card signed and get out of here before I end up in pieces, in a crate headed for the seabed.
‘Rick, I need you to sign Charlie’s card, please.’
He beckons me over with his hand and takes the card from me. Rick is the very serious, silent type around women. I have witnessed him laughing and joking but it’s very much a with-the-lads kind of thing. Around women, he just clams up. Not Tommy, though. No one is safe from his banter.
‘How’s tricks at the top of the banana with the boss?’ he asks me.
The banana is what we call the yellow spiral staircase and subsequent corridor up to Will’s office. Were it not for the fact everyone calls it that, I might wonder what he meant by it.
‘Fine, thanks,’ I reply. ‘How’s…’ I glance around, taking in my surroundings. Even though we have a lovely canteen and staffroom here, this place doubles up as both Rick’s office and a sort of man cave for the warehouse workers. The walls are covered with posters and pictures, and the only ‘piece of art’ that doesn’t involve a naked lady or a car is a framed photo of the warehouse team doing Movember last year. They’re all standing huddled together, clutching the massive cheque that shows just how much money they made for the cause, and it was a lot, in spite of the fact most of them have moustaches all year round anyway.
Other than Rick’s messy desk, there are two tables. The first is in the centre of the room, surrounded by chairs. This where Tommy and Rick are sitting, with both playing cards and dominos laid out in front of them. There’s a work surface at the side of the room that looks a bit like a pop-up amateur meth lab (or maybe I’ve just been watching too much Breaking Bad) where they have all their protein powders and bars and all the various bottles and mixers and tools they need to remain ‘hench’ and ‘make gains’ and all the other stuff I hear them say before going back to my desk to google what the fuck it all means.
‘How’s…this?’ I ask, unsure what word to use.
‘All good. Just killing time before the meeting with the pricks from HR,’ Tommy tells me. ‘There’s been a few complaints.’
I decide not to ask, nor tell him that he probably shouldn’t refer to the HR team as ‘pricks’.
Rick hands me back the card so I thank him and head for the door. As I close it behind me I hear Tommy resume their conversation.
‘So I’m scrubbing at this bloodstain with that meat tenderiser powder shit that Sharon cooks with, because I read online that it helps…’
I decide not to stick around and listen to the rest of their conversation, lest I become an accessory to something unsavoury – and I’m not talking about whatever it is Sharon cooks with her ‘meat tenderiser’, whatever the fuck that is.
Next up I head for the IT department, which, unlike Rick’s office with its big windows that look out over the warehouse, has no windows at all. I knock on the door before stepping inside. All six of them are gathered together as Garth, who is head of IT, animatedly tells them a story.
‘…and I looked down at my chest, and this sword was sticking through it, bloody everywhere! I look up, and there’s an army of them in front of me as well as behind me, and I desperately need an adrenalin shot to get my health up…’
Garth pauses as I enter the room but, unlike Tommy the serial killer, he feels he should probably explain himself to me.
‘This must sound well weird.’ He laughs. ‘We talking about the Oculus Rift,’ he tells me, like that makes things crystal clear and this not seem weird. I remind myself to google that as soon as I get back to my desk.
‘Cool,’ I reply, only managing to fake enough sincerity to make me sound super sarcastic. ‘I won’t keep you long, I just need you all to sign Charlie’s leaving card before the party this afternoon. You guys are the last ones.’
The new guy is staring at me and smiling. It’s a friendly smile, but I still feel awkward about yesterday, just in case he could hear Will and me.
‘Roger that,’ Garth replies, taking the card from me. ‘I’ll pass this around if you do me a favour – have a play around on this.’ He plonks a silver MacBook on the desk in front of me. ‘We’ve had some complaints that the UI is affecting the UX.’
With that, Garth leaves me to it. I stare at the screen in front of me and scrunch up my face as I try and work out what the fuck that could possibly mean. I look left then right, like the answers might be on the walls amongst all the design plans, code and posters for things I am too ‘cool’ to get. As I look right I see the new guy still smiling at me. He pushes off the desk next to him, which sends him flying across the room to me on his desk chair. That’s the kind of thing that, if I did it, would see me crashing through a third-storey window, but Geordie Shore makes it seem cool and effortless.
‘That’s just his pretentious way of saying that people think how it looks affects how it works,’ he explains to me, and put like that it sounds simple.
‘Oh,’ I reply. ‘Thank you. Well, yeah, the yellow is too much.’
‘Ever since I got here, I have been telling them to go easy on the yellow crap,’ he tells me, relieved at least one other person shares his views. ‘I keep telling them that clean and minimalistic is on-trend right now, but they’re pushing the stars. We get it, the company is called Starr, but enough of the pretty little yellow things with five points – that’s not what a star looks like. A star is a big ball of exploding gas. They’re orange or, if they’re really hot, they’re blue. Although I suppose a big ball of exploding gas might not be the best option for branding considering our guys drive around in trucks all day.’ He laughs.
I chuckle. ‘I guess not.’
There’s silence for a few seconds before Garth hands the card to new guy to sign.
‘What did you think?’ he asks me.
‘Mate, she said same as me – too much yellow,’ new guy answers on my behalf.
‘Candice has been here long enough to know that this company and yellow go together like Jaime and Cersei Lannister.’ Garth laughs, taking his laptop and returning to his desk.
‘Yeah.’ I laugh, before turning to the new guy and staring blankly. He looks up from signing Charlie’s card and sees my puzzled, expectant look.
‘Oh, so I’m your dork translator now, am I?’ He laughs.
‘Something like that,’ I reply sweetly.
‘They’re characters from Game of Thrones,’ he informs me.
‘Oh, I see. I’m guessing they’ve been married a long time then,’ I reason.
‘Not quite,’ he replies. ‘So, will I be seeing you at Charlie’s leaving party?’
‘Maybe,’