May Season Studio Archives
by Gintare O.
preceding file: Onboarding / 03/ Parking Lot
Frank did not come in Monday.
Frank’s cube was across the aisle from Genny’s, one row over from Blake’s. Frank had been at MSS for eleven years. Frank was the kind of employee who had, at some point in his career, been recognized for his contributions in a company-wide email that Karen had printed and put on his cube wall, next to the printout of the style guide Karen had drafted. Karen had put the printout there. Frank had left it up.
Frank was Karen’s usual target. Frank did not do anything wrong that Blake did not also do. Frank simply attracted a specific kind of attention from Karen that Blake did not. Genny had watched this for four years and had never worked out the mechanism. Something about Frank’s posture, maybe. Something about the way Frank apologized before he had finished being corrected.
Monday morning Frank’s chair was still pushed in. His monitor was off. His plant, which was a small aloe he had brought in from his home, was on the corner of his desk. His coffee mug from Friday was still where he had left it. The coffee had a film on it.
Karen did not stop by his cube. Karen did not mention him. Genny had never seen Karen leave a Frank workday alone. It was the first thing off about the week.
The second thing was the email.
It arrived at 10:47, from an address that was HR@ but not a specific person. The subject line was: personnel note.
The body was three sentences. Frank was on a leave of absence. There was no expected return date. Please direct any pending items to the divisional manager, meaning Karen.
There was no signature. There was no follow up. HR did not send another email that day. When Genny checked, the address the message had come from did not exist in the company directory. There was HR-help@, and there was benefits@, and there was Christina, who did some HR work on her own account. There was no HR@.
She did not reply. She marked the email read. She let it sit in her inbox.
She looked at Frank’s cube twice during the morning. Both times, everything was exactly where he had left it Friday.
At 3:30 she walked to the printer, which required passing Frank’s cube. She glanced in as she went by. The coffee mug was still there. The plant was still there. The chair was still pushed in.
The printout of the company-wide email that had recognized his contributions was not on the wall.
She could not remember whether it had been there Monday morning. She had not thought to check. She could not now check without going back and looking, which would look like something.
She kept walking.
Tuesday the plant was gone.
Tuesday afternoon the coffee mug was gone.
Wednesday morning she came in and Frank’s cube was clean. The monitor was gone. The keyboard was gone. The chair was pushed in against a desk that had nothing on it. The little name placard that had been slid into the plastic sleeve at the edge of the cube was gone. The plastic sleeve was empty.
Karen did not mention it. Karen came in at 8:04 and went to her own cube and started her day. She did title casing corrections in the shared drive for the first hour. She sent Blake three separate emails about product descriptions from Q3. She did not walk past Frank’s cube once.
By ten thirty Blake had noticed. Genny could tell because Blake started standing up more often than he needed to and looking around the floor. Blake was not subtle. Blake, when he was confused, moved.
Nobody said Frank’s name.
Genny needed a pen.
She had been trying to work through her queue and had gotten to a batch of physical proofs that needed hand-marking. She kept a specific red pen for this. It was in her top drawer, on the left, where she always kept it.
She opened the drawer.
The pen was there. So was a sticky note.
The sticky note was Post-it yellow, folded once. It was on top of the pen, which meant somebody had put it there after she had used the pen last, which had been Friday afternoon.
She looked around. Blake was at his desk. Karen was still in her cube. The floor was doing what it was doing.
She took the sticky note out of the drawer and opened it in her lap under the desk, the way you would read a note passed to you in school.
Four words. In Frank’s handwriting. She knew Frank’s handwriting from his notes on shared proofs. He wrote in small block capitals with an odd downward slope on the T.
THEY FILE THE PEOPLE.
She looked at it for a long time.
She refolded it. She put it inside the notebook, tucked against the back cover, in the same place the card had been.
She closed the notebook.
She got the pen out and hand-marked the proofs.
At some point in the next hour she noticed that the notebook now smelled like flowers and something else. She could not place the something else. It was not unpleasant. It was faintly familiar, in the way that Frank’s coffee mug had been familiar, in the way the paper of the card had been familiar the moment she had first touched it. It was, she thought, a smell she was going to know how to name after a while, whether she wanted to or not.
She put the notebook in her bag at 4:58 and closed the drawer.
Thursday she came in and Frank’s cube was still empty. Nobody spoke about him. Karen did title casing on Blake all morning.
Thursday afternoon HR sent a second email. Same address, same format. Subject line: personnel note. Body: a new team member would be starting Friday to support Q4 catalog volume. His name was Dale. He would be located at the desk on the north side of the row. Everyone should welcome him.
The desk on the north side of the row was Frank’s desk.
Nobody replied to the email.
Friday morning she came in at 7:58. There was a man at Frank’s cube.
He was maybe thirty. He was setting up a monitor and a keyboard on Frank’s desk. He had one of those clean canvas laptop bags people bought when they wanted to look organized. He had a coffee from the lobby Starbucks in a paper cup, not a mug, which meant he was new enough not to have committed to bringing one in yet. He was arranging his cables with unusual care. He was, on first look, a person who did not stand out.
He noticed her setting down her coat and came over.
“Hi. I’m Dale. I just started.”
He held out his hand. His handshake was correct. Not too firm, not too soft, released at the right time.
“Genny. Welcome.”
“Karen said you might be able to walk me through the intake queue when you get a minute.”
“Sure. Give me an hour.”
“Great. Really appreciate it.”
He went back to his cube. He was pleasant. He was pleasant in the way a person who had been coached in pleasantness was pleasant. Nothing about him was off. That, on its own, was odd, because there was always something off about the new hires. This was a company where people had things off about them.
At 8:31 Karen came in.
She went to her cube. She put her bag down. She looked toward Dale’s cube. Then she walked over.
Genny watched from the corner of her monitor.
Karen said good morning. Dale said good morning back. Karen asked how his commute had been. Dale said fine, only twenty five minutes, he had left early. Karen said that was a good habit. Karen laughed at something Dale said. Karen touched the top edge of Dale’s cube wall with one hand, briefly, the way a person touches a doorframe when they are visiting a friend.
Genny had worked at MSS for four years. She had watched Karen every workday. She had watched Karen speak to seventeen new hires. She had never seen Karen touch a cube wall.
Karen went back to her own cube.
Dale continued setting up his monitor.
Genny put her headphones on and did not play anything through them.
The notebook was in her top drawer. The sticky note was inside the notebook. The notebook smelled like flowers and like something else she was going to know how to name eventually.
She opened the intake queue and started her Friday.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
at may season studio, leaves of absence are processed promptly and with discretion. pending items are redirected to the divisional manager. desks do not stay empty long.
written and designed by gintare okrzesik, creator of may season studio. a fictional corporation exploring beauty, bureaucracy, and quiet corruption through narrative design.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Frank was at the company eleven years. Departures of that length usually generate more paperwork.
Begin with:
The Retirement of Dennis Call - how the company says goodbye when it chooses to
Exit Interview: Surface Division - what leaving looks like when it is documented
Professional Development - Genny, before any of this, learning who maps whom
Part five arrives next Friday.
This line really sets us up for just about anything happening next: "Nothing about him was off. That, on its own, was odd, because there was always something off about the new hires. This was a company where people had things off about them." And then you follow up with the Smoking Policy. 🤣 Way to build the tension.