The Apocalypse Club Read Online Free PDF Page B

your next renewal. I’ll fix that and have new documentation out to you right away.”
    A sigh. One of these days, the man is going to break. “Christ on a cricket pitch. How many defects is that now, Simms?”
    “Counting this one? Sixty-two thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight.”
    “Shit, son. I think you’d have an easier time of it trackin’ the things that work instead of t’other way round.”
    “Well, there are always a few bumps when you introduce a new system.” This is another thing I have been instructed to say. I have been instructed to say this in a light, jovial manner. These phone calls are often recorded and replayed for coaching and/or training purposes to assist me in reaching just the right level of light jovialness. It can be difficult, even for a trained and highly attuned ear, to detect even two parts per million of sarcasm in such a statement.
    Which brings me to my supervisor.
    In order to understand the full existential horror of working for an insurance company, you really do need to meet the man who calls himself Gotoguy @ Firmamental.
    If you were to look up the definition for “company man” in the dictionary, you would see an image of his face looking back at you because he paid a sizable amount of money to have the word and his face inserted into the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary as a paid definition. You will also see his face smiling confidently back at you from the definitions of “team player,” “business ninja,” “visionary leader” and “bovine pedophile” (I paid for the last one).
    His real name was originally Orenthal Tibbs, but he changed it to Gotoguy @ Firmamental when he was promoted to Acting Supervisor of Policy Fulfillment and Direct Mail Services because he thought it might draw more attention from the big wigs and speed his ascent of the corporate ladder. It’s not an email address (although it is also that). The “@” is his actual middle initial. He has so many professional designations (CIP, FCIP, CRM, CHRP and a CBRA) to go along with his Diploma in Sexual Harassment Prevention that his emails appear to have come from either a highly decorated war veteran or a fraudulent plastic surgeon.
    I don’t believe that he has any life outside of the company. He gets in every morning at six A.M. and doesn’t leave until nine or ten at night. He joined every committee that would have him and was a member of no fewer than eight company-related recreational sports and leisure teams until an incident six months ago. He had been sneaking into an all-female Zumba and Aquabics class popular with one of the IT directors when he slipped on the tile and tore his anterior cruciate ligament. It was only when they were loading him into the ambulance that they discovered that the perky redhead they had all known as “Daphne” was actually a 38-year-old man who only waxed the lower half of his legs. After that, he was officially advised to refrain from all contact with female employees in a non-work and specifically changing room setting.
    Despite that setback, he refused to take any time off, going so far as to schedule that year’s performance evaluation meetings during his ligament surgery. Mercifully, this lasted for only 20 minutes before his doctor decided that he should be anaesthetized, the result of which was that I received a higher-than-expected “Dynamic Achiever” rating in the Team Interoperability category as he was losing consciousness.
    I have no idea what he was like before he came to work here. I don’t know that he does, either. The man is so pathologically desperate for promotion that there is no aspect of his identity he is unwilling to erase to get him even a millimetre closer to his goal. I have no doubt that there is no one he wouldn’t betray, blackmail, backstab or even bump off to get what he wants. The previous holder of his job was killed by a hit-and-run driver who was never caught. When I checked the claims records,