The Prison Cell

Seven o’clock. The morning automation for the downtown Spellnorth building kicked in. The main floor doors unlocked, the common area lights came on, the air conditioner brought the temperature up from the freezing night to a more comfortable twenty-one degrees. There’s an electronic hum throughout the building, transforming the dark, cold skyscraper into a more human-friendly environment. All except the thirteenth floor. The ceiling lights never come on there. The air conditioning only works manually. Even the door to the floor requires a key to open in the morning. An old, notched metal rectangle, inserted in a lock and turned for three full rotations. In fact, all these adjustments are part of Theodore’s job. He arrives at eight every day to open the door, since he’s the only one with a key.

“Good morning, Theo.”

Theo watched Ben entering the office and turning on his desk lamps. “You’re in a good mood today,” he replied, in an inquiring tone.

“I literally just said good morning.”

“Okay, no need to get upset. You know I’m the Happiness Manager for the team.”

“You’re the happiness manager for the office. Not the manager for everyone’s personal happiness. Will we be having this conversation every day?”

“Don’t stress out Ben, we need the happiness points. How about I tell you a joke?”

Ben was panicking inside. His body was still not fully awake to deal with this kind of menace, but luckily help was just arriving.

“Good morning, guys,” Mason said loudly from the door, followed by a similar greeting from Amelia: “Good morning, team”.

“Hi, Mason, Amelia,” Ben replied.

“Good morning, boss,” Theo said as he stood up and headed straight for Amelia, ignoring Mason. He followed the Director into the corner office.

“Need anything, Theodore?” Amelia asked as she settled behind her desk, trying to pay him as little attention as possible.

“Yes. Have you considered my application for Office and Team Happiness Manager? I know I could make something of myself if I only had enough authority. And the team would also improve, of course. I guess productivity would increase. Studies show happiness directly influences productivity. It’s a fact.”

“Theo, you know I only added ‘Happiness’ to your title because you wouldn’t agree to open the office in the morning, right? Your job is still just ‘Office Manager’.”

“If you could just think about it,” Theo said as he left the room, walking backwards, as he had read a long time ago in the ‘Management Showdown Guide’ to always face your goals head-on.

Meanwhile, Sylvia had just arrived and was talking to Mason.

“So, today’s the day,” she said.

“It is.”

“Do you think she'll have it finished before lunch?”

“It’s hard to say. But she never has.”

“Maybe she’s learning.”

“You’re the one who should be there,” Ben added, joining the conversation.

“No, I can’t. I’m not certified to work in the cloud,” Sylvia replied.

“I’m pretty sure online Excel works much the same as the desktop one, Sylvia.”

“Of course you would think that, Ben. You’re not a certified IT expert, like me.”

“I just don’t understand why everyone else is able to work with the cloud, but our IT expert isn’t.”

“Oh, I’m perfectly able,” Sylvia assured. “In fact, if anything, I’m too able. I’m a cloudy master. It’s like a Karate Sensei. Any one of us can peacefully enter a bar fight, but a Karate Sensei can’t. That’s how deadly my cloudy competencies are. Sensei level. That’s why I need a special certification to touch the cloud in the office, but they never sent me one.”

“They never sent it, or you never checked your email?” Ben insisted.

“I can’t. Gmail is in the cloud.”

“She just seems to be pressing random keys,” Mason said, looking over at Amelia’s office.

“Does she understand we get paid from that spreadsheet?” Harper asked, joining the conversation straight from the doorway.

“Oh, hi Harper!” Ben said, approaching her for a hug and a passionate kiss.

“Yes, I reminded her again yesterday. Although I’m not sure she understands the concept of wages. She commented on how weird this lottery is, where everyone gets a prize,” Mason said, turning his back to Ben and Harper who were already half lying down on his desk.

“We should really go in there and explain,” Harper said, getting out from under Ben’s embrace and standing up to join the group staring at Amelia, who was typing oddly at the keyboard, with her index finger pointing up and then down to press the keys.

“We tried. Remember when we took her to the supermarket, to show how we used our money to buy food?” Ben said.

“Yeah. She was so confused to have to looks for things herself, and not being allowed to open anything until after paying,” Mason added.

Amelia suddenly raised her head and they all scattered to their desks.

Mid-morning, Amelia came out of her office, looking for Mason, and as she didn’t find him, she decided to go into the kitchen, to make herself some tea.

“Oh!” she gasped as she entered and saw Ben’s shirt up and Harper kissing her boyfriend's chest with her hands below his clothes. “Oh, don’t mind me, carry on as you were,” Amelia said, blushing and pretending to cover her eyes with her hand, although her fingers were too far apart to hide the scene she was only too eager to observe. She picked up the kettle and took it with her, empty and cold.

“Hi, Amelia, were you looking for me?” Mason asked, stepping in front of Amelia and almost getting knocked down by her.

“Oh! Yes! I need some tea! But announce yourself before going in the kitchen. Ben's in there pretending to be in love. He just can’t get over me, the poor man. He’s making a fool of himself, with all that Mexican-novela kissing when it’s perfectly obvious he’s only trying to get to me and make me jealous. I wish he would just accept our time together has ended.”

“O.K.,” Mason said, pronouncing each letter carefully and smirking.

“Anybody in here?” he asked before entering the kitchen, allowing Ben and Harper to quickly straighten up their clothes.

“Oh, hi Mason,” Ben said as he finished tucking his shirt in.

“Amelia warned me you were trying to make her jealous.”

Harper laughed. “Seems she can’t get over you, Ben…”

“There’s nothing to get over. It was a single date. It wasn’t even a date; it was late and we went to grab a bite at the Kebab place around the corner.”

“Well, something happened,” Harper insisted, ironically.

“Yes, I heard a mention of flowers,” Mason added.

“Flowers? There were no flowers! Oh, wait… maybe there were flowers on the table, but just those plastic ones. Every table had those.”

“And that you offered to pay…” Mason continued.

“She said she’d forgotten her wallet! Wait, how do you know all of this?”

“Well, the next day she couldn’t stop talking about the amazing date she’d had with this amazing man.”

“It wasn’t a date!”

“Maybe you’re just too irresistible for your own good,” Harper said and reached out to rest her hand on Ben's shoulder.

“I’m still here,” Mason noted, but the hot couple weren’t hearing him anymore. So he just finished making Amelia’s tea, no sugar, and went to deliver it.

A little later, when Ben was able to leave the kitchen, he asked for everyone’s attention.

“I have big news, people! I have a meeting here with a lead this afternoon! If it all works out, I’ll make a huge sale!”

“I don’t understand,” said Mason.

“What is there to understand?”

“I don’t understand either. Why is a client coming here?” Theo asked.

“Exactly. In all the years we worked together, I never once saw you bring a client here. You just call and ask if they want our services. They say no, you hang up. End of story,” Mason said.

“Well, it’s this new thing I’m trying out. It’s called ‘making my first sale’! Guys, you should be happy! This is a potential client!” Ben was excited for all of them, so he just continued: “Mason, I need your help since you’re the oldest on the team.”

“Well, I should also be in this meeting too. I have to manage the entire office, and that includes all the meetings that take place in the office,” Theo said.

“I can help if you need me, Ben,” Harper offered.

“Yes!... I mean maybe. I mean. please come, but stay behind me, so I don’t get distracted when I’m talking to the lead,” Ben said.

Sylvia tried to excuse herself.

“Well, you certainly don’t need me, so–”

“Yes, I do! Emily, the lead, specifically asked to have our IT personnel in the meeting.”

“She did? Why?”

“I didn’t ask. I thought it was something I should know. Don’t you know?”

“No,” Sylvia said.

“Just be there.”

“Okay.”

“Any news on the spreadsheet?” Ben asked, turning to Mason.

“She’s still typing,” he answered.

They all went out to lunch, so that Theo could lock the door and open it again for them when they returned. Emily arrived shortly after.

“Why is everything so dark?”

“Sorry about that,” Ben replied. “We had a small technical issue with the ceiling lights. The conference room is this way.”

“Well, we've had an issue for years, ever since we moved to this floor,” Theo said, getting a glaring look from Ben in return.

“What? Honesty is the best policy when dealing with clients,” Theo whispered. And then added only to himself “And I’ll be adding that to the new Client Office Rules Manual.”

“Yes, this thirteenth floor is also peculiar,” Emily carried on. “Luckily, you gave me good directions or I would’ve been stuck in the elevator looking for the button.”

“There’s no button,” Theo said. “We have to get out on the twel–”

“Yes, I know,” Emily interrupted him. “I just went up to fourteen and came down.”

Theo and Ben froze. Going up and then down? They’d been climbing that last flight of stairs for years. They shared a look and Theo said, in a low-pitched voice, just for Ben: “It’s different for us. We come to work. It’s better to go up to a job than to go down to a job.” Ben nodded. He wasn’t going to be that dumb.

Ben introduced Harper, Sylvia and Mason to Emily, and she began the meeting:

“I like to get straight to the point. How many copiers do you need? I see you brought your whole IT team, so I guess this is a big investment for you.”

“Copiers? We already have a copier…” Ben said, hesitantly.

“And how many more do you want?”

Ben shrugged and looked at the rest of his team. “What do you mean?”

“I thought you set up this meeting to decide on how many copiers you want to buy?”

“No,” Ben replied, his forehead starting to sweat and all his muscles twitching as his anxiety broke loose. “This meeting was to fool you… I mean to sell you customer support services for the Spellnorth products.”

“What products?”

“Well… all of them. We support all Spellnorth products.”

“I never heard of that.”

They all stared silently at each other, in the dim light provided by the floor lamps, and finally, Emily stood up, said her goodbyes, and left.

“Are you alright Ben?” Harper asked after Emily had left.

“Yes, of course. I just need a moment alone.”

As everyone else left, Theo asked Mason if there was any news about the spreadsheet.

“It’s almost five o’clock. The banks are closing and we’re going to get our paycheck late. Again.”

“You should go and ask if she needs help, Mason,” Harper added.

“She said she needed to practice, otherwise she’d forget everything she learned on the course. So, she forbade me to help her.”

“We can all go!” Harper replied. “Like good employees, to check if the boss needs anything.”

“That’s a great idea,” Theo agreed.

And so they all gathered outside Amelia’s corner office, looking in, until finally Theo knocked on the glass door, turned the handle, and asked in his sweetest voice:

“Hi Amelia, we were just wondering if you needed anything. Like tea, a sandwich, another lamp, someone to send the payment spreadsheet to HR?...”

“Ah, funny you should ask. I’m having some problems with this Excel.”

They took the opportunity and rushed behind her desk, but all they saw on the computer screen was an empty spreadsheet.

“The cell is locked,” Amelia said.

“What?” Mason asked, confused.

“We talked about this during my course. Excel just locks a cell and you need a special key to get out.”

“A cell, like in jail?” Theo asked.

“No. Each square in a spreadsheet is called a cell,” Sylvia explained. “I think I’ve heard of this. It’s a Prison Cell. It locks the entire Spreadsheet.”

“It’s all finished and ready to send. You just don’t see the values, because it’s locked,” Amelia assured them. “But I’ve been trying every key on the keyboard since this morning and I can’t remember how to unlock it.”

Ben had snuck up behind them.

“So, you’re telling me that my life… I mean our livelihood is locked in that spreadsheet?” he asked, startling them.

“Sylvia, can’t you fix it?”

“Well, I could, of course. But she’s using Excel online. I don’t have credentials–”

“To work in the cloud, we know. Can’t we just press all the keys?” Ben insisted.

“I did that a couple of times in my class, and my teacher was very upset, he said–”

While Amelia spoke, Ben just reached out and pressed the Escape key, in the upper left corner of the keyboard. The central cell on the screen blinked a few times.

“Oh no, Ben! What have you done?!” Theo asked in an accusatory tone. “Look! It’s alive!”

Suddenly the screen started filling up with random letters and gibberish. And then the letters moved, filling several cells. It was as if all the keys Amelia had been pressing all day long were waiting there, hidden, and had just been released, bursting onto the screen. After a couple of seconds, it all stopped and at the end, there was a cursor blinking.

Amelia clicked around with the mouse. “You fixed it, Ben! Nice work! Let me just click here… Sent. All done.” She looked at all of them and just concluded. “Well, that’s it for me today. See you tomorrow.”

They started leaving the room, heading for their desks, but before Ben could sit down, Mason called him: there was a phone call from Emily.

“Maybe she wants to buy something, after all,” Theo suggested madly.

“Hi, Ben. Sorry for the misunderstanding this afternoon. I’m calling because I’ve misplaced my phone. Maybe I left it there?”

“Hang on. I’ll take a look,” Ben asked Harper to check the conference room.

“Sorry, Emily. My colleague from Marketing just went and checked. No phone.”

“Oh. I was hoping it would be there. Wait, Marketing? I thought you were a customer support department. Why do you need Marketing? Oh, never mind. I’ll have to buy a new phone. Thanks, anyway.”

Ben hung up and went to sit down in the kitchen. It didn’t take long for Harper to join him and start kissing him, but he sat her down on the chair next to him.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing. It’s just … we never talk about your work.”

“What’s there to talk about? It’s work.”

“Yes, but everybody knows what I do. I call potential clients, try to sell them our services… What about you? What do you do?”

“You know. Marketing stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Like stuff… What is this, an audit?”

“Oh! She was right!”

“Who was right?”

“Emily. She asked me why we had a Marketing person on our team. And we shouldn’t have. We’re a customer support team. You don’t have any work! You just sit there all day…”

Harper tried to kiss Ben, but he avoided her.

“No. No. You don’t work. Why do you come here every day?”

“You’re upset about this? Really?”

“Of course. You… you don’t work.”

“Do any of us work?”

“I do! Mason does!”

“Do you? Really?”

“Yes!” Ben answered, starting to sound desperate.

“How many clients do we have?”

“I … I don’t know.”

“You say we’re a customer support team. Have we ever got a call from a client?”

“Of course not. Our product works really well.”

“Really? Never? Don’t you think it’s weird we don’t have light? That no one ever comes in here from other departments?” Harper was on a rant. “That we don’t know anybody in the elevator although it’s all the same company.”

“I mean … I don’t think I ever thought about that. What are you saying?”

“We’re on the thirteenth floor. The elevator doesn’t have a button with a thirteen. We weren’t even supposed to be here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, when they told us to move, I took the paper with our new floor to Amelia. I thought it would be more fun to work on the thirteenth than on the eleventh, so I … you know … adjusted the numbers.”

“Oh my God! They don’t know we still work here!”

“Well, someone knows, because we still get paid.”

As Harper said that, she finally embraced Ben again and started kissing him. He soon forgot all about his work dilemmas.