Ping! A notification popped up in the lower right corner of Garry’s screen. The hardware manufacturer who had employed him for the past eight years, sourced L-brackets from a vendor based in Prague, and their stock was running low. Not dangerously low, but enough to warrant an amber rating.
Soon after Garry joined, he’d identified a recurring issue the company was facing. While they were a successful hardware supplier, they were much smaller than their immediate competitors, with less disposable cash. As such, they sourced materials from smaller, cheaper, and unfortunately less-reliable vendors. The trouble was that these vendors often didn’t have stock to meet their demand, especially when it had the tendency to fluctuate without much notice when a new client order was received.
In the years prior to Garry’s employment, several potential long-term customers had severed ties as a result of too many deadlines being missed.
His solution had been to code an algorithm – a piece of cake for a man of his ability – which would monitor stock at every one of their one-hundred and thirty-seven suppliers, correlate that figure to the stock currently held in-house, then factor in any planned projects and the number of each individual item required to deliver upon live contracts. If the number of a specific part fell below a predefined threshold, Garry would receive an alert which he’d triage to procurement and the relevant project team leader so that they could scoop up the vendor’s remaining stock before they ran out.
Sitting at his undecorated, functional desk with the low dividing walls between himself and the commercial team surrounding him – his employers believed in an open-plan workspace to encourage collaboration, but that only worked for those fortunate enough to be noticed – Garry forwarded the notification to the relevant people.
Mike, the lead salesman working on the diagnostic machine contract, wasn’t at his desk, but he was the first to reply to Garry’s email. A simple thumbs-up emoji which suggested he was elsewhere and using his phone.
Garry liked Mike, even if he was one of those top-knot sporting protein drinkers. He was four or five years younger, always had a smile on his face, and the glow which lit up the faces of each of the sales girls who sat near him whenever Mike popped over for a chat told Garry that Mike was charming.
He stared at the emoji on his screen, the little fist flicking the thumb out over and over, and imagined what it would be like to get to know Mike.
In a bar, he’d be the guy who’d easily strike up conversation with other patrons, and he’d be the one who’d come back from the bar with a tray full of drinks before orchestrating the joining up of multiple tables to accommodate those he came with, and the friends he’d just made in the drinks’ queue.
Garry would be the quiet one who’d sacrifice himself by taking the chair closest to the toilet, sparing others the unpleasantness. He’d cower with his round shoulders hunched, smiling into his glass of beer while the others roared with laughter at the latest funny story from Mike. And that would be OK, because when everyone was distracted by something else, Mike would place a reassuring hand on Garry’s shoulder and whisper, ‘You’re doing good, mate.’
But he didn’t know Mike, or his top-knot. In the four years they’d worked together in the same open-plan office, they’d barely exchanged words. The only acknowledgement Garry had ever got was a quick nod of the head as Mike turned back to his own corner of the office, leaving behind him the elated cackle of giggling women.
With an almost inaudible sigh, Garry scooped up his empty coffee mug and trudged across to the little kitchenette for a refill. He flicked his eyes up from the floor only once on the twenty-four-step journey to glance over to Nisha, in procurement. She was the one recipient of his email that he really hoped would respond.
For three years they’d shared the same space for eight hours per day, five days a week, and he couldn’t remember a time when her eyes had ever met his.
Just once, he would love for her to see him.
As he filled his mug, Garry imagined a life where he and Nisha owned a house with a garden. They’d invite everyone from the office over for a summer barbecue. He would take charge of the grill while she would see to drinks and accompaniments.
Everyone would remark on Garry’s apron, a gift from Nisha, which proclaimed him The Grillfather but printed in the style of his favourite mafia movie.
Once their guests had gone, Garry and Nisha would snuggle up on the sofa with a wine or a beer or some other drink – he didn’t know Nisha’s preference – and would watch The Godfather for the umpteenth time. And maybe they wouldn’t get through the whole film. Instead, maybe they’d—
“Plumb!”
Garry spun round, heart racing, to face the managing director of the office, Ella Gault.
‘Miss Gault’, as she demanded everyone address her, had moved to the Edinburgh branch from her leafy Buckinghamshire pad eighteen months previous and had set about making her presence known. She made no effort to hide the disdain she had for her current posting, and reminded anyone who’d listen that managing the Edinburgh branch was a mere stepping stone to an executive position based out of the Chicago HQ.
Aside from obsessively micromanaging every function under her charge, Garry had heard comments from the majority of people in the office which suggested she had been universally deeply unpleasant to all.
At the most recent office Christmas party, held in a plush Edinburgh gastropub, one of the young engineers from the manufacturing site just outside Edinburgh – a new starter called James, Garry recalled – had approached her.
“Ella?” James had said.
Garry was standing within earshot and admired the young man’s courage. He could see the pint glass in the lad’s hand quivering and yet, he stood tall and broad.
“I just wanted to thank you for today. I’ve really enjoyed getting to meet everyone from the office. You know, being based out in the workshop, us engineers sometimes miss out—”
Miss Gault raised a palm and held it inches from young James’ face.
“Never, ever call me Ella again,” she said through gritted teeth. Then she raised her voice. “To you, and to every other one of you backwater fucks, I am Miss Gault!”
She had wheeled away amid gasps from the onlookers and sauntered over to the bar for another Prosecco. Garry heard murmurs from his colleagues suggesting James should go to human resources to complain, but Garry knew that was pointless. Scanning the room, he located Eric Dixon who represented the Edinburgh office’s entire HR department.
The word which came to mind when thinking about Eric Dixon was ‘clammy’. Red-haired, overweight and sweaty, he spent his working hours either watching rugby on his phone or clicking through Facebook. He was exactly the kind of man no one wanted fighting their corner.
That night, he was sitting slumped over a whisky glass at a corner table and either hadn’t seen the altercation, or didn’t care.
Eight years of working near the man told Garry to bet on the latter.
“Are you just going to stand there, Plumb, or do you have anything to say? Uh?”
Gault’s nipping, nasal voice snapped back to the present. That little noise – somewhere between a grunt and a dry heave – that she sometimes stuck on the end of a statement made the contents of his stomach churn.
She adopted one of her trademark power-poses – hands planted on her waist, legs akimbo. Ready to do battle.
“S-sorry, Miss Gault, wh-what’s the problem?”
“Your piece-of-shit algorithm! We’re going to miss the deadline on the NHS contract because your toy didn’t flag that the Bulgarians don’t have enough stock of their diodes to meet our demand.”
That was impossible. Garry’s algorithm was bullet-proof. As long as the correct data were available…
Ah, damn it. Poor James.
Garry understood what had happened. James, the engineer working on the NHS project, had forgotten to update his material use, so the algorithm hadn’t factored the true internal stock levels into the calculation. But James had been on Ella’s shit-list ever since the office party, so Garry couldn’t allow this to be put on him.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Ah, you see, Miss Gault, the algorithm – like any algorithm – is only as good as the data it interrogates,” he pleaded. “What has likely happened is our vendor in Bulgaria hasn’t updated their stock levels—”
“No excuses!” Gault’s hands left her hips and flapped in the air a little too close to Garry’s face. “I need you to own it and to fix it, or else I’ll have your ass. Understood?”
Before he could respond, she snatched up a half-lemon – caffeine was beneath a woman of her standing, only hot water with lemon and ginger passed those reptilian lips – and whirled away towards her office.
“Be a leader, Plumb. Like me,” she called over her shoulder.
As she passed the bank of desks at procurement, she paused to look over Nisha’s shoulder at an email she’d been drafting. Something deep in Garry’s gut flared when he saw how violently Nisha flinched as Ella literally breathed down the back of her neck.
“What’s this semi-colon bullshit?” Ella snapped. “If I received that email, I’d think you were an arrogant bitch. Get rid of it.”
No one who knew how to use a semi-colon would ever think that, Nisha, Garry tried to transmit across the desks.
Nisha whimpered her compliance and wilted into her chair as she patted the backspace key over and over.
Garry released his breath, filled his coffee mug and shuffled back to his desk. Just as his backside settled into the groove his seat had spent most of a decade forming, an email arrived from Nisha, causing his stomach to flutter.
However, his excitement dissipated when he saw his name was in the ’cc’ line. The email was to notify all relevant parties that the vendor in Bulgaria had pledged meet their order of diodes and as such no deadlines would be missed.
Garry hit reply – not reply-all, because Nisha was the only one who’d saved him – and typed up an email draft.
‘Thank you :)’
He stared at his prose, cursor hovering above the send button, battling with the voice in his head telling him not to do it.
Smiley face or no smiley face? A full-on emoji? No, too much. He deleted the smiley face.
‘Thank you’
Full stop? No. Too formal. He typed the smiley face back in, trusting his initial instinct.
Just as his finger tensed above the left mouse button, ready to click ‘Send’, a response from James appeared at the top of his inbox.
‘ah brilliant thanks nisha your a lifesaver :)’
Garry scoffed under his breath then swept his cursor over to the discard icon. This time, he clicked without hesitation. Furious with himself, he downed the remainder of his too-hot coffee, locked his screen and scurried outside to join the lunch queue at the sandwich shop across the street.
When he reached the front of the queue, the server – Dave, according to his name badge – initiated his daily interaction with Garry.
“Buongiorno, big man! The usual?”
Garry nodded.
“Like total clockwork, man,” Dave gushed, gesturing to his watch. “Four-pound-fifty when you’re ready, chief.”
Garry tapped his phone on the card reader and gave Dave the same courteous smile he offered up every single day.
With ham and cheese panini and a Coke Zero in hand, Garry walked the familiar route a few hundred yards to the grassy area at the end of the street, and plonked himself down on the bench he’d come to think of as his.
As he slurped at his drink and bit into the same lunch he’d eaten every working day for the past eight years, he watched the people of Edinburgh pass by. Some scuttling to make one of the many buses circling their routes, others ambling towards eateries or shops. The majority smiling or laughing in tandem with a companion.
Not a single person among them so much as glanced towards Garry’s bench. It was as though he wasn’t there.
Once upon a time, such things would’ve ripped Garry’s aching heart to pieces but he’d grown weary of those feelings – they served no usable purpose – and had accepted his invisible existence.
Still, it would be nice to have someone.
Letting out a soft groan, he stood from the bench, pitched his scrunched-up wrapper through the opening of the bin ten feet away – he’d long ago stopped looking around to see if any passers-by had noticed and wanted to celebrate his athletic prowess – and returned to the office to see out the remainder of another mundane day.
As six o’clock approached, Garry collected his things – his notepad in which he’d written nothing since October, his coffee mug which he preferred to wash at home rather than risk someone else using it, and his headphones that he brought into work even though he had only ever had to video-call someone three times in eight years – and shut down his terminal.
He swept the room and saw only Eric remained, watching the last minutes of a rugby match which, based on banter he’d overheard during the afternoon, Garry knew was between Fiji and Samoa.
Of the twenty-three other workers who’d been in the office that day, not a single one had bid Garry a farewell as they left.
Just another normal day.
Garry offered a wave across to Eric, who didn’t respond.
Outside, the sky had grown unseasonably ominous and Garry was glad he’d brought a coat, but not just because of the weather.
While he wasn’t always successful, every time the weather necessitated an extra layer, he tried to hang his as close to Nisha’s as possible so that it might pick up a hint of her perfume. On this day, he had even discreetly moved someone else’s – he thought it might have been Eric’s – so that his could lie overlapping hers.
He pulled up his collar and breathed deeply, savouring the light, sweet scent of her.
After a brief visit to a nearby shop to pick up a four-pack of beer, a microwaveable mac and cheese and a large bag of Mini Cheddars, Garry hopped onto the bus for the journey home.
Despite the hour, he found a free seat although he soon regretted it when four teenage boys bounded onto the bus. One took the seat next to him, one sat in the seat in front of him, and the other two settled directly behind.
The boys were loud but good-natured, joking with one another and gesticulating around. The boy next to Garry repeatedly jostled him as he swivelled to interact with his friends, seemingly unaware that a grown human was sitting beside him.
Garry tried to distract himself by planning his night ahead. Last night’s dishes remained in the sink, so he’d wash those as soon as he got in. Next, he’d take a shower. After that, the headline act: his synthetic, plasticky macaroni that would undoubtedly burn his mouth. The stuff was like magma for at least twenty minutes after it emerged from the nuclear furnace that was his microwave.
He’d eat his meagre dish on the sofa and would try to find something to watch on one of the many streaming platforms he subscribed to. The likelihood was that the irritating clack of the selector as he cycled through the suggestions – none of which were ever remotely like anything he wanted to watch – would get on his nerves so much that he’d give up and eventually just stick on an episode of Doctor Who or Stargate which he’d seen almost a hundred times.
The four beers would start to work and, when his eyes became heavy, he’d shuffle into bed where he’d read for a while, then set his alarm ready to do it all again tomorrow.
It could be worse, he told himself. He didn’t know quite how it could be worse, but he was sure it could be.
Angling his nose towards his collar, he breathed in another dose of Nisha and smiled to himself as he scanned the city rolling by outside the bus window.
He was completely unaware that he was being studied – and had been every single one of the eighteen times he’d caught the bus at this time for the past six months – by the keen, cold eyes of the bus driver in his rear-view mirror.
