The Professional

The Professional – Ina Disguise

The last story for SB. I would not want to live like you.

“What did you do last night?” the woman appeared to be smiling at him, but he increasingly found it difficult to tell what people really thought. They often appeared to be friendly, and then you would find they ignored you as they passed your desk, or some other indication of contempt.

“Watched a film.” The professional’s life was isolated unless he was drinking. Drinking made him feel better for a while, and as he got drunk rather easily, he numbed up quite quickly as a rule.

He quite liked people who had just started in the job, as they were nervous and frightened. Since this gave him an obvious advantage, they weren’t a threat yet. Hence he would spend time being seen to be helpful, so that they would stupidly trust him later, when they might pose more of a potential obstacle.

People threaten you in various ways, he found. Sometimes it was by challenging you, being too correct. Sometimes it was by appearing to be friendly and becoming intrusive. Sometimes they just failed to meet targets, and this was a threat because it impacted his spreadsheets. The danger was everywhere. Having bitten and scratched to get his two hundred and fifty pounds a day, he was not likely to want to give it up.

In response, the professional had taken to exerting control over smaller and smaller things, to the point of ensuring that people filled in information that nobody cared about or checked and delegating tasks that did not take him particularly long. In this way, his time was freed up for writing reports and destroying any potential competition. He also devoted time to making sure his bosses knew he could be depended upon.

The professional’s entire posture had become affected by this paranoia, to the point that his shoulders crouched forward and he superficially appeared to be quite small. This meant that he found it easier to conceal the expressions of contempt that frequently crossed his face as he interacted with people. Only someone watching out for it would notice the mask slipping, the blank expression replaced with a psychotic rage for a second before he carefully concealed it.

Now and again, a woman would become interested, and then she had to be neutralised. The one exception to this was a married woman he had successfully blackmailed into sleeping with him, whom he controlled by a combination of looming over her desk, issuing his instructions for the day, or ignoring anything she said, which he frequently did as she frantically tried to communicate with him. Women were objects of contempt. He despised peoples ‘attempts to help.’ They were usually threats, covered by some crazy person’s idea of helpfulness.

He did not imagine himself to be pleasant to work with. He imagined himself to be a true professional, and made use of every contractual point he could find to isolate and attack his victims. People who had found him friendly and pleasant would suddenly find themselves at the end of a corporate gun as he decimated any potential problems. This was survival. He was the fittest.

The professional kept on in this way for years. The staff would whisper to each other about it. People came and went at his whim.

And then she came.

She was an artist, although this meant nothing to him. She was an author, which meant he had to carefully scrutinise and reject everything she had to say. She liked him, which meant he would have to get rid of her. He stared at her, for days at a time, sizing her up for the kill, one way or another. Maybe she would enjoy pain?

She was funny for a while, trying to avoid him she would skirt around the outside of the office because she was so frightened of being accused of anything. She had made some involuntary pass at him, which had been extremely funny because he knew the minute she did that, he had the weapon he needed to destroy her.

He quite enjoyed feeling attractive. He started going to the gym in between drinks, updated his wardrobe, changed his hair. His entire posture improved until he appeared twice the size. He was happy to be looked at. He took to screwing the little married woman a bit more often, although she did not like it. What else were women for, other than gaining advantage?

She emailed him. This was a threat, so he made a complaint leading to her being warned, although the warning was so gently put that she did not even know it was a warning.

When the artist spotted that he was, in fact, sleeping with someone she backed off and redoubled her efforts to avoid looking at him. He did not like that, the hatred really set in. Why did she not appear to want him anymore. Had he not become even more beautiful? She was an irritant, even though she wasn’t even on his team. It was time to get rid of her.

The artist tried to communicate with him from a distance, so that she would not say anything wrong. She tried to redirect any conversation onto safer ground so that they could work together, he would respond with hostility and accusations. She tried to transfer onto another shift, so that she did not have to deal with him. They refused.

The last straw was when she tried to give him a book on dealing with stress. This was appalling. How dare she! He complained of harassment, on the basis of a total of five conversations in three months, three of which he had started himself. Now she would understand how big and powerful he was.

The artist was then dragged into an office for a second time, told that her attempts to resolve any problems by means other than making accusations or hurting people were ‘unprofessional’ and fired by an inexperienced little South African oik who expected her to grovel to him.

The artist sighed and left Lilliput behind.