The memo from Human & Dolphin Resources says that dolphins sleep by shutting down one side of their brain at a time, and we’ll need to accommodate their unusual schedules. I call a meeting to brainstorm about possible solutions, but the arrogant dolphins just laugh, assuring me that they’re all well-rested since this job only requires half a brain anyway.

I’ll concede that cetaceans outrank humans in intelligence and productivity, but surely there are other factors to consider. For instance, 600-pound employees don’t fit well into our standard task chairs, especially with the tails. There’s just no way to do it ergonomically, and the Workers’ Comp claims are starting to trickle in.

And our noise cancelling equipment can’t mask the heavy breathing coming from the cubicles. I tactfully describe the level of decorum expected in an office setting but the dolphins respond with a cacophony of obscene sounds, which they all quickly blame on their blowholes.

Because of their flippers, dolphins aren’t good with keyboards and they need to dictate all their correspondence. Management brought in a new transcriptionist last week, a superstar squid who’s fluent in Atlantic and Pacific dialects, types ten letters at a time, and brings his own ink to the office. I suspect he has his giant eye on my job.

And gone are the days when I could escape to the break room, and relax for a few moments with coffee and cake. Now, the refrigerator’s filled to the gills with raw mackerel and herring. The dolphins slurp fish guts at lunch time and trade lurid details about their latest sex acts, since not one of them is monogamous. I don’t understand what women see in them.

Then, there’s the smell. I’d expected dolphins to smell fishy but they don’t. They’re fairly odor-free when the day begins. But they whined about wanting to keep their skin hydrated if they had to be out of the water for eight hours, and management ordered lotion from a specialty store in the mall. Now the dolphins slather each other with Berry Vanilla and Sweetest Plum. By 3 PM, the whole place smells like a cheap Bottlenose brothel.

And every time I look up, the dolphins are smiling. No doubt they’re gleefully plotting my demise behind those plastered grins. The constant clicks and squeaks are starting to sound a lot like laughter, and my mind drifts back to happier times, when there were still plenty of fish in the sea.

But perhaps the worst part is watching how easy I’ll be to replace. I used to be an indispensable cog in the corporate machine, a Senior Director of Sales. But now, our CEO is an orca with a killer instinct, and all I can do is watch in horror as my career is swept away by the unforgiving seas of change.
 

Copyright © 2009 by Brookside Press