"Bored. Bored, bored, bored," the lone voice was heard to say, in a bored tone.
It was Saturday morning, about 5 past 8, and I was already bored. I was at work, and did I mention that I was bored?
I work for an engineering firm; I'm a programmer; and we have to have IT cover during Saturday morning to ensure that the factory floor is supported. There's one programmer and one hardware person on a one-on-three-off rota. It's not too bad really, we get the time off in lieu, and we can work on our own projects if we want to. For some reason, this particular Saturday, I was just bored.
My opposite number in the hardware section hadn't turned in yet, and I had a nasty feeling that he... The phone rang...
"Good morning, IT," I put on my "at work" voice.
"Hi Chris, Alan here." It was my manager. The nasty feeling got worse. I was going to get lumbered, I could feel it.
"Gavin's not going to be in today, he's fallen down the stairs and buggered his ankle," Alan continued. I *knew* it!
"Well this could get interesting, I'm not up to speed on the new AE-35 units and I know two of them went live last night."
"You'll just have to do the best you can. Oh, while I think about it, I think Saffron's coming in today; she said something yesterday about needing to get ahead of herself before her holiday."
My day just got a lot better.
"Fair enough, I'll keep an eye out for her. Well, if one of the AE-35's fails, I'll swap it out and give you a shout then?"
"That's all you can go. Call me if you get a problem. See you Monday."
"Yeah, see you Monday." I hung up the phone.
Oh. Now this was unexpected. Saffron, and me, in the office, on our own. The potential for sexual tension was high; the potential for sexual action was also pretty high! I started thinking about how we could get privacy; how we could be sure we weren't interrupted.
Then my thoughts /were/ interrupted, by the phone. A user. With a nasty problem. All thoughts of Saffron went out of my head while I worked on this problem.
45 minutes later I heard the office door open.
"Fancy a cuppa?" It was Saffron.
"Love one," I replied.
"Yeah, but what about a cuppa?" she chuckled as she picked up my mug from my desk.
"That too," I replied with a smile. "Let me fix this and I'll come through to the kitchen."
She nodded, and with a wiggle of her bum walked out towards the kitchen. I finished what I was working on, and wandered out of the office, pausing to grab one of the cordless phones, planning to have a nice quiet chat, catch up on the company gossip and perhaps steal the odd grope.
During the next three hours the longest period we managed to spend talking before being interrupted by the phone, users, or a system alarm, was about 10 minutes. The "best laid plans of mice and men" huh?
Then it came to 12 midday. Knocking off time. The phones would be quiet from then on. I knew we had about two hours before security came round to do their check. I also knew we were potentially vulnerable unless some care was taken. I walked into her office to find her sitting at her desk, one foot up on the drawer, looking at her monitor. She turned to look at me as I walked in.