Suspicion

So this new job of mine, there's a lot to do, which makes the days go by quickly, but the work isn't always all that interesting to me. Also, since I've started there's something about the place that doesn't seem quite right, and I've been thinking about that.

A few days ago, one of the coworker who I hadn't gotten to know very well disappeared without explanation. Suddenly, her desk was empty and her name was off of the work schedule, but nobody was talking about it.

As a new contractor doing the exact same job as she was, I wanted to know more. If she was fired, was it the quality of her work, her attitude, the speed of her work, punctuation, personal hygiene, what? I guess I wanted to know what not to do, in case I wanted to stay here for a while, or the converse. It would be good information.

Since no one was talking, I was left to my own devices. MaryAnn told me that she had gotten one of the assignments from the separated worker. I told her to be on the lookout for anything that might indicate a reason to be fired. She said that she would have organized the topics differently herself, but that was about all that could be said to be wrong with the document.

Meanwhile, I was on the keen lookout for suspicious activity. I started to realize that although everyone around me constantly appears to be frantically busy, I have never seen any actual results of all this work.

Then the other day as I was driving around the series of connected building to get to the spot in the back parking lot, something caught my eye. It was a man in a white lab coat coming through a parting in the chain link fence between some other buildings in the industrial park. I watched as he went to an unmarked door to a building that is connected to my building.

The next time I drove around I took a closer look. The only markings on the door said "CAUTION: eye protection required." I thought it was unusual that this part of the complex is inaccessible from my area, and does not have a sign anywhere. I peered through the fence opening and saw another series of unmarked buildings. And then another lab-coat guy came and went through!

Back at my desk, I had been complaining about how dirty everything seemed to get, and with impressive speed a never-before-seen "maintenance worker" appeared with a ladder and used a paint brush to clean the "dust" off of a large vent that's nearly right over my desk. Most unusual.

I tried to put the pieces together. I told MaryAnn to take another look at that document, to check for things like the first letter of every other word spelling out a secret plea for help when read backwards.

I'm still working on it, but there must be a way to connect these occurrences into a single explanation. There just has to be one. Or not.