AREA MAN IN PLUSH HIGH-RISE OFFICE 'BARELY SURVIVING'

After overhearing a colleague on the phone this morning, I wrote this quick "Onion"-style article:

Area Man in Plush High-rise Office 'Barely Surviving'

by Staff Business Correspondent Jason Rohrblogger

Beverly Hills--Area purchasing manager Herb Stoeffel reports that he is "Just hanging on" this morning at work.

Upon arrival in the carpeted, leather upholstered lobby, Stoeffel's administrative assistant greeted him with the news that a fresh pot of hazelnut coffee and warm glazed donuts have been delivered to the breakfast room by local vendor, Tri-state Office Equipment. Breathing a heavy sigh, Stoeffel advised his administrative assistant that "some days it's not even worth chewing through the straps to come to work, you know?" Sitting in his climate controlled office with high-speed internet and indirect lighting, Stoeffel noted that his voicemail indicator was blinking. "Will it never end?" he silently prayed to an unforgiving God.

Ten e-mails and one monthly report later, Stoeffel was blindsided by a lunch offer from his counterpart in marketing. "Morton's is out of the sea bass," marketing manager Al "Bad News" Thompson warned, "so it looks like either the Oscar-style filet mignon or the scallops croquette again."

"Why don't you just put a rusty shotgun in my stomach and pull the trigger?" Stoeffel wondered aloud, fighting to just take one breath at a time.

Adding to the impossible working conditions, Building Services announced that the number one stall in the men's room will be out of service for 45 minutes to fix a leaky water supply line with a request to use one of the other eight well-appointed, chemically deodorized stalls. "When will sweet death relieve me from this dystopian nightmare of existential doom?" Stoeffel muttered under his shallow breath. When asked by accounting receptionist Shaundra Malvo to please hold on the phone, Stoeffel replied that he is, "Barely holding it together, right now!"

"Sometimes he will just stare out of his 15th-floor corner window at the panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean for hours," observed office manager Anne-Marie Oshira. "Some days he can hardly focus or concentrate with all the problems going on. He's not the type of person you want to put on speaker during a phone conversation."

Finally informed that due to a "delay" in the mail room, all early morning packages will be personally hand-delivered to recipients by 10:30am this morning and not the usual 10:00am, Stoeffel just threw up his arms and shouted, "How are we supposed to run a business here? This is unbelievable!" Sources point out that it's not even Monday.

-Jason Rohrblogger (9/17/13)