OLWG #184- All The Standard Janitorial Tools

This week’s prompts  are at the bottom. The words below are just practice. Practice makes perfect.

Here’s how to play along, if you are unsure.

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Nayla had overslept and was running just a bit late. Not so late that she was going to get fired for being late; only a bit late. Even so, she was stressed when she punched in for work. She tossed her sack lunch in the breakroom refrigerator and hurried to her desk, dropped off her briefcase, picked up her yellow legal pad, and ran the rest of the way to the conference room. She tried to sneak in and not disrupt the meeting that was already in progress.

“Nayla, so glad you could join us,” Mr Payden announced to the room, “I skipped your new assignment, as you weren’t here, please hang on till we finish this up and I’ll go over it with you, one-on-one.”

For the next forty-five minutes, Nayla listened as Payden handed out assignments to her co-workers. As always, he encouraged the team to consult one another if problems arose. Mr Payden was a pretty good boss, but he was an overseer. He did not like to get involved in the nitty-gritty of what they did. He didn’t want to know the details; he only wanted results.

“Alright guys,” the boss summed up, “Let’s get on it, don’t forget that your self-evaluations are due today. If you haven’t done so already you can turn those in with your progress reports this afternoon. Email is the best way.”

Nayla kept her seat as the rest of the team filed out of the conference room. She grabbed Danya by the wrist as he stepped past, “Did I miss anything important?” She whispered.

Danya shook his head, “No not really,” he said, “Payden’s primary concern this morning is those self evals, so don’t forget to turn that in.”

Nayla nodded her head. Danya turned toward the door where Amon grabbed his arm, “Dude?” was all Nayla heard Amon say as the two turned towards the library.

Mr Payden straightened his paper and moved down the long table to Nayla. He sat down next to her, “Nayla, you were late again today. That’s twice this month already. You need to better your punctuality. Corporate is gonna start cracking down.”

“Yes sir, I understand, and I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” She said.

The two studied one another for a few seconds until Payden smiled. “Thanks,” he said, “Listen I’ve got a tough one for you this week,” he started rifling through his stack of papers, “There’s this old guy in New Mexico, fancies himself to be a writer. You need to look in on him. He goes by  TN Karr, or TN Kerr, or something like that. I know that the TN is right, and the last name is close. Maybe it’s Kern or Kirk, whatever – you’ll find him.” Nayla nodded because it seemed appropriate to nod about then.

“Anyway, this guy’s imagination is running out of control and, we need to nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand. Your assignment, Nayla, is to find him and clean his imagination up before he writes something that will embarrass himself and his family. Now, this is strictly a clean-up and you are authorized to use all the standard janitorial tools to get it done. Do not, I repeat, do not; cut or otherwise damage his imagination; just clean it up. We don’t want to have anything like what happened with Mary and Gestas and that CPA from Indianapolis last month. Think you can handle it?”

Nayla thought about what Payden had just said. She was familiar with TN Kerr’s work and she knew that to clean up his imagination without using a scalpel or a chain saw, or an axe was not going to be an easy task. Was Payden setting her up for failure or was he allowing her to shine?

Slowly she nodded her head, “Yeah, I think I can do this,” she answered; then quickly added, “and, I appreciate the opportunity, Mr Payden. I do.”

“I think you can do this, too,” Payden told her, “If you need any help though, pull in either Danya or Amon. I watched you work with those guys in the past. They both get better when they work with you.” He slapped the palms of his hands on the table, with a sharp clap, “Get with travel to go to New Mexico. You might need a passport. Any questions?” He stood, expecting none.

“No sir,” Nayla answered. She stood and watched Payden leave the conference room as a smile spread across her face.

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This week’s prompts are:

1. prosaic
2. labourious
3. boresome