How a Color Copier Almost Ruined My Life

Monday mornings were always the same.  That is, unless a Monday morning happened to be a holiday at which point Tuesday morning became Monday morning which ultimately felt the same as Monday morning still being Monday morning. 

Or unless you had a considerably important sales pitch to deliver.  Such was the state of my thought processes at precisely 7:57 on this particular Monday morning.  Maneuvering through the ground floor of my marketing firm’s office building, dodging fellow foot commuters and mail delivery people, I breathed deeply of the recycled, air-conditioned oxygen.  Today, Monday was the all-important day; for this was the Monday I would nail my first international advertising account.

Well, it wouldn’t be my triumph alone.  I had to give props to my diligent co-worker, Charlie, who was the financial nerd-brain on the project.  He had, after all, been the only company representative to meet our potential client face to face.  I, Sarah Marie Morgan, Vice-President of New Accounts, had merely spoken to them via e-mail thanks to an unseasonal bout of swine flu.  Still, despite my willingness to accept that today’s possible success would be a joint success, I was confidently patting myself on the back.  I tried to restrict my excitement to a respectable office minimum as I bubbled forth from the elevator and strode purposefully toward our floor’s color copier.  I had cheerful-yet-informative handouts to print.

It took all of five minutes to discover that my “today” had different plans for me.  After sucking up and spitting out the first few pages of my carefully-designed handouts, the copier flashed one of its famous alerts: replace toner.  “Okay, I’ll replace the toner,” I mumbled to myself.  This accomplished, I restarted my print job.

“Replace toner,” the evil machine repeated.

“I just friggin’ did!” I told it, hands planted firmly on my hips.

“No, you idiot, you replaced the black toner.  Now the cyan, yellow, and magenta cartridges need replacing…ha, HA!”

Unsuccessfully resisting an urge to kick the damned machine, I smacked it good with my new black power heels, pouted momentarily, then proceeded to install the additional toner cartridges.  Refusing to slide in as indicated by the unhelpful graphic stuck to the inside of the open copier cover, I resorted to brute force and shoved the cartridges as hard as I could.  Multi-colored ink erupted all around me in a cloud of fabric-staining glory until it—and I—plopped disconsolately down onto the carpet.  Then I kicked the machine again.

 “I think I broke the copier,” I announced to thin air.  Unbeknownst to me, Charlie had arrived upon the distressing scene.

“I think the copier broke you,” he unhelpfully remarked.

My frustration level having reached maximum handelability, the tears began to leak slowly out the edges of my eyelids.  Waving a reluctant goodbye to my previous enthusiasm, I sat in a powdered pool of black, cyan, magenta, and yellow ink.  “This isn’t happening.” 

Charlie leaned nonchalantly against the copier visited upon us from the fourth or fifth circle of hell and surveyed the sight before him.  I thought he felt sorry for me but couldn’t be sure until he ventured, “So do you need help with anything?”

Exhaling yet another sigh, I solidly placed my hands in the multi-colored mess and pushed myself into a standing position.  I didn’t have to inspect the skirt of my brand new three-piece silk power suit that perfectly matched the black power heels.  I knew it was ruined.  “Yeah, you can.  How familiar are you with selecting women’s professional wear?”

“Huh?”

“I need a new suit or skirt or…at least a matching pair of pants so I can look some semblance of presentable for the meeting in an hour.  There’s no way this mess will give me enough time for emergency shopping.”

The hint of a smirk appeared at the corners of Charlie’s mouth.  “I thought that meeting was tomorrow.”

“What?  You thought…what?”

“I’ve got the financial projections all neatly organized in an Excel file on my home computer.  I thought we’d go over them tonight so you could finalize the Power Point for the presentation tomorrow afternoon.”

Stomach sinking, I pointed at him and gasped, “Your laptop…there!  Why didn’t…I was supposed to do the Power Point?”

All smirking ceased as Charlie’s face broke into a sizeable grin.  “Kidding.  It’s all in here,” he said, patting the padded laptop case hanging from his shoulder. 

“Dear lord above and beyond!  If you ever do that to me again, I’ll strangle you with your own shoulder strap!”

“That’s fair.  Now, size please?”

“Size?  Oh, umm…probably a 4, maybe a 6.  It all depends on the cut of the skirt…or pants, whichever.  If they’re too slim, grab a 6.  If they’re a relaxed fit, get a 4.  Oh, and if you do get pants, make sure they’re longs.”

“And you really trust me to get this right?”

I stared at the state of the floor and myself.  “Do I have a choice?”

“Not really.”  Charlie paused to inspect the rest of me.  Platonically perusing my backside, he asked, “And what about the jacket?  You sort of have a psychedelic, 60s-minded thing going on back here…makes me want a joint.”

I moaned my exasperation, ripped off the jacket as quickly as I could, and absorbed the extent of the damage.  Scattering little wisps of colored ink with each motion, I whimpered, “Just…just do what you can.  On a Murphy’s Law kind of day like today, I doubt I could do much better.”

“Ten-four,” Charlie replied.  He touched me encouragingly on the shoulder and added, “I’ll be back in half an hour.”

“But the mall is half an hour away as it is.”

With a wink, he said, “I know a guy.” 

 

Fifteen minutes later I was in the ladies’ restroom feverishly wiping ink from my skin and wondering what in the bloody freaking world I’d done to deserve such treatment by the Corporate Fates.  Did I trust Charlie to come through?  About as much as I trusted myself right now.  Our presentation for a huge new account was supposed to happen in fifteen—no, make that thirteen—minutes.  I couldn’t even market myself much less this new line of 100% green-friendly, naturally-waste-repelling baby diapers!

I heard a knock.  “Come in?”

Charlie inched the door open and slowly stuck his head inside the forbidden female space.  His eyes were squeezed firmly shut.  “Sarah?  You in there?”

“As far as I know.  Were you able to find anything wearable?”

Still proceeding with caution, Charlie’s body followed his head into the mysterious domain of feminine hygiene.  An expression of semi-wonderment was pasted onto his face.  “Wow.  Your fluorescent tubing doesn’t flicker.”

I grabbed the plastic bag from his hand.  It was awfully light.  “Ten minutes, that’s all we have!”

“I know.  I swung by the conference room first to make sure everything was set up.  Nobody’s in there yet”

“And is it?  Set up, I mean?”

“More or less.”

“And how do the final numbers look?  Can we keep costs within the client’s proposed budget?”

“The numbers look great!  This account is ours, no way we could possibly lose it.”

As I yanked open my shopping bag, I strongly questioned his confident declaration.  My vocal cords shriveled up and tried to hide behind my spinal column as I whispered, “What is this?”

Charlie was visibly proud of his male ingenuity.  “It’s a stretch skirt, one size fits all!  See, that way the size didn’t matter, and look: the bright pinks and yellows match the ink smears on the back of your jacket.”

He was serious.  Bless his well-meaning-but-errant little heart, he was serious!  And I could tell by the fact that he was still grinning—hands dug firmly into his trouser pockets—that he was certain I’d approve.

We now had five minutes ‘til showtime, and my vocal cords were tentatively checking to see if danger had passed.  It hadn’t.  I choked, “I don’t…know what to say,” as I retreated into a bathroom stall and tried not to slam the door behind me.

“Aw, you don’t have to say anything,” Charlie answered.  “And anyway, I had an awesome idea while driving to the mall.  It came to me when I saw this guy on the side of the street with a big cart full of stuff like this for sale.”

Side of the street?  Big cart?

“Once I looked through all the bins a couple of times, I started thinking: this retro hippie kind of thing could go perfectly with the whole theme of our presentation!  That’s exactly the slice of society this new diaper product will appeal to: the return-to-nature, hug-your-hummus slice!”

Sweet edamame, I didn’t know what had happened to the man I’d been working and researching with for six months.  I didn’t want to exit that stall either, but in the interest of professionalism, I thought it best to do so.  ‘Tis far wiser to present a Power Point from behind a conference room table than from behind a toilet seat.  Winston Churchill said that, I think.

 I creaked the door open and crept out from behind it, the clingy knit mini-skirt riding up with each movement.  “So…how do I look?”

A dramatically transformed Charlie—now sporting a crocheted, psychedelically-dyed Rasta hat complete with attached artificial dreadlocks—met my deflated gaze.  “Groovy, mon!” was his enthusiastic reply.  “How do I look?”

There were no words.  Instead of trying to find some, I silently walked up to the restroom’s full-length mirror and stared at the spectacle reflected therein.  This is what a Bachelor’s degree and four years’ worth of entry-level grunt work had gotten me: a copier ink-smeared designer jacket, an iridescent stretch skirt worthy of a streetwalker, and a presentation partner jumping in and out of stalls singing, “I say, eh mon!” 

“If you do the jungle bird call, I quit.”  And out the door I went.

Charlie excitedly followed…as did the jungle bird call.

 

It’s impossible to describe the echoing silence that followed us into the conference room.  The breathy whir of a projection machine and occasional sigh of Charlie’s laptop in a cooling-down cycle were the only audible sounds.  I tried hard not to make eye contact with any of the board members present but ultimately failed when Charlie announced, “No worries, mon, we’re here and ready to begin!”

I wanted to die.  Instead of giving in to such morbid temptations, however, I readjusted my skirt and cautiously took a peek at the faces around the conference table.  Our marketing firm’s CEO, Ms. Melinda Ford, was eyeing me up and down repeatedly, her shocked gaze resting most often on the god-awful skirt.  I admired her recovery skills as she cleared her throat and said, “We just found out that our client is running late, but in the interim, why don’t you give us a brief synopsis of your…creative approach to this account.”

It felt like all of my movements were stunted and robot-like, but good old Charlie had never been more—what was a good description?—“rhythmically flexible.”  He walked about the room to the beat of the reggae in his brain, delineating our marketing scheme for these groundbreaking green diapers. 

Okay, I thought that thought all wrong.

Ms. Ford continued in traditional CEO-like fashion.  “And how do you plan to keep costs down during this campaign’s start-up phase?  The client was very clear that they were limited as far as initial advertising capital is concerned.  Sarah?”

Lulled into a mindless stupor by the combination of Charlie’s beat-box speech delivery and one too many glances at my clothing, it took several seconds before the sound of my name registered on a conscious level.  My body jerked itself back into the land of lucidity as I responded with, “Due to the growing demand for environmentally-friendly waste disposal options, we project that the client will see measurable marketing results for the green diapers within six months.”

The Board grimaced in concert.

“Did I say that out loud?”

Charlie fought against rollicking laughter.

“Yes you did, mon,” Melinda replied.

Charlie lost the fight against rollicking laughter.

            I would’ve crawled underneath the table if I could’ve done it modestly…effing skirt.  At the end of my unraveling rope, I spiraled downwardly into despair.  “Hmm.  Is that an open window I see?  Methinks I shall jump out of it.”

            Still laughing, though momentarily released from the Rasta demon’s thrall, Charlie threw his arms around me in a bear hug.  “No you won’t, Ms. Sarah.  Not until we’ve sealed this deal.”

            Melinda’s typically stoic expression had softened into a half-smile.  “And on that note, I believe the client has arrived.  Charlie, would you please show them in?  And get them whatever refreshments they prefer.”

            Grinning like he knew a secret, Charlie lazily saluted his superior.  “Don’t worry, mon!  Everything is under control.”

            I wished I could believe it, but as Charlie ambled toward the door—fully back to his island self—I began mentally calculating the sizeable credit card debt I’d incurred buying this stupid suit.  How would I pay it off now? 

            As the client and her assistants entered, speechlessness possessed me.  A friendly hand grasped mine, shaking it firmly.  My mouth hung involuntarily open as I gazed into a smiling, chocolate-colored face framed by dreadlocks and crowned with an intricately-arranged, fluorescently-colorful turban.  “You must be Sarah,” a thickly-accented voice said.  “My name is Delores Kenji.  It is wonderful to finally meet you!”

            Every person in the room grinned at me in a most ridiculous and unprofessional fashion.  They all knew.  Every single one of them knew!  My knees weak from the day’s up-and-down sequence of events, I plopped wearily into a rolling chair.  The chair rolled backward and slammed into a dry-erase board.  “So,” I began, “We can assume that the final projections were acceptable?”

            Delores laughed.  “Of course!  We are pleased to place our advertising campaign into your capable hands.”

            Our new Jamaican client walked amiably around the table, shaking hands and chatting a moment with each of the board members.  When it was finally Charlie’s turn to be thus greeted, Delores gave him a knowing wink.  “You were right.  That was fun!”

            I wasn’t quite so sure about that yet.

            “If you conduct business with as much energy and creativity as you’ve conducted these negotiations,” Delores continued, “We can look forward to a long and successful partnership.”

            “Thank you, thank you so much, Ms. Kenji.  Would you and your assistants like anything to drink?  A snack, perhaps?”

            Delores motioned to one of her entourage.  “That will not be necessary.  We have brought refreshments of our own to celebrate this moment.”

            I watched with interest as Delores’s assistant placed a plastic-wrapped plate in front of me.  Removing the decorative ribbon and pulling apart the layers of plastic, I had to join in the laughter too.

            Brownies.