An Office with a View

Stellai’s blog March 2021: 

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An Office with a View

It must be said, the view I have in this office is absolutely marvellous. Every time I pass the window I can’t help staring outside. Especially the moon is amazing. It is so much bigger than I remember seeing it at home. Elon was not exaggerating when he told me that I was gonna have the office with the best view in the company. Today is my third day on the job and.... hmm.... Better start at the beginning....

Before these last three days I have had an extensive introduction period here at Space X. Star reporter for Elon Musk  you do not become overnight. As for the introduction... 

It may be my lack of experience in job introductions, but it certainly was a hell of a lot different than I had expected.  The word ‘introduction’ felt more like a trick-word. For the rest of my life this word will remind me in how it was used to lure me into filling in more questionnaires than I have done in my entire life altogether, a word to lure me into doing an endless number of  tests, psychological, philosophical, mathematical, physical.... , not to mention the tests in which I have been x-rayed, magnetized, demagnetized, electrocuted, demagnetized again, vacuumed, G-forced (You do not think this is a verb? Well, it sure as hell is one over here!), I have been examined, re-tested, re-re-tested, nursed and pampered. That last one was the toughest, because on more than one of these occasions the 'Pamper Crew' tried to lure me into replacing my Daisy Duke outfit for what they euphemistically called the ‘Standard Company’s SRO’ (Star Reporter’s Outfit, aka the Scarecrow Suit).  The outfit was a kind of robotic suit that made me look like Vampirella dressed like Robocop. And it wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't had those reinforced mechanical arms with metal gloves attached to them. Have you ever tried to write with a pencil while wearing metal gloves? It is IMPOSSIBLE!! So, after 37 attempts I told them that the suit was a no-go (Ok, I may have used a slightly stronger expression at the time...).  And you are not going to belief it, but  this nearly caused a management crisis, because it turned out that half the R&D team had spent more than three weeks designing and constructing that special suit for me. So, after two days of debate and  as a token of my good will I compromised in keeping the magnetic missile boots. I have no idea why these boots are such a big deal to them. Sure they look cool, but fact is that they walk like shit.

Day one...

8.45 hrs  am      This is a MENACE! Every time I lift my hand, the papers of my bloc note curl like the haircut of Harry f*cking Potter. And how on earth am I supposed to make notes when my pencil keeps drifting to the far end of my desk every time I change it for my eraser.  Sure, everything in this office is brand new, so little adjustments can be expected to be made, but I have adjusted the position of this desk top at least 10 times now, but no matter the angle I choose, my stuff keeps falling off, or on as the case may be. Somebody should have warned me that the rules of gravity do not apply when you are having your office above the penthouse floor in a skyscraper building.  

Another thing I noticed is that the air here is so thin that the resistance of my pencil eraser to reduce its speed while bouncing is virtually nil. I couldn't resist throwing it for fun when I found out, but I had to pay the price afterwards as it took me almost half an hour to catch the damn thing. This because it was impossible to predict its next direction, bouncing itself through the office like a cannonball gone completely mad.

Ok, I am calling it a day, because the sun just went down the horizon. First thing tomorrow I am gonna have a ‘little chat’ with Elon about this ‘ready-for-take-off joke’ of his. I am pretty sure Elon must have been perfectly well aware that his crew had been planning this practical joke of speeding up the elevator to the max  when they moved me and my office to the roof of this building. If it hadn't been for that G-force test last week that they'd lured me into, I am pretty sure I would have ended up this ride with my hips covering my ears.

Day two...

9.30 hrs am        The bed they have arranged for me in my office ain't so bad. At first I had some doubts, because it seals you like Koen’s notorious* transport suitcases for ScoonimDolls, but with a gravity close to nil it is better to be securely tucked in, as I found out halfway the night, when I woke up floating upside down next to my desk.

(*notorious.... Koen kindly helps you in, he carefully secures you, but once arrived on the place of destination....  the asshole forgets to take you out! It has happened more than once that I have been locked in that damned suitcase for weeks!)

9.50 hrs am      Well, that is the time according to clock hanging on the wall above the candy bar machine. Whether this is the correct the time is a bit questionable. When compared to the length of a day this clock seems to run at least ten times slower than it should. Logic deduction tells me this clock must be powered by a snail doll in a treadmill.              

I just have had a brief video conference with Elon. It seems to me that there has been a slight misunderstanding from my side. I thought it quite obvious that ‘star reporter’  means that your job is to interview celebrities. It never occurred to me that reporting about stellar phenomena also could be part of the job. I have to admit that I feel a little bit at loss, because, other than my name suggests, I know zip about the tiny little dots of light one can see at night in the sky.  I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better if I would have been open about this before they launched this office with me in it to the top of the building. But then again, I am not the only one here holding cards to the chest. As I suspected, Elon has been fully aware of the practical joke the team was going to pull off with the elevator. And during the video conference I could tell from his face that there is more to come. Too quickly he changed the subject and continued to instruct me on today's tasks. I am to familiarize myself with replacing the power packs of my magnetic missile boots while the power from electromagnets in the boots is turned off. Where this comes in handy for a star reporter, I have no idea. But since this is only my second actual working day, I have decided not to object immediately.

Day three...

10.30 am    Time passes quickly and that is not metaphorically speaking.  Sure, my days working with Koen in the workshop could be boring, sometimes making a day look like an eternity, but here time passes so quickly that when I do my hair in the morning I risk losing half a day. This is also because other than at home the air, if any, is so very dry that my hair gets extremely static when I comb it. This morning I wanted to make braids, but I ended up as Pippi Longstocking with exploded pigtails.  Pity that I cannot put it on photo, because Elon had made me sign an agreement that specifically forbids me to share all images with you that I make here at Space X without his consent.

11.20 am     I now successfully can change the power packs while floating through the office. Though it fails any relevance to reporting about stars in whatever sense, I hope Elon will have more of these kind of jobs for me to do, because it really was big fun. When you take off the power of the eöectromagnets in the boots you start floating like everything else in this office that is not attached to a surface. Changing the power packs is then a lot harder, but I am getting quite a hang in controlled floating through this office. I have not yet tried the missile function of my boots, because I am pretty sure I will crack my skull when trying this inside. It is a large office, but it is not that large. Tomorrow I am gonna try them outside.

12.10 am    More likely it is now six o’clock in the evening, because the sun is already close to the horizon. At home they soon will have the dinner break, which is dinner for the embees and a break for Dibs and the rest of my girls. Then they all will have fun together…without me.  Except for my brief daily video chat with Elon, I haven't seen a single doll for nearly three days now. Having the office with the best view ain’t much fun when nobody comes to visit you.  Sure, it was a nice gesture to give the new star reporter the office closest to the stars. And indeed, even with that super fast elevator it takes nearly an hour to reach the top floor in this skyscraper. But if it means that nobody comes over to socialize with me, then the office starts to feel like a prison. So tomorrow I will go downstairs to have a chat with other dolls. Then I can also ask someone from the tech staff to take a look at the clock and the candy bar machine, because like the clock, I think it must be broken. The display mentions ‘Mars’ and a number, which I guess will correspond to the amount of candy bars it, but the machine is counting down, while I know for a fact that I have not taken out even a single one of these Mars candy bars.

To be continued…

Stellai

P.S. The photo series  in this blog is the prequel to the series in my previous blog, but no doubt you already noticed ;)

P.P.S. If you want to re-read my amazing previous blog of Januari 2021 called:  “Chance of a lifetime”,  then just click on this link.