A Strange Thing In The Office

[DeletedUser31931]

New York 2012:

Hurricane Sandy never existed and New York is the bustling centre of trade that it should be. In an office in Brooklyn a company is hard at work as a financial services company; however they have branched out in many sections of Corporate Finance including law. The company is called Financer’s Trust and they have some of the best financial minds in the world. As the company carries on earning a decent amount and although not making a huge profit, they are not making a loss, however, all that is set to change with an event that will rock the entire company.

The Setting:
You are an employee at Financer’s Trust, there shouldn't be anything too special about you, just the average worker, who has no idea what is going to be thrust upon them quite shortly.

Character Sheet:

Name:
Age:
Job (See explanation):
Description:
Bio (what university you went to, how you ended up at the company etc.):


Jobs: A quick explanation

There are five types of jobs you can have at the company: Lawyer, Accountant, Financial Advisor, Market Expert or Cleaner:

Now I shall explain what each one of these does (it sounds simple but it’s worth reading)

Lawyer: You deal in Corporate Law, so anything from Mergers and Acquisitions to deal with Prosecution (people suing companies) or PPI or anything like that. In all of these cases you will be on the side of the company.

Accountant: You keep the finances of the company in check; nothing slips out of the company (money-wise) without you knowing about it. You’re not a particularly large department.

Financial Advisor: Rich people come to the company looking for advice, the company sends the rich people someone, namely… you. It’s your job to know about the Stock Markets etc. and advise them accordingly

Market Expert: You work hand in hand with the financial advisors, updating the advice they give and marking out potential investments, you have a small amount of money which the company has given you to invest with if they trust you. In most cases, they probably won’t.

Cleaner: This job is pretty self-explanatory; you come in every night and make sure the building is in presentable shape the next morning.

For the Character sheet here are two examples (these are my two characters, I will also control the head of the departments though):

Name: Eshan Serser
Age: 47
Job: Head of Financer’s Trust
Description: A slightly overweight man, Eshan appears your average American at first glance however not many people would realise is that under that chubby face is a highly intellectual mind
Bio: Graduating from Harvard with a degree in Finance he worked at several companies before seeing what he thought was a niche in the market and diving for it head on. With quite a bit of hard work he has made Financer’s Trust the company it is, however, he is getting on a bit and is beginning to look for someone to replace him and although he has managed to keep his search secret for now he fears that the secret will not be kept for long.

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Name: Samuel Otase
Age: 32
Job: Accountant
Description: Average height, light brown hair with blue eyes, Samuel wears glasses and looks like your average computer nerd, as a matter of fact he is, being able to think in binary and translate anything into binary at the drop of a hat as well as being a genius at maths, however, he feels his genius is unrecognised and ignores those who he works with, deeming them too stupid for him thus making him seem aloof to the rest of the world.

I don't think I've forgotten anything but please tell me if I have, lastly, I hope you guys all enjoy!

 

[DeletedUser]

Name: Daniel Crowthorpe
Age: 23
Job: Accountant
Description: Tall, with brown hair slicked back and fresh, crisp suits and shirts, Daniel looks the archetypal businessman with things to do and places to go. But beneath the facade of the efficient worker is a broken man who wallows in his self pity in a shameless self promotion.
Bio: Born and raised in sleepy Minnesota, Daniel soon moved away to California when attending college. After graduating he decided to pursue a business career as to be around money will draw money, as he says. Joining the company in 2005 he is a relatively new boy.

 

[DeletedUser]

Name: Kyle Birkbeck
Age: 22
Job: Cleaner
Description: A tall and slim man with scruffy brown hair, an unshaven face and a pale complexion.
Bio: Kyle was a lazy child who dropped out of school early and moved from job to job while trying to avoid any responsability. He eventually landed what he considers a dream job when he got the position of night cleaner. He works alone, at his own pace and he can even listen to his MP3 player while he does so.

 

[DeletedUser]

Name: Eldwood Priesmayer
Age: 23
Job: Lawyer
Description: Tall, with short brown hair, clean shaven, Eldwood has a handsome face, he looks just like any other businessman, with a crisp black suit and black leather briefcase.
Bio: Born in New York, to a family of lawyers, Elwood has lived in the city all his life, he enjoyed a good education, and when he was 18 he entered the family trade, working at various companies before winding up in Financer's Trust.

 

[DeletedUser25825]

Name: Jessica Smith

Age: 20

Job: Cleaner

Description: Jessica is 5'7" and weighs about 130 Lbs. She has long dark brown hair, which is naturally wavy and generally tied back in some manner. She thinks of herself as naturally attractive, so does not rely heavily on an undo amount of make-up. Her complexion is fair and unblemished. She always wears rimless glasses and hearing aids which are surreptitiously seated behind each of her ears. While working, Jessica wears khaki pants, a burgundy polo with the Financer’s Trust logo embroidered over her left breast, and non-slip black utility boots.

Bio: Jessica was born with congenital hearing loss due to recessive genes from both her parents. She attended a school for the deaf in Wisconsin and would return home in the summers. She did very well in school and graduated when she was 19. She applied to and was accepted at New York University, where she is studying special education.

Jessica started working for the cleaning crew over the past summer when she was on break from NYU. It was meant to be only a summer job, but she discovered it paid well and didn't weigh too heavily on her studies once she returned to classes. She opted to continue working after returning to school.

 

[DeletedUser31931]

Well then, the intro is up: Enjoy!

(OOC: Just to warn you I am going to throw your characters into some quite awkward situations at various points in the RP, and then laugh as you try to get yourself out of them.)

Friday 23rd November: About 12:30PM

Daniel:
How long was this meeting going to take? He had to track down fifty pounds that had vanished somewhere along the paper trail of expenses. He had suspected several employees in particular of embezzling funds for a while and had used the company’s assets to find out they had invested substantial amounts of money into the stock market. Money which they shouldn't have but more than the amount of money that had disappeared. Suddenly he heard a line from the Head of Accounting, Bill which made him listen “It is now our policy to no longer meddle in the affairs of our employees, which includes dropping all the cases run at present.” It appeared that if he wanted to nail this employee, he would now have to do it behind the companies back.
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Samuel:
As Bill droned on Sam thought about his current program he was working on, it was a spread sheet formula that would allow the financial experts to do their jobs a lot quicker, however he needed to make sure that he had gotten all of his inputs right and needed to check with a Financial Advisor over that. He was still waiting for a reply over that.
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Kyle:
As he played his Xbox whilst eating a makeshift lunch of pepperoni pizza he contemplated the note he had found last night. He had been cleaning up when he had seen a piece of paper strewn in the bin of a lawyers office, it was crumpled up, however, Kyle was curious as this person had almost never thrown anything away in his life and so he had unfurled it, it had read: “The money will be in your trunk after work tomorrow. If we need your services in the future then we will happily pay you even more.” The note was currently sitting on his kitchen top, there was just something about the note that was a bit ominous, but hey, what did he care…. He was just a night janitor, all he cared about was the company not going under.
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Jessica:
As the professor talked, every student furiously scribbled or typed up notes. Jessica was seated towards the front of the lecture hall so that she could hear the professor better. Today’s lesson was on what to do if a child goes into spasms and the legalities of what you can and can’t do in that type of situation. It was a dull but essential topic for those studying teaching, you had to know what you could do without risking getting sued or fired if your actions ended up doing more harm than good. As the lecture finished she made her way out towards lunch with the rest of New York.
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Eldwood:
Eldwood sighed as he tried to keep his eye open, he had pulled an almost full night last night, only grabbing about two hours of work at about three in the morning till five before he was up again and back off to work. He was currently in the process of completing a merger between two companies, however, he had to just double check the merger document to see if his company was getting a good deal in the merger and that it passed the monopoly laws etc. Suddenly his computer played his e-mail alert tone and as he opened it up it was a short one from James, who was Head of Law at the company “I need to have a meeting with you as soon as possible. When are you free?” sighing Eldwood began to think and replied quickly “Can you do about 3 PM this afternoon?” to which he got the reply “Sure, I’ll see you then.” With that over and done with he turned his computer screen back to the law document and carried on checking it.

 

[DeletedUser]

'God damn it!' Kyle cursed. It was his worst nightmare. The worst possible thing that could have ever happened to him in his entire life. It was truly horrific, so horrific that he didn't even want to think about it....

....Over five hours into a session of Fable I (clearly the greatest gift bestowed on man by the great god that was LionsHead Studios) and the X-box crashed. Of course he hadn’t saved it. He never bloody saved it when he should have.


‘God Damn It!!!’

Kyle stood up and moved to his fridge to see how much Monster Ripper was left and finding a can at the back (behind the left over Chinese and curdled milk) he pulled it out and cracked it open.
Leaning against his kitchen worktop he noticed the letter again. He really should tell someone about it but then again what would that get him. It would be far more interesting to find out who it had belonged to, where they parked and what was happening.


As he took another sip of the energy drink he began to day dream about being a private detective on a sinister case with a cute redhead sidekick and one of those class hats and bad ass floor length jackets.

‘LA Noire’ he suddenly said to himself. Nowhere near as good as Fable but he had gotten himself in the mood now and work wasn’t for another 5 hours. If he missed a shower and fiddled his duty card again, he might even get in the full 5 hours on the game.


Kyle booted up the Xbox again.

 

[DeletedUser13682]

(Hope it’s not too late to join)

Name: Patrick Kimball
Age: 26
Job: lawyer
Description: 5’ 10’, with brown hair worn in a shag hairstyle and blue (sometimes green, occasionally hazel or purple [nothing supernatural, just a trick of the light, pupil size, and clothing colour]) eyes, his clothing is that of the 70s, wearing a three piece suit (luckily it fits the lawyer stereotype as well), or flared jeans, a plain t shirt with ringing (ends of sleeves and collar different colour from the main shirt), with Oxford style shoes and sometimes aviators, can be seen driving either a BMW 2002tii, Audi 100 Coupé or a Mecedes Benz 280SL, also prone to throw in 70’s slang when not in business
Bio: Patrick was destined to be a lawyer from the beginning, his father is a lawyer with a company based in the UAE, and his mother is a retired stenographer. He grew up watching movies and television shows from and about the 70s, and is now partly stuck in that decade, preferring to be a 70’s man instead of modern. Luckily, his work attire is modern, even if his hair isn’t. He graduated from Berkeley and Harvard Law School, and entered into the company as a junior attorney. He’s just trying to keep his head down, and work hard to climb up the social ladder.

 

[DeletedUser]

Daniel sighed as he sagged behind the desk. Damn. Damn and confound these fuzzerknickles he said to himself as he thought of a way to track the missing fifty pounds. He could follow him and question hims at the water cooler, or he could wait until the end of the day and corner him by the KFC. So many options.

The monotonous drone of the speaker finished and everyone let out a gasp of relief. Hauling bags over backs they scuttled out quickly, lest the speaker wish to spark conversation with any unfortunate employee.

 

[DeletedUser]

Eldwood rubbed his eyes as he cycled through yet another paragraph of the merger, God, this was boring.
His head of department couldn't see the wood for the trees, the merger was completely legal, no wrongful exclusion had taken place, thus no breach of monopoly laws had occurred.
He sipped his coffee as his eyes flicked through the last few paragraphs, postscripts and smallprint.
They all appeared to be perfectly legal, opening his inbox, he clicked the email in which his superior had commissioned him to look over the goddamn document, the head of his department was simply being paranoid...blah blah blah monopolization laws blah blah blah possibility of being picked on by economists blah blah blah successful competitor being penalized for winning blah blah blah check over the document blah blah blah P.S; hope it doesn't take up too much of your time.
Hah! Eldwood had spent the last eighteen hours reading through the hundred and seventy three page forest of documentation.
Grudgingly, he began to type a reply;

After sufficient examination the documentation provided detailing the merge of the Wisconsin Automotive Trust into The Federal Automotive Trust seems in it's entirety to be throughly legal, from the papers sent to me I can see no way in which our corporation could be penalized under the monopolization laws, a summary of which lies below;
Anti-trust laws prohibit agreements in restraint of trade, monopolization and attempted monopolization, anticompetitive mergers and tie-in schemes, and, in some circumstances, price discrimination in the sale of commodities.
Efficiency-oriented economists reject the goal of competition and instead argue that antitrust legislation should be changed to primarily benefit consumers. No Congress or administration has supported this position. These economists largely ignore the political issues that motivated the laws in the first place.
Anti-competitive agreements among competitors, such as price fixing and customer and market allocation agreements, are typical types of restraints of trade proscribed by the antitrust laws. These type of conspiracies are considered pernicious to competition and are generally proscribed outright by the antitrust laws. Resale price maintenance by manufacturers is another form of agreement in restraint of people working together. Other agreements that may have an impact on competition are generally evaluated using a balancing test, under which legality depends on the overall effect of the agreement.
Monopolization and attempted monopolization are offenses that may be committed by an individual firm, even without an agreement with any other enterprise. Unreasonable exclusionary practices that serve to entrench or create monopoly power can therefore be unlawful. Allegations of predatory pricing by large companies can be the basis for a monopolization claim, but it is difficult to establish the required elements of proof. Large companies with huge cash reserves and large lines of credit can stifle competition by engaging in predatory pricing; that is, by selling their products and services at a loss for a time, in order to force their smaller competitors out of business. With no competition, they are then free to consolidate control of the industry and charge whatever prices they wish. At this point, there is also little motivation for investing in further technological research, since there are no competitors left to gain an advantage over.
High barriers of entry such as large upfront investment, notably named sunk costs, requirements in infrastructure and exclusive agreements with distributors, customers, and wholesalers ensure that it will be difficult for any new competitors to enter the market, and that if any do, the trust will have ample advance warning and time in which to either buy the competitor out, or engage in its own research and return to predatory pricing long enough to force the competitor out of business.
From an economics perspective, the relatively recent industrial organization research has focused on construction of microeconomic models that predict and/or explain the prevalence of imperfectly competitive markets and deviations from competitive behavior, partly as a response to the criticisms of antitrust laws and policies by the Chicago School and by members of the law and economics school of thought.

In conclusion the merge is completely and utterly legal, yours sincerely, Eldwood Priesmayer.

Relaxing back in his swivel chair, Eldwood pressed 'SEND' and downed his coffee.
He checked his watch; it was 12:34 AM, the head of his department wanted to see him at 3pm, which left him two and a half hours of free time.
He sighed, now, he said internally, the key was to look busy, even if he hadn't got any work to do, which he hadn't.

(OOC: Thank Gygax for Wikipedia, if the great wiki did not exist, that post would have been a lot shorter...)

 

[DeletedUser31931]

(OOC: I'm leaving Eldwood for now, he's just going to go enjoy an uneventful lunch break. As for you two, you get to choose what you do, but it will have an effect on how everything will play out in the RP.... )

Patrick

He sighed as he received another e-mail from his current boss, David Emnal, who had taken the junior attorney under his wing and was currently getting him to help David out on jobs, however, Patrick was beginning to suspect it was just a way of dumping jobs that David didn't want to do on him. As he opened the e-mail it read "Hope I'm not intruding too much, however, there's a planned meeting between some of the partners in the firm and some corporate clients, not huge names but relatively big. If you want to come along and help out it could give you a couple of useful things about knowing what to do if you get to the stage where you are doing these types of parties ever in the future. You up for it?"
With a sigh Patrick began to type a reply.

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Kyle
As the Xbox power light switched on his phone began to ring. That annoying ringtone playing over and over again for about half a minute before it stopped. Then, about twenty seconds later it began to ring again. Sighing Kyle got up and walked over to the phone, it was the Head of Cleaning, with a sigh he faced the dilemma, should he pick it up or turn the phone off and pretend he hadn't received the call? Picking it up might mean more work with chances of a bonus or he could spend more time on the Xbox...

 

[DeletedUser]

Kyle debated leaving the phone to ring. He really, really wanted to. Why he actually picked it up he will never know.

Maybe he thought that if he was at work early he could get a jump start on solving the mystery of the letter, maybe he was starting to develop a sense of real responsability, or maybe, just maybe....

....He wanted to bump into that cute red haired PA who usually left before he started work. He had no idea what her name was but maybe today would be the day that he could say;
'Hi. My names Kyle. Could I interest you in a fine dining meal of Pot Noodle followed by a bottle of chilled Mountain Dew and six hours of the Elder Scrolls of your choice. I have them all don't you know.'

What woman could resist that?

He picked up the phone.

 

[DeletedUser25825]

Jessica was relieved when the class as finally over. She yawned as she walked through the quad of campus. This was the worst class of the lot. She loved the information, but the timing was awful. It was the one class she couldn't schedule differently, and did not leave her a free moment to get an effective nap between quitting work and having to attend. Jessica arrived at a public bus stop and checked her watch. She leaned over slightly to look down the road and smiled as she saw it driving up. First time it had been on time all day! Maybe her luck was turning around.

Jessica climbed up the steps and pulled her ADA card out to show to the driver. He nodded and thumbed her past. She moved down the aisle, pulled her bag from her shoulder and sat with it on her lap. She rested her head back against the seat back, as she tried not to think about how nasty the last head that was where hers was might have been, and stared out the window at the passing buildings. Soon enough, she was at the apartment she shared with three other women. She entered and dropped her bag on the counter.

Jessica moved to the refrigerator and looked into it after she opened the door. She wrinkled her nose distastefully at the sorry, meager array of leftovers and decided to just nap. She moved over to the couch, pulled her hearing aids off before setting them carefully aside, and laid down. She draped an arm over her eyes and sighed quietly.

 

[DeletedUser13682]

It was another long, boring at the office. Patrick hadn’t been at the company long, but already it wasn’t what he had expected. Instead of defending the company from the evils of government and helping out with hostile takeovers, he was the virtual errand boy of his immediate boss, Mr. David Emnal. He had Patrick running around grabbing books, getting lunch, reviewing boring documents, just to get the language right, and other tasks of the sort. At times it was demeaning, but along with this demeaning work came valuable experiences. Sometimes, David would drop some useful tips and advice that Patrick would remember for later use.

David himself wasn’t a bad guy. He was generally nice to Patrick, treating him like a student, except for the boring, pointless tasks. That was the slave part. If it wasn’t for the slave part, Patrick would have really liked David. As it was, he was annoyed with David most of the time, and only slightly grateful when the advice came in.

At the moment, Patrick was reading a document David had sent him, told him to look it through really carefully, and highlight anything that looked funny or wrong. So far, there was nothing wrong, and why would there be? It was a small manual detailing the company’s policies for break time, lunch time, bathroom time, and other break times. As he reached the part about designated smoking areas, his computer beeped with a new e-mail. It was from David.

The e-mail was an invitation to help out at a meeting between some of the firm’s partners and some of the firm’s clients. Nothing big, but David thought it would be a good experience on how to act at these things. Patrick shrugged, and typed out a reply. Sure, man. I’ll be there. Catch you on the flip side. A.F.A. Patrick David didn’t like Patrick using sling, especially outdated slang, when around him, which only made Patrick use it more. With a smile, he hit send, and went back to his reading.

 

[DeletedUser31931]

Kyle

He picked up the phone and heard "Hey, is the Kyle Birkbeck?" and recognising the voice of the Head of Cleaning Kyle replied "Yeah it's me. What do you want?"
"Well we're having some corporate event of some sort this weekend but we need some more cleaning staff so would you be will to work from about 3:00 until 5:00 PM this Saturday, also, since it's cutting into your weekend the pay is slightly higher."
Standing there, he wondered if the PA might be attending this thing, she might. If he went there he could see her, and he could probably do with the money, but did he want to give up his Saturday afternoon?

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David

About half a minute after sending off his e-mail he received a reply reading "Cool. Be at work about 11:00 AM tomorrow. I'll run you through the ropes and then you can help me as I mingle through the crowds and stuff."

 

[DeletedUser]

Just 2 hours wouldn't make him much extra cash, even with higher pay. Despite this, one thing Kyle had learned in his few years of the job was that corporate events always meant buffet's and buffet's always meant leftovers. His fridge needed restocking and it would save him a fortune in shopping. If he was lucky he might even manage to grab some of that expensive wine that he got after cleaning up at the christmas party.

'Okay,' he said, still not sounding altogether excited about the idea. 'Not a problem.'

Some nive wine would be better if he was going to impress that PA.

 

[DeletedUser31931]

Kyle

"Thanks!" came the reply down the phone. His boss hung up and Kyle turned round, the Xbox had finished turning on sometime during the phone call and he swung himself onto the sofa and picked up the controller. The work was in a few hours, for now, there was La Noire....

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Jessica

Jessica awoke to her phone vibrating in her jacket pocket. Her phone vibrated quite strongly so that she could feel it as, obviously, she couldn't hear it. Fishing it out of her jacket she opened it to read a text "Looking for cleaners for a corporate event on Saturday 3-5PM, higher pay than normal, you up for it?
John"

It was her boss, head of cleaning and it seemed to be about a job this weekend. Sliding out the keyboard she began to type a reply.

 

[DeletedUser25825]

Jessica startled awake when her phone began to vibrate against her chest. She looked around a bit wildly, before she caught her bearings and rubbed her eyes sleepily as she fished the phone from her pocket. She opened the message as she took a deep breath, opened her eyes wide and stared at the message. She frowned slightly as she tried to remember if she had plans already made. She reread the message, which appeared to be voluntary in nature. She sighed, flipped down the keyboard and began to quickly punch out her reply, which read: Yes I will work Saturday 3P. Jess.

Jessica sent the message and slid the keyboard closed. She looked around the apartment, and frowned. She decided her nap was ruined, grabbed her bag and aids, and walked into her room. She pulled out her homework and began to study.

 

[DeletedUser31931]

Now then: here's a bit of a time jump so here is a breif paragraph to explain things
Now everyone is going to go off and enjoy their lunch break. Wompf! It is now 3:00 and you are all back hard at work apart from Jessica and Kyle who are at university and home respectively. Kyle and Jessica have another two and a half hours before they have to be at work, meanwhile, Eldwood is making his way to his talk with the Head of Law...

 

[DeletedUser]

Eldwood walked through the clean, sanitary corridors of the corporation skyscraper, heading for his Head of Department's office.
Why he had been summoned he didn't know, his boss probably wanted him to find out whether or not keeping cleaners active 24 hours a day via the use of steroids was legal or not. Again.
Soon enough he reached his superior's office, he knocked three times at the door, before standing back, waiting for it to open.