Caged

And thus I sit here, waiting for the clock to strike 5pm.

The longer hand reaches 12, and to my utter dismay, my colleague is MIA.

Leaving the station to be manned by myself only. Me and only me. To support the whole office to their computer related problems, and well as monitor the production systems.

Having 3 or more man team has its advantages. There's the share of workload, the share of responsibility, and the chance to be able to take a vacation when you feel the creep of burning yourself out and approaching the path of no return.

Today I find myself not having that luxury. My manager has gone home, very sick and throwing up every thing that he ingests (or so he says) and my coworker has gone to an offsite location to support the VP of operation on an pc related issue. He's been gone since morning, and hasn 't been back ever since.

I glanced around our area. Deserted. IT Ghost Town.

No one is here, except me.

I look at the watch. The moving hands have repositioned themselves at the "2" mark. I glanced desperately around hoping that my colleague would miraculously appear sitting across me doing his job. I hit a few keystrokes and search for the word "desperation" on my computer screen. I tried my luck with "boredom". No go. I recheck the clock again. Halfway between "2" and "3". I scan through WilWheaton.net, having discovered a blog that had interesting and funny tidbits written by an actor who actually doesn't sound like one. Unfortunately, although very funny, this read doesn't alleviate me from my frustration.

My eyes dart towards the direction of my PC clock: "3". Where is my colleague??? I had several errands I need to run before I head off towards the comforts of my home: A gift to deliver. Some DVDs needed to be checked out. Very over due library books. Picking up a long awaited Terry Pratchett book that I haven't been able to find anywhere at public libraries in the vicinity, so I had resorted to spending HK$2.5 to reserve a book and have it sent to the library I usually go to. And my back has been eagerly helping out in creating a micro-panic inside my head. Jabs of pain hit several times throughout the day as my shoulder snaps itself against what I imagine as a bloated and oh-so-very-tense and bruising left shoulder joint. If I concentrate enough on my shoulders, I believe I can make it pop out and let it sprout dark angelic wings like those seen on Gabriel's back on the latest Keanu Reeves movie, Constantine.

Would've been cool though. Scare the hell out of my officemates (and the office) and it'll be officially declared "empty office with no one to support", where I can gleefully disregard waiting for my teammate and step out of the office and just damn hell fly away.

I can't wait. "4".

.... "4:15"
.... "4:30"
.... "4:35"

.... "4:50"... He's here! Hoooray! *grabs my bag and rushes out to the office door* Have a nice day everyone!