A Paperweight and Corporate Espionage

Accountants, like me, are usually known for being boring. I suppose people that know me would say I fit the mold. I do have a pretty exciting story though. I have been at my job for three months now, and I just used my 5,000th staple. I had to go to the supply closet and get a new box of staples. In other words, I work as a paper pusher, and I push a lot of paper. Almost always, it is stapled together. I admit my job is not always difficult. I can do it while having a Walter Mitty type daydream, while some of my co-workers binge watch a show and enter their data. It is mindless stuff here, but it pays the bills.

Then one day, everything changed. Several windows in the office were broken out. The door locks had been broken, and trespassing occurred. Strangely, after an extensive search, nothing was deemed missing. In fact, there was one extra item in the whole office. My desk had a small, heavy paper weight in the shape of a bull added to it. Since there was nothing to report missing, the police inspected the paper weight closely, and everyone asked me why I thought it was on my desk of all places. I was as confused as they were until the day the office began to calm down again. The windows were repaired, new locks had been installed, and we were all back to pushing paper. I began to look closely at the bull. Eventually, I decided to try to move the horns. Suddenly the bottom of the flat stand attached to the legs popped off. Flipping the paper weight over, I found a message carved into the top half of the stand.

It read, “Congratulations on using your 5,000th staple. Please open your new box of staples and read the lid.”

I rifled through my desk to find the box, thoroughly intrigued now. Opening the lid, I found tiny print filling it on the underside.

It read, “You have been selected to push even more paper for a competing company, with a generous raise of course. There is now an email on your personal account of the ten documents on your company’s server that you need to print out and bring to us.”

Wow, corporate espionage even exists in paper pushing companies?! They were good too. They already had my personal email account. Hmm, then again, it was just my first and last name in front of a common email service. I began to feel nerves and started peeking around at all the other cubicles. They were still busy pushing paper and did not notice the new guy. Would I take this offer? I guess I could print the ten documents and see what was on them. There was nothing illegal about going that far, right? Then again, my salary was comfortable, my job was not taxing, and I could easily afford rent and good food for myself with plenty of free time.

I have always been a boring accountant though. I decided to take a risk and do this one time. After consulting my personal email, I brought the documents to what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. Inside, I ran into a beautiful girl that looked familiar to me.

“I knew you would come. When I knew you, you were a little more reckless and a little less set in your ways.”

“Amber, my junior high girlfriend? What are you doing here? Who do you work for?”

“This has all actually been an elaborate plot to ask you out again, but I wanted to see if you could still be reckless once in a while. So, what do you think? Do you want to start dating? You really do not have to change jobs.”

“What a strange proposal? Sure, I will take the plunge and go out with you.”

“Good, because I have evidence of corporate espionage against you if you would have said no.”