Red Taped

``And that, was just stupid,'' Julian grumbled as he pushed the trolley full of equipment into the goods elevator. Next to him, Cindy was trotting along, nodding quietly in agreement with him. It was a rather silly occurrence that defied normal understanding. They had both headed out into the industrial zone earlier with the trolley full of sensors and interface cards, fully intending to set it all up according to the plan that their department head had passed to them nearly a week ago. But when they got there and as they were setting up the equipment, various heavy trucks drove past them, covering them with fine dust that were kicked up by the large heavily treaded wheels. And to add insult to injury, the duty manager had charged at them with two armed security personnel who claimed that they didn't have any clearance to be there, despite having all the paperwork done.

There was nothing else to be done except to return. Fighting with armed anything was just a losing proposition; might as well wait for the bureaucracy to come and and ``save the day'' instead.

And because of that dust-up, the two of them were literally covered with dirt from top to toe.

``At least there are now showering facilities,'' Cindy said as she held the elevator door open for Julian to push the trolley in slowly.

``Yeah, but what's the damn point?'' Julian replied, annoyed still. ``It was still a wasted morning. Not to mention that there is only one bloody unisex shower room on our floor.'' Julian grimaced as the elevator doors closed. ``Tell you what, you go shower first while I stow away the equipment in the lab. When you're done, go talk to the department head about what happened.''

``Me?''

``Yeah, you,'' Julian said, his annoyance getting plainer by the moment. ``I'm too damn irate to not make an ass of myself. Besides, we all know that you're his favourite team member.''

Cindy was silent. The conversation had started to turn awkward. The two of them looked at the glowing lights above, watching the display increase from one integer to the next. At the seventeenth floor, the elevator stopped and the doors opened. Cindy stepped out quickly and held the door open for Julian, who pulled the trolley out gingerly, trying his hardest to not cause the small pile of equipment to fall all over. When he was successfully out of the elevator, he turned around and looked at Cindy.

``You go on first. I've got it all handled here.''

``Okay,'' Cindy replied as she made her way to the shower room that was behind the elevator shafts, near where the service lobby was located.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 05-Jun-2014 23:22:36)