Kicking the Desk Job

By Jeanne Bustamante

Forten has had one dream his whole life: to own a starship and fly across the galaxy performing great deeds. He's studied and saved, but the reality is his job will never let him earn enough to buy one. Could a piece of information buried in the boring minutiae of his job be the key to getting him off planet at last?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeanne Bustamante
• Release date: Jan 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370161249

Book preview

Kicking the Desk Job

By Jeanne Bustamante

Boise, ID

© 2017 by Jeanne Bustamante

All rights reserved.

Part 1

Another headache was building between Forten’s eyes. He stared at the validation screen and the endless rows of invoices swam. Rows upon rows of text and numbers, each coded to the accountancy standard, in a low contrast gray and blue that was supposed to be soothing.

Why can’t there be an ‘Approve All’ button? I’d be done for the day in minutes instead of hours.

Unfortunately for him, his work was quota based. As a validator for the trans-galactic shipping conglomerate, THInc-Bynd, he was required to ensure that the computer had correctly compiled the shipping invoices over a given range of dates. As a junior level validator, the data he reviewed had already been reviewed by two other human beings, once within three months of action, again in a year and again whenever the junior levels got assigned re-validation between five and ten years after the fact. Not to mention the computer ran automated checks between each step!

As far as Forten knew, no one had ever discovered any discrepancies in the data. Not even senior level validators who got first crack at it. The computer systems were too good. The hackers were too.

But a job was a job, and Forten’s dream would take money he could only earn with a steady paycheck. He leaned back and stretched his arms above his head.

Okay, here we go, he said.

Talking to yourself now? Is your work too demanding, Forti?

Forten stiffened and looked over his shoulder at Veleen, his supervisor. Her neon purple singlet suit fit her body immaculately. And the body was one that Forten would ordinarily be interested in observing, curved in all the right places. But Veleen’s presence was enough to make Forten become clumsy and awkward. There was nothing attractive about her to him. She felt less like a supervisor and more like a nemesis, always watching for him to screw up.

The thing was, around her, he did screw up.

I wonder why she doesn’t just fire me.

Perhaps you should take a break from your current project. You have sufficient funds by now to allow for a two week release, by my calculations.

Thank you for the offer, Veleen, but my performance speaks for itself. My validations are current and correct, he said. No way was he using release time. In this business, that meant time off without pay, using savings to pay for necessities. Heck, that’s what it meant in any business anymore, though he’d heard that the rules differed for managers, because of their more demanding schedules and duties.

Very well. Veleen’s face was an unreadable mask. Forten swallowed, still staring, trying to understand the nuances in her words.

Back to work, Forti, if you’re so sure you can. She gestured at his workstation.

Right.

He turned back to the validation screen and lost himself in the accounting files.

Carry the four, level nine tax status, increment for current statutory rates…

That’s not right, he whispered.

Forten straightened and blinked at the figures in front of him. This should be impossible.

Computer. Re-execute automated check on file 5603-BT-9882.

Automated check completed. File valid.

He felt a thrill run through him. This was the payoff of the job. Finding something that no one else had found and being the one to sound the alert. Veleen would receive his alert and pass the file up the chain. She’d take the credit and he’d get… more files to validate.

No. There has to be another way.

He skipped it to work on the other files in his list. But he couldn’t leave until that file was cleared from the queue.

Forten couldn’t get his mind off of the file, the incredible find that it was, the kind of notice it could bring him if he wasn’t buried by Veleen. He’d heard that such finds could carry bonuses, money or even promotions. Visions of what he would do with more money dragged at his mind, reducing his efficiency. What were the chances of finding another error anyway. He mechanically approved file