My first ever office job was at an international company. It was at their EU headquarters, just outside London (Staines / Magna Carta / Windsor castle area). It was my first time south and quite an adventure for a young man of twenty-something.
The general staff were nice, but there was a clear divide with the upper floor. The upper floor was where the senior management and executives resided and decreed their orders. Where the regular staff had an easy relaxed vibe, the senior management was quite pompous, serious and distant.
This was made obvious by the CEO himself, who would insist to keep everything to an exacting standard. He also did not like to see regular staff on the eighth floor. Every time a regular staff were “caught” there, the CEO would be heard saying, “The eighth floor is for customers, senior management and executives only. Not the plebs.”
The main reason for this exclusion was that the executives loved to party. Did not matter the reason, someone opened a matchbox, and a party on the eighth floor would follow. These parties fell under the disguise of customer hospitality. Food and wine were delivered, as were women.
The cleaners would gossip about what they would find the next morning. Lots of empty wine bottles, women’s underwear and white powder. Occasionally, working late you could hear the music float down and their upper-class accents shouting obscenities.
Another way the divide was reflected, was in the choice of the P.A.s to the senior management. All ladies. All had to follow a strict dress code. Their work was to perform tasks for the senior management or above only.
The head P.A. was Mrs Jones. Mrs Jones was the P.A. group leader and partially P.A. to the CEO. Mrs Jones had an air of snobbery and not taking fools gladly about her. I was told never to cross her. Staff said she had gotten people fired for crossing her. Regardless of this, I must admit I had a crush on her.
Mrs Jones was at least physically my type, if not character-wise. Mrs Jones, was older than me by approximately fifteen years. She was attractive in the 1980s movie star way. Always immaculately dressed. She was a brunette with dark brown eyes, a huge bust and very full hips which gave her a wiggle. She had a uniform about her style. She always dressed in high heels (from Christian Louboutin), a pencil skirt, a silk blouse (often from the Salvatore Ferragamo collection) and nails in a burgundy hue. All topped off by the strong scent of Chanel No. Five.
During my time at this office, I volunteered in their charity outreach program. One of these programs was to help an after-school sports club. The sports club had a run-down, dangerous even, clubhouse. I say clubhouse - it was more of a hut or a shed. With the office team, we managed to get some funds and materials to fix up their sports club/hut. Alas, there were no funds for labour.
That’s where I met Mrs Peterson.
Mrs Perterson was the in-house office handyperson. She helped and advised a lot on the labour work. Her style was the total opposite of Mrs Jones's. Mrs Perterson wore either demi dungarees with a t-shirt or khaki overalls. Her tops carried a minimum of three pens and a CND badge. Black leather ankle boots. Short hair that had a sweet coconut smell to it. However, they both had the same curvy top heavy body dimension. Similar height. Both have a milky white skin colour. Both brunettes and brown eyes. Both supported huge breasts, although Mrs Perterson never wore a bra. Please note, Mrs Peterson was attractive, she just had a very hippy style about her.
We would work on the clubhouse after work and at some weekends. It was hard work some nights. Thankfully it was made easier when Mrs Peterson would take off the top part of her overhauls and tie them around her waist. This would reveal her tight white t-shirt struggling to hold in her beautiful large breasts. Her nipples are always at attention.
We managed to fix up the sports club. It was no Taj Mahal, but it was ready for the winter, clean, warm, and had working lights, shower heads that did not drip and working locks on the doors. We were quite pleased with ourselves. That is until it was pointed out (innocently) that the old lockers had been accidentally thrown out into the skip. The kids had no safe place to put their valuables.
That’s when Mrs Peterson said, “Leave it to me.”
The next afternoon, I was summoned via email to a meeting with Mrs Peterson and my surprise Mrs Jones. To my horror, the meeting was on the eighth floor. I must have read and re-read that email a hundred times. Was this a joke or a typo in the name? (Hardly, with my unusual Asian name). Mrs Peterson was not answering her phone for me to confirm what the meeting was about. Had we crossed Mrs Jones somehow? Had there been a complaint? Was there money missing from the charity fund?
With great trepidation, I went to the meeting. Mrs Perterson and Mrs Jones were already there. As nervous as I was, I noted that Mrs Jones looked great. Her silk blouse looked tighter than usual and she was wearing at least six-inch stilettos. Her perfume filled the room. Mrs Peterson claimed it was too warm for her and unhooked one side of her dungarees. Though covered by a tight white t-shirt, you could tell the outline of her side boob through her t-shirt. It was hot in that room.
“Mind on the game,” I recall saying to myself. Mrs Jones took the lead in the conversation. She praised our charity work efforts and on behalf of management wanted to thank us. On top of this, she had arranged for new lockers to be sent to the sports club. To show the company's gratitude she was to take Mrs Perterson and me to dinner.
It was at that dinner a friendship blossomed. For some odd reason, Mrs Perterson, Mrs Jones and I hit it off. We made a very odd trio, with the age difference, Mrs Jones's excellent chicness, and Mrs Perterson's down-to-earth manner. Sometimes the waitress would point out the discrepancy, but Mrs Jones explained we were just colleagues. I wished we were more. (Waiter would only ogle at Mrs Jones or try to look down her top.)
You would think I would have learnt more about my new friends, but Mrs Jones and Mrs Perterson were quite private people. I never really got a window into their private life. What I did learn about them was that Mrs Perterson had a great knowledge of art, and Mrs Jones loved to cook.
Insights about the office were more forthcoming. Who had a drug problem? Who is secretly a cross-dresser (nothing wrong with that)? That the company was not doing very well. That during a meeting about budget cuts, the temperature got quite heated. Voices were raised. A reprimand followed but, strangely, only to the one man, the one man of colour.
Time went by, and one late evening working overtime, I received a message from Mrs Jones to meet her and Mrs Perterson on the eighth floor. This time I was much more relaxed. When I got to Mrs Jones’ office, she hurried me to the new extension. This new extension was an exclusive new wing on the eighth floor for the highest executives only. Their own offices each came with ensuite and walk-in closets etc. The extension's grand opening was tonight, and food and wine were being wheeled in. People were gathering in the large open foyer and a large meeting room.
From there, Mrs Jones led me to the new CEO's private office. Where the CEO's large antique desk stood, I found a very panicked Mrs Perterson, bent over the desk and deep in discussion on the phone. Luckily, the CEO’s flight was delayed. He was coming in from Zurich to inspect the new extension and his new office. He would be here in the morning. The issue was a problem with the lighting in the new office. If you turned on the lights they would blink, violently. There was not an electrician available tonight, Mrs Perterson explained. She knew that it must be a faulty relay (as the lights were working before), we just had to find out which one. Looking at the size of the room and the many lights I realized we were in for a long night.