Obsession is the enemy's weakness. --52.1 Seconds Post-Integration.
Clark was no dummy.
Before the sale, he had left Theo's early to get a good night's sleep. Then, he slept in, before the big sale. To make matters better, he had even received word from the scheduling authority that his 'request' had been approved, so he sent Hera a voice message letting her know.
Minutes after he arrived floor forty-five, Hera met him, chest heaving from running. "Sorry! I only just received your message! The schedule change just went through for me, and I thought I had today off. I will not be late again!"
"No, no! It's fine!" he calmed. "If I had known you would lose a day, I would have sent in the request a little later."
Minutes later, Theo showed up. He wore his uniform slovenly, as he always did.
Looking at the door leading to the sales floor, he wondered by the cacophony which reached them from beyond the doors, what awaited them.
When the time the sale started, he was in great spirits.
Minutes into his shift, Theo and Hera by his side, his mood shifted to 'lesser spirits.'
"What is this?" he exhaled. "It's an army of customers!"
Neither he nor his party had a clue on how to react to the sea of shoppers. When it did begin putting one foot in front of the other, it wasn't because he had any great insight. It was because his Metrics yelled at him. "Okay. Enough gawking, guys. We have a job to do. Remember the basics. Keep your smile, keep polite no matter what crap it flung at you. Start slow, keep low!"
Theo and Hera nodded approvingly. Then, with careful steps, the team waded into the sea of customers, keeping to the line-path outlined for them by the System while giving the customers the spatial benefit of the doubt; the System recognized their caution by keeping their Metrics stable despite wading only a few dozen feet into the connecting zone. When they did reach the store block, it was a minor miracle when their Metrics stability continued.
They encountered the departmental checkpoint. The Front End. Unsurprisingly, when Clark went to insert his ID toggle, it asked him to report. "Okay. Because I am going to work on the Front End, you each should be able to go right on past. Keep in touch via voice messages, okay? I want to know your progress and where you are so we can move together as a group."
Hera and Theo assented. They toggled their IDs respectively and, as he thought, the machine let them pass to the next checkpoint.
Working on the Front End during the big sale was like during any other time he had to work the Front End. Tedious, to say the least. First, he bagged people's groceries. Then he spent some time on the register. Then, he was ordered to gather up lose carts and interlock them, building a column of them which looked like a train. Only after he had done all of these things twice over, over the course of three hours, was he allowed to leave; during his labors, Hera and Theo gave him regular updates on their progress, as he requested. Which was how he knew to head straight to Exotic Meats.
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The Exotic Meats department was the furthest his party had gotten after he had been assigned to the Front End. Theo went to Produce, Hera to Entertainment, but only for an hour and a half; she got out early enough to get locked into a protracted bit of freight unpacking for Exotic Meats, which was where they all now labored.
"Are we done yet?" Theo moaned from across the aisle.
"Keep focused," Hera chided. "Complaining won't make the time go by any faster."
Their 'exotic meats' work didn't end for another two hours. Clark couldn't have been happier when it did end. His muscles were much worse for the wear and that was after pacing himself. Exotic Meats was like produce -- one expected to be chopping up veggies or stocking the shelves, instead, all one did was deconstruct pallets of cargo.
When the team let out, Hera was called to Home and Gardens. Then Theo ended up in Toys and Recreation. This was after the party took a measly fifteen-minute break. With Hera and Theo both split, this allowed him to advance straight to the forty-sixth floor.
The sale's frenzy continued unabated. Although customers did not pack the stairwell leading into the connecting space on the upper floors, as they were not allowed in such places, fellow associates were allowed, and they clogged the stairwell in an attempt to elude the shopping masses.
His progress again slowed to a crawl as he fought for, literally, every step he took, Clark checked on his status. He had gained ten Opportunity Chests alone during the past several hours. He reasoned that, if nothing else, this sale would be a good chance to grind resources. And he always needed resources.
With the stairwell behind him, he emerged onto the forty-sixth floor proper. Its connecting zone, anyway. Like on the floor below, this floor was packed to the gills with shoppers. The sale was throughout the whole store, so it was unlikely one floor would be less busy than the next.
When he arrived at the store block, he reported, once more, to that block's Front End.
Working for a couple of hours, he let out in time for Hera and Theo to catch up to him, enabling all of them to grab lunch together.
"This is insane!" Theo uttered between deep drinks of water.
"I have to agree with the boy," Hera said. "We still have half the day left..."
"Yeah, it sucks," Clark agreed. "But there is nothing we can do about it. Let's keep our spirits high. How about we split the costs of a sweet thing to share? How about a half of that cake?"
"The carrot cake?" Hera asked. "I do love carrot cake."
"Me too," Theo drooled.
"Then let's get it." Clark obtained the credits for splitting the cake costs from his mates and went to buy the last cake half. Between the three of them, the cake went fast, but it provided them all with a nice sugar rush to help beat the stress of the sale.
The remainder of the mandatory hours were a grind. Not in the good way, either. They worked up to and well past an honest sweat. By the end of it, though, they had earned an additional twenty Opportunity chests, for a total of thirty!
"Awesome work today, guys. We all put in our best. And we work well as a team -- insomuch as we actually were working together while being in separate departments, but that's how it is. Plus, look, our metrics are great!" Their metrics were great, too. His Metric read [1.45].
At the time clock, he had scanned his Link, expecting to leave, when the machine said something, it never said before.
[Mandatory Overtime Required: Take ONE Additional Lunchbreak and Return to Work].
How Many Shifts Have You Done in a Row?
