Hi everyone, this week I have a little illustrated story for you. I hope you enjoy it.
Currently my wife and I are in Ohrid, North Macedonia, and I'll be sending out a post about that in a week or two. Without giving away too much of the juicy stuff, I have some very important thoughts on the hedge sculpting scene here and also some wood piles I’ve noticed. So there's that to look forward to. Plus a bit about things coming to an end.
Thanks for reading, hope you have a great week.
Emily was an incredibly smart crow.
She'd aced all the usual tests and puzzles: sorting coloured balls, pulling levers, using keys to open doors. They'd started giving her quizzes and workbooks designed for children and she'd finished them too.
One staff member at the research facility had left out a crossword puzzle during a lunch break and returned to find it completed.
Four down: a structure or place made or chosen by a bird for laying eggs.
Obviously 'Nest' was a lucky break for a crow, but still, there it was scratched in with all the other answers.
She helped Amir set up a printer, did some data sorting with Maya and chipped in with Lena to get the stationery cupboard sorted. There had been a minor hiccup during a filing task for Thomas with some documents ending up in the tree out by the parking lot, but to Emily’s credit, they had still been categorized correctly.
Amongst all of this, Emily continued to do crosswords, which were her favourite.
The team loved Emily and all her quirks, and even though crows are known to be smart animals, there was no doubt from anyone that Emily was different.
She was something very special.
Eventually word got out about an intelligent crow working at a research lab and a giant tech startup offered Emily a job. The research team, not wanting to hold Emily back, gave the green light and the following week Emily was set up at her own custom perch-up desk and bird feeder.
In an effort to be inclusive, the company had held a Crow Awareness Day and a fully catered lunch was put on. Mostly rolls and paninis, but also worms and other dead insects were available too. There had been a minor commotion after Vanessa from the business team had accidentally eaten a dried earthworm having mistaken it for a pretzel stick.
Initially things had gone well for Emily and having a bird coworker had created a buzz around the office, but it didn't take long for things to start going downhill.
Emily was struggling to adapt to the high standards and competitive environment. She didn’t understand all the agile meetings and work sprints, and the bug testing hadn’t gone well either when Emily turned up with several moths and a variety of beetles. There were too many company processes to keep up with, and endless meetings plus she had fallen well behind on her workload. And all of this meant no time for crosswords.
Loud pecking on keyboards took its toll on her coworkers, and caused tension with the admin department with the amount of keyboards she was destroying. There were complaints about going through garbage bags and even some whispers that Emily was to blame for the company missing out on a recent investment opportunity.
Aren't crows considered bad luck?
More complaints were made to management after she had flown to the kitchen and spooked a few staff members. After this, a company-wide 'no fly zone' had been enforced.
Emily was being held back. She literally couldn't spread her wings.
Along with her performance issues and overall eccentric behaviour, new reports of her stashing food and office stationery in the ceiling vents proved to be the final nail in the coffin.
Management called her in for a meeting. They were letting her go. The HR team along with some lawyers were present and would jump in regularly to assure Emily that this was nothing at all to do with Emily being a bird. This was purely a performance issue. All of it felt carefully managed, especially with the presence of a new hire on the HR team, a raven named Gareth, who never once met Emily's eye throughout the proceedings. Apparently a rook named Trisha had also started in the marketing department, but there were rumours that hadn’t gone well so far.
Even though she had been fired, Emily was delighted. And so were the research team, who welcomed her back with open arms.
There was lots to catch up on too. Amir needed help with installing some new printer cartridges apparently, and Lena was feeling slightly overwhelmed because that meant there were now a lot of other new printer cartridges that needed organising in the stationery cupboard. And amongst all that, there was also a pile of unfinished crossword puzzles which had everyone stumped.
They all needed the help of a very intelligent crow, and Emily was, of course, more than happy to oblige.
Really funny! This sounds just like an office where I used to work.
That's a bit cute!