Velociraptor Incident Safety Placard. Either the scenario posited, or something else of your devising (also consider that one pedant who points out they forgot to account for leap years. Me. I'm the pedant.). -- RecklessPrudence
There were jokes that were made to be regretted. Anything with the N-word in the middle of it is a good example. But this one...
It was designed like every other safety poster in the labs. Except this one was about being a velociraptor-free workplace. And it had, according to the printed sheet, been twenty-five billion, nine hundred and fifteen million days since the last incident.
And every fucking morning, one of the office pedants just had to verbally correct it.
"The number's actually closer to twenty-five billion, nine hundred and thirty two million, seven hundred and fifty thousand days[1]. They forgot to multiply by three hundred and sixty-five point two five." Self-congratulatory snorting. "And that's not counting the years left out of that very rough estimate and excluding an actual date for the Chicxulub impact. And someone should be incrementing that count on a daily basis."
"I don't wanna drink from your well actually, Clem. It's a joke. It is there to make people laugh. Not make people want to throttle people like you."
"Geez, whose hair got up your butt?"
"It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to hear it every day. And every single time I use the elevator. It's tiring, Clem. It's extremely tiring."
Clem, who had entirely missed the point, murmured, "...is it shark week?"
Sally took a deep breath. "The next person to ask me if I'm menstruating is going to get their throat torn out," she said calmly. "And then I'll report them to HR for insensitive behaviour. And then I'll go to their house and literally shit on everything they love. I've had a long week and it's only Tuesday. Got it?"
Clem wisely shut his big fat cake-hole and scurried off to work. Sally snarled to herself and strode to her own genetics lab. Where her efforts to synthesise taurine for the pets of idiot vegans -who didn't know the meaning of 'obligate carnivore'- were continuing. So far, all progress had been rejected because the synthetic stuff still used animals as their basis.
So now she was working on a taurine-loaded eggplant.
"Bad day at the office?" asked Veronica.
"We've only just begun," sighed Sally.
"I'm gonna find out who keeps hanging up that thing and make it look like an accident."
"Bless."
All was quiet until after lunch, when the obligatory trip in the elevator was doomed to end down a 'well actually'. Sally took a deep breath in and Veronica gripped her arm to stop Sally from punching the next wise-ass.
The door opened, and the poster had a red 0 scribbled over it.
"Well, actually, the num...ber..." Frank trailed off. "What the shit?"
"Let's go back down to the lobby," said Sally, who knew that they weren't just working on vegan-friendly taurine, up here.
Someone screamed.
"That was Clem!" said Frank, and dove into the scientific labyrinth.
Veronica closed the doors just as a shrieking, rainbow blur of fangs, claws, and feathers rocketed after Frank. There was more screaming.
Eerily calm, Sally picked up the elevator phone. "Containment breach on floor seven. Yes the one with that poster. CAN THE CACKLE CARL, THERE'S LIVES AT STAKE! Initiate containment procedures. STAT!" She hung up like she wished she could slam Carl's head against a handy brick.
Veronica pressed the lobby button. "Corrected the poster?"
"Corrected the poster and asked me about Aunt Flo."
"I hate this workplace. Every month, it's the same goddamn thing."
[1] Yes, I did the math on that. Don't look at me in that tone of voice.
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