I’ll tell you what: if I was being menaced by the same shark who’d menaced by father, and his father before him, I’d try to diffuse that situation with peace. I’d ask the shark, what’s your deal, man? Why so much anger? Why do you have such pent up rage that it seems to have made you effectively immortal?
But that’s just me; I’m a peacemaker. I seek out solutions to problems, rather than escalating them, which is why I’ve organised the entire office into a peaceful revolt against the tyranny of having to work in the blazing heat. And look, we don’t ask for very much…just a simple air conditioning repair. Companies Brisbane wide are ready and able to do the job; we know they are, because we live in Brisbane, the Land of Cooling Goodness. But the boss, such a foolish, wayward soul…he keeps dilly-dallying. Always some excuse, or else he’s called them, and they can’t come for weeks.
So we are silently, non-violently protesting until the air conditioning services are restored. No need for harsh words or flailing fists, when you can simply use intimidation. Just pure, righteous intimidation. We simply stare at the boss whenever he walks through the office, without speaking. Sometimes we all synchronise our staring, so that all thirty of us stop our work for about thirty seconds at a time and stare through the glass walls of his office, right into his eyes. Someone, and I won’t say who, might be slipping pictures of air conditioning units under his door with pleading messages written in messy red pen. We’ve taken to filling glasses with ice-cubes and silently drinking them while we stare.
And every day, I knock on the door and cheerfully recommend a new different company that can fix air conditioning. Brisbane is too hot for this madness to go on much longer. I smile. I nod. I go back to my desk, I pick up my ice-cube glass and we toast our future victory. And then, we stare.
-Majiit