"FUCK!"
A loud voice reverberated through the dark room, cutting through the sound of an alarm clock ringing.
BANG
A fist suddenly flew through the air and smashed the alarm clock.
"Shit, there goes my lunch money" the man who had yelled out muttered and rolled out of bed without any motivation behind his movement while thinking of how he'd have to go the shop after work to replace his alarm.
"Since I'm already late there's not much point to rushing, I won't get in any more trouble for an extra 5 minutes " he said pulling out his smokes and lighter.
This man was Marcus Serya, an unremarkable, rude and lazy person by all definitions. Marcus had been skating through life doing the bare minimum but seemed to have incredible luck as there hadn't really been many consequences to this lifestyle and often he simply denied the existence of any consequence with sheer arrogance.
At this very moment he was already 20 minutes late for work, but he still was not in any rush and was simply sat on his bed smoking, today was the 3rd time this week he would be late out of 5 shifts he was scheduled for. But still he was unphased.
After a few minutes Marcus finished smoking and finally makes a move, standing bare naked at his window without a care in the world,using the fresh air to wake up properly. He watched the people go by for a few minutes. Whenever one of the passersby saw him in the window and scowled at his nakedness he would respond with a big cheesy grin and show his middle finger.
When he eventually felt he had woken up entirely he finally started getting ready for work.
Finally dressed and ready to go, Marcus heads out of his apartment, heading down the stairs of the building he bumped into a few parents taking their kids to school but as they were blocking the stairs he simply pushed them to the side without any care.
Marcus may be incredibly lazy and always late, but he was never patient enough to wait for his path to clear and if there was no way through he would make one.
Finally getting outside, ignoring all the shouts from behind him, he gets into a taxi that was conveniently waiting there.
"Sorry buddy, I've got a booking to handle. I can't just leave it for you" the taxi driver said.
"Oh yeah, that's me" Marcus replied without any concern that he hadn't actually booked a taxi, "Jane Glassman? You don't seem like a Jane" the driver stated politely, it wasn't worth being rude for no reason.
"Yeah, my sister booked it for me while I was getting ready for work" Marcus made up.
"Oh, alright then. Where we off to?" The driver asked thinking no more on the subject, this was a common thing to happen after all.
Marcus then only took another 5 minutes getting to work, after getting the usual complaints from his boss he spent the next 10 hours in work.
Towards the end of his shift the boss approaches Marcus and asks for a word before leading him to the office.
"Marcus, any idea what I'm going to say?" He asks.
"Is it about the wonky pallet? Did it fall on someone? I swear I was just about to fix it" Marcus asked with a smile on his face.
"What wonky pallet?" The boss exclaimed as he started panicking.
'You'll see' Marcus thought with a smile but responded with "Don't worry I was taking the piss, I have no idea what I'm here for"
The boss sighed with relief, he didn't want to look through the several hundred pallets of products that had been produced today to find the dangerous one. "Well it's actually about your punctuality, in the past year you have been late for 80% of your scheduled shifts, and this can't just keep going on without any action. So I'm having to now give you your official warning" he slid a piece of paper across the desk towards Marcus.
"If there are any further latenesses in the next 3 months I'm going to have to let you go, I don't want to but that's the rules"
Marcus looked at the paper and read through it casually. "What the fuck Dave? When have I ever been late? I am here every day 30 minutes before my shift starts, is this supposed to be a joke? If it is, it's not even close to funny. I pour my blood, sweat and tears into this company despite the minimum wage, this is absolute bullshit!"
"Marcus, today you were 2 hours late and spent half of your shift having a nap in the canteen, what are you talking about?" Dave stated with amazement.
Marcus continued arguing with Dave about this for another 20 minutes while constantly denying his fault and insisting himself to be a model employee, until he looked at the clock on the wall and noticed it was the end of his shift, so he stood up to leave.
"Where are you going? I still need you to sign the warning to show you have received it" Dave shouted clearly frustrated that in the past 20 minutes he had gotten nowhere, with Marcus still claiming to be the perfect worker.
"Home, it's five o'clock. What else do you think I would be doing? Going to do another pallet?" Marcus chuckled, acting like nothing had happened, "I think you're taking the joke too far if you want me to sign it, I'll see you tomorrow Dave."
"Marcus! By the powers, sit down I haven't finished talking to you, and you need to sign it!" Dave raged.
Marcus put his bag over his shoulder and continued walking towards the door completely ignoring Dave.
"Fine, don't bother coming back tomorrow then. You're sacked." Dave said more calmly.
This finally managed to stop Marcus "Wait, what the fuck? Why are you sacking me for no reason? What kind of dipshit would fire their best worker without even giving a warning?" He started yelling.
"Marcus, I've been entirely fair here. I had no intention to dismiss you today when I called you in but you're just impossible to work with. I know you're aware of your lateness but you just refuse to admit to it and accept the consequence and instead push your luck to try to force it to seem like I'm crazy or something.
I can't have people with that attitude working under me so I'm going to have to dismiss you." Dave had calmed down knowing that he had made his final decision and that once this conversation was over he wouldn't have to deal with it again.
"Now I have a feeling that you're going to come in tomorrow and act like this entire conversation didn't happen, and you're welcome to do so, nobody will stop you or remove you from site but you will not get paid and you're employee number will be cancelled with head office tonight." Dave said.
It was actually the perfect solution to stop Marcus.
If he didn't have an employee number he couldn't sign into work to accumulate hours which means he also can't complain about not being paid because there would be nothing accumulated.
It removed the whole point of coming to work.
Marcus stood thinking for a minute.
'Shit! He's got me.' He finally concluded and left the building after emptying his locker, deciding to walk the long way home.
He was unaware that the walk home would complicate his life while simultaneously improving it almost infinitely.