Human Resource
Imagine working something low level and non-spooky for the Magnus Institute. Say, idk HR. Dealing with complaints, dealing with recruitment, pay-roll, mundane stuff. You wanted something in the actual archive, or maybe artifact acquisition and curation, but there weren’t any vacancies there, so you thought you’d get your foot in the door in HR. Internal promotion is much easier than coming in as an outsider, or so everyone says..
Quite often you’re lumbered with complaints, and ‘customer relations.’ Dealing with Naomi Herne’s rage, and the rage of quite a few others, until you gently suggest to Elias – who by this time has taken over the rapidly growing Complaints About Jonathan Sims file – that maybe the head archivist should have less of a public-facing role. He agrees.
Being invited for drinks one night by Tim and the others, and watching the fit Jon throws when he realises “you invited HR? Is this some kind of joke Tim?” assuming you’re going to corner him into a lecture about being nice to statement makers. Frankly you didn’t care until he made such a fuss, you only came out for a drink.
The others are easier: Tim flirts noncommittally if you bump into each other in the corridors, shares the latest gossip, Sasha always makes you laugh, Martin often stops by to chat, brings you tea if you look a bit miserable. Rosie and you get along like a house on fire, you share the camaraderie of being the people actually holding the institute together. You get along with your boss, and you keep up to date with any openings in other departments (not that many people leave…)
The Christmas Party is awful – very cliquey. Archive and Artifact and Library and Admin all group off. You sit with the archive lot for a while, get drunk and have a heated debate about parapsychology with Jon (after which he seems to treat you with a little more respect). In your hungover state you have a feeling you tried to convince Elias how good you’d be as an archival assistant: he’s very kind about it, but you know it’ll get you nowhere. Some of the secretaries take the piss, thinking you were flirting with him. It is mortifying, but in the normal oh-fuck-maybe-I-did-flirt-with-my-boss way.
You think maybe Martin is living in the archive, you haven’t seen him leave once in the last month, you try and talk to Elias about at least doing some sort of risk assessment, but you’re brushed off with charm and obfuscation. You decide to leave it. There’s nothing strictly illegal about it, if you pretend you never noticed, and anyway Sims stays hours into the night so it’s not as if he’ll be alone…
Jane Prentiss attacks when you’re out getting coffee for yourself and the others in the office. When you hand Elias his you grumble about all the paperwork his bloody archive is causing you to fill out. The sight of worms in flesh stays with you, and for the first time you’re almost glad you work in HR.
You aren’t asked out for drinks much by the archive lot anymore, and when you are they’re all a little subdued. Jon barely looks at anyone, obviously seething. You consider suggesting some sort of teamwork seminar, but never quite have the courage to bring it up. Anyway there’s the mess of paperwork about making artifact storage more secure, and disinfecting the archive, and when did we replace Sasha with another Sasha? You are sure she didn’t leave, and anyway, you would have noticed the vacancy… Can she just at least give you her bank details for pay roll?
You stay up late into the night worrying about whether tape recorders appearing randomly are strictly within GDPR guidelines – can we at least leave out addresses from the statements guys? No one listens.
When Jurgen Leitner’s body is found – you see it, you wish you hadn’t, the stench of blood is in your nose for a week – no one else is surprised that Jonathan Sims is the prime suspect.
‘If I were to put money on someone at work snapping and killing someone, it would have been him,’ says Leanne from Accounts conspiratorially. ‘Didn’t he have a load of complaints?’ Everyone wants to pry the details from you, but you hide behind nondisclosure and legal red tape, and the preternatural conviction that Jonathan Sims is in fact, entirely innocent.
There is a memory missing in your mind, you know this, as if something – someone – has made you not See.
You only go on holiday once. It’s hell. You feel empty not working, as if you are without purpose. When you arrive at work a hour early on your day back, Elias jokes, ‘You missed us then?’ You shrug, laughing thinly. You won’t admit how comforting it is to be back at your desk.
Until… Not only is the head archivist back, with no real explanation of absence, but there are three new employees in archive, three! It’s preposterous. (No more Sashas, which is a relief to your paperwork.) You have half a mind to confront Elias about giving a job that’s rightfully yours to three strangers! Not that you mind them – Basira is kind, and she and Melanie are always up for a chat, but if you’re honest Daisy scares the shit out of you.
After a week of stewing you actually do confront him, feeling rather proud of yourself. He’s kind about it – through teeth – and you leave his office perfectly convinced that you’re actually the patron saint of Human Resources and in totally the right job and definitely a Very Valued Employee.
Your dreams are troubling these days, all blood and eyes.
You seem to know things about people without ever having to ask. ‘I signed off the holiday you asked for,’ you smile as one of the librarians pops in.
‘Oh? I thought I hadn’t told you about that yet..’
You know the hours people have worked without even eyeing a timesheet.
You are painfully aware of every interpersonal relationship around you without ever really making an effort to gossip.
You know when to pick up the phone and put it down immediately because of a strange, screaming static that tries to lodge a complaint against the archive. You know when it’s just Nicola Orsinov looking to fuck with someone. You know when Peter Lukas is going to turn up, and always have his coffee ready, unless Rosie gets there first.
You know, partially because Rosie told you, but partially because you can feel it in your spinal column, where the spare tapes are kept.
You don’t know where the institute is getting all this money to send the Head Archivist gallivanting about doing god knows what, but you do know better than to ask.
You know that they’re tense these days, the archive lot. They keep turning up covered in scars. In reaction to this you start Mental Health Monday: Mindfulness in the Workplace! But only Martin turns up, and then only to tell you how much he worries about Jon.
‘But what about you Martin?’
‘I’m fine,’ he lies, but you haven’t the heart to tell him you know this.
Jon being missing doesn’t concern you like it does the others, you know he always comes back eventually.
It is Melanie in particular that worries you, she’s been acting erratic these days, but when you ask her what’s wrong she snarls and says, ‘I’d lodge a complaint against that lanky twat if I could, but what good would it do me?’
‘You mean Elias?’ You’re a little confused, you’ve always found him a reasonably decent boss.
‘Who else?’ she spits.
‘If Elias has done something to distress you Melanie, it is my responsibility to deal with it. You shouldn’t have to feel this under pressure in your workplace.’
She barks a laugh, ‘You have no idea, do you? You just sit up here and sort paperwork and make coffee and deal with whinging clients… You have no idea what kind of twisted place this is.’ She wheels around and leaves you to it, before you can respond. You don’t bring it up when you see Elias next.
You decide instead to watch, to notice, to do what you’re best at.
They all hate him, everyone in archive, and they’re all on tenterhooks. Something will happen soon, you’re sure of it.
When Elias wears red one day (usually it’s a muted green, or charcoal), you are jarred by the familiarity of it and you don’t know why.
There is no Christmas Party this year, but you get Daisy for Secret Santa, and you just give her money because she makes you nervous. You receive a mug which says ‘World’s Best Human Resource’ on it, which you find wholly disquieting.
When Tim dies you are shocked and more upset than you would admit, he had been such good fun, so kind. You feel oddly protective of Martin, the last of your three original archival friends left. And of Basira who is retreating more and more into herself. You think it’s probably for the best that Jon is in hospital – he needed the rest.
Unlike the rest of admin, you are not shocked when the police lead away Elias in handcuffs, he was always too charming. And when his gaze meets yours a memory drops back into place, of him covered in blood, rushing back to his office, the only time you’ve ever seen him flustered. As you bring a hand up to your mouth in a gasp, you see him smile very slightly.
‘Bloody hell, who’d have thought it?’ says Leanne from Accounts later. ‘My money was on Sims for sure.’
‘I don’t know, Sims was too… weak,’ you shrug.
The others in admin titter, ‘I can’t believe our boss murders someone and you still fancy him.’
‘I don’t fancy him,’ you sigh.
‘Explain the Christmas Party 2016 then,’ interjects a secretary.
‘I wasn’t flirting,’ you groan.
‘Well it worked. He liked you, didn’t he? You have any clue he went full psychopath and beat that old bloke to death?’
You give them the most incredulous look you can muster and turn back to your work.
You know, without really knowing why or how, that you’re not going to tell the police what you saw: your boss wild-eyed and covered in blood snapping at you to help him clean up himself and his office (‘are you going to just sit there and stare or are you going to help me cover this up?’), apologising when he reaches onto your mind and plucks out all memory of it (‘you’re too important to the institute to get mixed up in something so sordid’).
You don’t know why but you feel somewhat… beholden. It’s not what they all think at all, you don’t fancy him, you just understand the importance of what the Magnus Institute does a little better than most.
Someone has to hold it together whilst Elias goes on trial, and you know you and Rosie will have your work cut out trying to keep Peter Lukas from meddling, or the archive assistants from killing one another.
Someone needs to keep an eye on things.
The sooner things are back to normal, the better.
You look down at the cheap, chipped mug in front of you, World’s Best Human Resource.
You love your job.
Everything is absolutely fine.
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