Big Bad Boss

There was a gathering of people that nobody would expect to attend the same event unless they were forced to – they all had formed small groups and discussing something amongst each other. Suddenly, a respectably aged looking man walked into the room and the quiet murmurs were replaced by a total silence.

"Alright people, when I said this event was for socializing and getting to know each other, I didn't mean you should get to know your friends and acquaintances better.

First of all, this place needs some music for the atmosphere.

By the power of the boss, I will also establish two absolute rules that everybody must follow: first, any professional behavior will not be tolerated here.

Second: you will all have to be at work tomorrow morning when the clock strikes. I want you to have your best professional behavior once that happens. It's one of those events that can get you triple the merit points.

I do believe there's no need to remind you the use of merit points, but I'll do it anyway: you can use them to get extra vacation days, raises and bonuses."

As Gaude finished talking, he placed a cassette player with massive speakers attached into a corner. After fiddling around with it for a moment, there was music. It wasn't loud enough to disturb the conversation, but it would make natural pauses feel much less awkward.

Gaude then continued: "Since you're all young people here, I'm sure you can remember your college parties vividly. That's what we're aiming for, with just enough restraint that nobody throws up. I'm sure all of you have enough knowledge about your limits to manage that."

There was one young man, however that looked a bit lost. He was wearing the name tag 'Edward Thorne, Finances'. Finally, he seemed to gather all his courage and approached a wide-shouldered man with the tag 'John Black, Security' and asked: "What's a college party?"

John placed an arm around Edward's shoulder and pointed at all everyone around them that each seemed to suddenly be elated for some reason and said: "Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. See all those people? They'll be your teachers, so learn well."

Finally, all of the people turned around when they heard a loud thud from the direction of the table exactly when the music stopped for a moment. They discovered that a crate with all sorts of booze had appeared there.

"As this is the opening round of this event, each and every one has to take a shot. Nothing but the doctor's written orders can get you out of this one.", Gaude said. "Oh, and careful with the green stuff. It's absinthe made according to the family recipe. 77% alcohol and a few special ingredients. Two shots and you'll swear you can smell the magic in the air."

Quickly, a line was organized and one after the other, everyone took a shot glass, chose a label they recognized, or in case of more adventurous ones, a label they'd never even heard about and poured themselves a shot.

Once everyone was ready, Gaude did the same. This was one of the rare occasions that he actually used Polyjuice in addition to the illusions – when alcohol and a large social gathering were mixed together, physical contact was a high probability event. A regular old illusion over a child's body just wasn't going to cut it this time.

Gaude raised his glass, one filled with emerald green liquid and said the first toast of the night: "To Jolly Cooperation!"

"To Jolly Cooperation!", the people responded, not knowing the exact meaning behind the words, but with their understanding, it sounded like something that should happen between the various departments and corporations of a conglomerate.

Once the fist mandatory shot had been taken, Gaude's eyes stopped at one young woman with red hair fixed into a tight bun and glasses with corners so sharp they would be confiscated by the airport security. She was still holding onto a full shot glass, throwing glances at everyone around her.

"Come on, Karen! You can do it!", Gaude encouraged.

"No! I won't! I have the right to refuse!", came a reply.

Gaude had actually expected it. It was only natural, for she was Karen, the mother of all prudes.

"Everybody, give her some encouragement. It seems that she's afraid of a bit of diluted water."

Some were seemingly quick to catch on, as among the crowd, chanting started: "Karen! Karen! Karen! ..."

The chants grew louder and more numerous, completely drowning out the music and any protests that Karen was trying to voice out. She kept staring at the glass as if instead of whiskey, there was a King Cobra about to sink its fangs into her, but finally closed her eyes and took the entire thing in one quick gulp, however, in her haste she splashed some onto her face and blouse, staining it. As she lowered the glass, she started coughing.

"Yeeah!", came a shout from the crowd, accompanied by other expressions of joy and support. Karen quickly reigned in the involuntary reaction to the burning sensation in her throat and melded into the crowd, not wanting to be singled out any longer.

Clapping started from the man that interviewed each one of them in person and it spread until it became a full-blown applause.

Finally, Gaude said with a magically enhanced voice: "Welcome to adulthood, Karen. Learn to let loose a little sometimes.

Alright, now that the first round is out of the way, let's play a little game to get to know each other a bit better. Since you'll all be working in a team, it's a good idea to know each other's limits."

Gaude picked up a hula hoop that had been leaning against a wall since before the employees had started gathering.

"The rules are simple. There will be two people on each side holding the hoop steady, and all four have to agree on a height where they'll hold it. The order of people entering will be determined by the reverse order of birth. The first four in the line will start by holding the hoop.

Everyone that fails to go through the hoop without touching it will have to take a shot, then they'll switch with somebody holding the hoop. Once you can't walk a straight line anymore, you'll go to the waiting bench until the line goes a full circle. You have ten minutes to get in line. Go!"

At first, everyone started shouting their birthdays, possibly hoping that at least one of them had the abilities of super hearing, absolute vision and parallel processing, allowing them to note down the names and birth dates of the people.

Yet, after a while, a pattern emerged in the crowd. Karen had gotten a notebook and pen from somewhere, and was walking up to each of the people, taking down their information.

In the end, a booming voice announced: "There's two minutes remaining, but I can see that you have all gotten a nice lineup going and it seems like the order is about right. Goes to show, Karen is right for her position in human resources."

The line soon started moving and at first, the hoop was held at nearly impossible heights to pass through, but people quickly noticed that they would end up getting a high hoop as payback, and nobody liked to fail at something.

Soon, the first few to pass the hoop appeared. One of them was John from security, he had managed to jump through a chest-height hoop.

The procession continued and people kept taking shots, until chanting started: "Boss! Boss! Boss! …"

As the chanting went on, the hoop was raised higher and higher, until the fingers of the shortest holder were barely touching it.

"Alright, looks like you young ones want to get a bit of a demonstration from me. Very well. Take a hard and goddamn good look, because you won't see it twice."

Expecting such an event to happen, Gaude had made ample preparations: he had picked the dragonified ex-criminal as the Polyjuice donor and practiced with it until he was confident that he could perform any physical activity to the highest standard, something that had taken him all his free time.

Now, Gaude stared at the hoop, rolled his shoulders, circled his hips and twisted his back, letting out a few audible cracks. Then he made a running start of five steps, launched himself in air, landed on his palms, and threw himself into the air again with the strength of his arms alone. Spinning about the longitudinal axis of his body, he flew straight through the center of the hoop and landed on his feet with his arms crossed on his chest.

The crowd was gaping at him, some were even rubbing their eyes. They were only awakened from their stupor by the hula hoop clanging on the floor that covered the sound of some other, much softer things dropping.

"And that's why I'm the boss of you all, not the other way around. Now, keep going."

After a while, most people were properly boozed and all had passed the hoop, some with help from the holders, which was fine by Gaude, he had never said that they can't use outside help, only that they mustn't touch the hoop.

He had missed the moment the loophole was discovered, however. He decided to write it off as Emilia's contribution.

They continued with various other party and team building games until people started passing out. They had a good reason to: there had been laughing, there had been frustration, and somewhere along the line, everybody was getting a chance to talk a bit to everyone else, a sense of belonging had taken root among each of them, yet all of that had been quite tiring, as it happened during a single night.

Gaude felt a bit tired himself, and seeing that nobody was paying attention, he pulled a comfy armchair out of his Mokeskin pouch, plopped it down and positioned himself for a power nap.

The next thing Gaude knew was that there was an annoying ray of sunlight punching him in the face. He woke up and went to the bathroom to take a look in the mirror and make sure the illusion and Polyjuice were still functioning properly.

However, once he looked in the mirror, he noticed that there was 'Big Bad Boss' written on his face with black marker. He tried to rub it off with some water, but that didn't work at all.

"Who the fuck brought permanent marker to this party?", Gaude mumbled. With footsteps as light as that of a cat out on a hunt, he returned to the room, found the culprit marker and, since he was unaware of the exact human culprit, begun a childish act of revenge.

While he was doing it, he noticed something interesting: Edward had certainly learned, and quite properly. His lower body was on the couch while his face was firmly planted into Karen's cleavage, while she was sleeping on the floor. Through some miracle, he was positioned in a way that his breathing hadn't been obstructed.

Gaude wasn't sure if it had happened naturally or if there was a bit of magic in play, courtesy of the elves getting a bit whimsical, but he opted to believe in the first possibility.

"Damn, son, you got game! It only took a single night to turn a newbie into a pro. He must have some amazing dreams right about now."

To avoid any excess drama arising from the happening, Gaude used telekinesis to very carefully lift Edward's head and turn Karen just enough that Edward's face rested on her shoulder instead. Gaude hadn't noticed both of their eyelids fluttering for a moment – they had been awake for a while, but neither dared to make the first move, fearing to wake the other and turn the situation even more awkward.

Yet, feeling the situation being resolved as if by magic, they had taken a peek at the good Samaritan. Naturally, as any proper Muggle would, they thought the helper had simply grabbed onto their clothes to move their bodies around. No Muggle would suspect anything as extraordinary as telekinesis or magic in general to be used on them so arbitrarily.

Then Gaude got back to the task at hand and wrote 'Bigfoot' on Edward's forehead and 'treat me nice, but not too nice' onto Karen's. Not aware of what exactly had happened, the two opted to play at still being asleep until the boss left.

John got the label of 'rich dad' and many others were also labelled according to what they had revealed during the interview. Finally, he was down to the last one, but there was something weird about that guy – Gaude could've sworn he hadn't seen that one before in his life. He drew an exclamation and question mark onto the man's face and made a sneaky exit.

Once he was outside, Gaude instructed an elf to keep an eye on the suspicious guy, then went to the building he had rented space in, made sure the water cooler was in perfect working order and waited. And waited. Ten minutes before the scheduled time, the first employee arrived. Gaude prepared a cup of water and threw a large yellow pill into it.

The pill fizzled and dissolved.

"Drink this, you'll feel a lot better after that.", he said, handing the cup to the first arrival.

One by one, his employees kept trickling in and he kept handing out a cup to each of them. The pill was something a Muggle wouldn't usually get their hands on, it was a strictly Wizarding product, meant to cure the hangover from over-indulging in Firewhiskey, which was ten times worse than that from regular alcohol, if you were to believe the words of old seasoned wizards.

By the time the workday started, almost everyone had been purged of all the metabolic products of the previous night's diluted water and back in the saddle. That didn't mean that they weren't all still a bit dehydrated, of course. There were a few stragglers that made it after the clock struck, but Gaude still waited patiently.

"Work hard to catch up to the rest.", Gaude told them with a pat on the shoulder. None of them had a marker writing on their face, it seemed that the group had a few people with some knowledge about basic chemistry among them. They had probably done the same thing that Gaude did, used the leftover booze to clean the permanent marker off their faces.

Once the last one was safely in her office, Gaude turned to leave. Yet, as he did, he saw both Karen and Edward coming from different corridors towards the water cooler. Neither of them noticed the other until they almost collided, then they both blushed furiously and walked on while sneaking glances at each other.

"Curious, very curious.", Gaude borrowed the words of a wise old man.