he felt the temperature drop as he badged into the work area entrance.  being a weekend, he expected it to be a lot cooler inside since not a lot are scheduled to work during these days.  he calmly continued on, tapping by a colleague on the shoulder as he passed on the way to his workstation.  he got a chair from nearby and pushed it along the way as he noticed his workstation not having one.  he slumped into the chair as he turned on the pc.  it was saturday night, his first day of the work week and he was dog tired.  he woke up at 8am and stayed awake since then.  he even tried to catch a couple more z's after lunch since he had a basketball game later that evening, but he just kept tossing and turning in his bed, wide awake.  his brother also had to use the car that night, so he won't be able to snag a catnap in the parking lot hours before his shift starts, but dear lil' bro was kind enough to drop him off at the sporting venue before heading off to his night out with friends.  at the basketball game, he played nearly 40 minutes as there were only eight of them who showed up, with him being the team's tallest among them.  he only rested for a couple of minutes before the end of the third quarter and went back in at the start of the fourth.  they were beaten by about 50 points as their opponents took advantage of their lack of depth and ran the air out of their lungs.  even though it was the team's last elimination game and they didn't qualify for the semi-finals, he had hoped the team would put up a decent fight.  but all that's behind now as there will be no more basketball on saturdays before work from now on, not at least until next year.

still slumped into the office chair, he felt his body become heavier.  he had spent the last three hours at the company's network gaming station, preferring to let time slip by on a strategy game than a few z's on the sleeping quarters–called quiet rooms–that have the distinction of snores sounding like an orchestra on gala night.  good thing his workstation–and his team's–was situated on the farther area from where majority of the other teams were assigned.  maybe he could steal some precious minutes of shut-eye from time to time without being noticed.  but he thought that it was still to early to do so. he was just starting his shift and, even if some of his colleagues knew what he had gone through earlier, he wouldn't think of snoozing at the start of the work day.  he browsed through some 50 or so emails he had gotten since he took his days off, starting with deleting some of the unimportant ones and saving the more need-to-read ones for later in the day.  five minutes before the top of the hour, and the official start of shift, he checked his team.  one called in sick and there were two others who weren't there yet. it was unusual for his team to have saturday absences, so the realization of having three team members short was quite enough to shake him from his near drowsy state.  "they still have five minutes," he said to himself as he went back to his seat to go about some pre-shift stuff.  as 2AM sounded, he told his team to log in.  he saw one of his team members running towards their area in a frantic pace to avoid being late.  she arrived on her station, huffing and puffing as she logged in, still making it on time.  but still, one is not accounted for.  he doesn't have his mobile phone with him, for those were banned on the operations floor a couple of weeks ago, even for someone with his position.  not wanting to stress himself out more on the first working day of the week, and already tired before it starts, he just thought to himself, "i'll worry about that later," and continued on his work.

"somebody's not looking good today," a familiar voice then echoed.  he acted as if he didn't hear anything until he was asked, "rough day?"

"'rough' is an understatement," he replied.  "this may very well be one of the longest days of the year for me.  see, it's not even five minutes past two in the morning and i feel like an hour has already gone," he continued.

"well, it's not like you haven't gone through that before.  c'mon, all you need is coffee.  grab your mug and i'll go with you to get some in the pantry.  let's go," invited the voice.

as he got his mug from his drawer, he was asked, "how did the game go?"

"nowhere near something interesting you'd want to hear about," he said.  "we were playing catch-up until the catch was nowhere in sight," he continued.

"that bad, huh?"

he didn't answer to drive his point across as they walked towards the pantry.

"didn't you send that email last thursday to everyone before you went home about that game being the last one of the eliminations and how it would help if there was some support from the department, even if it just meant that they would simply watch the game?"  posed the question.

"guess they didn't give a shit," came the curt reply.  "if you could see the two bench areas, theirs was full of boisterous colleagues who would shout, cheer and hiss at every action on the court, while ours was…  well, quiet and solitary as a graveyard to say the least." he added.

"hmmm… how thoughtful of them," the voice then replied.

"it's not like i, or we haven't gone through that before.  we've been playing for an empty crowd since the second game.  but there's nothing i can do about that anymore.  it's over.  we lost.  we didn't make it to the next round.  and i think that even if we did, they would care less," he lamented as he waited for the mug to fill with coffee.

"yeah, maybe you're right.  hey, what's this i heard that you and your colleagues getting an earful last week at a staff meeting and some other weird shit that happened there?  what's up with that?"  the voice asked, changing the subject.

"ah, you heard about that, huh?  well, to put it in what majority perceived it to be, it was a 'wake up call' of some sorts concerning the, well, 'lackluster' way things are being done around here," he explained, trying not to be too serious.

"'wake up call?'  from what i heard, you guys were, like went through a vat of detergent, or something!" came the reply.

"yeah, ready to be rinsed and taken to the presser," he jokingly replied back.  "but seriously," he continued while they were walking back to his workstation, "the thing about that meeting was we–that is, me and my colleagues of the same level–took the brunt of the blame by our direct superiors in front of their direct superior when they themselves have some major shortcomings of their own as well.  our direct superiors were citing this and that, in front of their boss which made us look like we were complete incompetents!  and yet even though we outnumber our direct superiors, we didn't say a thing and took it like professionals, yet they stand there rendering themselves blameless for our 'lackluster' performance.  so naturally, at the en
d of that meeting, our morale was shaken, our egos tarnished, our capabilites questioned.  while they walk out thinking, 'they deserved that.  let's see how they would do things from now on,'  while having so-called halos on the top of their heads.  i mean, how would you feel if you were on our shoes?"

"man, i would've not took that sitting down at that time.  i would've let my feelings known," was the answer.

"yeah, like you would!"  he jokingly teased.  as they reached his workstation, he slumped into the chair again, mug of coffee still in hand.  he tilted his head back, closed his eyes and yawned.  he would take a couple of sips from his mug and return to the tilted, eyes-closed position after each one as he tried to get himself into work mode despite his ever-increasing desire to sleep right there and then.

"don't you have any food with you?"  he asked, trying to continue their conversation.  "nope, don't have any," came the quick reply.

"make yourself useful then and get me some," he shot back, laughing, still with eyes closed and head tilted back.  "make me and i'll pour coffee all over you, you lazy twerp!"  was the reply.

as their joint laughter and banter died down, he was then posed with this question, "who's this girl i also heard that you're liking nowadays?  how's that going?"

he paused for a while, opened his eyes, gazed upward and asked back, "do you really want to know?"

a giddy reply of, "yeah!  anything new regarding your lovelife is anticipated like next week's lottery numbers!"  came out.  "who's the lucky gal?"  was the insistent question.

he sat straight up, unlocked his pc as he started to do some work.  "she's from this department and that's all i'm gonna tell you," he finally said, breaking the thin suspense.

"what?!  tell me more, damn it!"  came the outburst.  "we still have all day to talk about it!"

he then said, "maybe you do, but i don't.  besides, i'm still working on it because it's…" he then paused as he continued on with his work.

"because it's what?!  c'mon, what is it?!"  was the impatient reply.

"it's complicated.  and that's already saying a lot, if you know this department first hand," he replied, stopping a bit at what he's doing.  "now get out of here, i have work to do!"

"fine, fine," was the frustrated reply.  "but please tell me soon, ok?"  came the plea his way as he was busying himself more with work.

"of course i will.  now, go.  go!"  he demanded.  as the area was silent again, he leaned on his chair, took a sip of coffee, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes as he told himself, "four more days to go…"