[ WP ] `` Attention all employees , please hide . ''

`` Attention all employees: please hide'' 
 
 The middle-aged woman speaking over the PA system sounded just as tired of life as I did. 
 
 I thought I had struck a good thing when signing up with Awesome Inc: a business that sold quirky, colourful novelties and electronics to moneyed grown men with attention deficit disorder, and whose strapline was - I am not making this up - `` OMG! Shiny!'' I bought their shinies, I was the envy of my moneyed attention-challenged friends, and I naturally applied for a position as a Creative Prospector in their flagship store. 
 
 My role, well, I'm not sure I could tell you. It's not secret, just you'd never understand it. I do n't really know, myself, either. I could only tell you what I had done, that had not yet got me fired. If I was trying to sell my position to you, I'd say I am at the coal face of current trends, eagerly looking for new formations of creativity that can be the basis of exciting new product lines. In reality, I sit in a cramped back office above the store in front of two giant monitors. The left monitor tracks what people buy in store and online ( with irritating dancing red lines to show what products are n't selling any more ) while the right has a fibreoptic cable internet link, serving me hours of Buzzfeed, Reddit, Youtube, and all the other things memes are made of. 
 
 `` Attention employees, please hide. This is your second and final warning.'' 
 
 If I see anything on the right that amuses me, I have to jot down some skeleton design brief to be passed on to our product designers and marketers who try to make that shit shiny and wanted by our idiot customers. Speed is everything with Awesome Inc. We have contacts with production lines that can supply thousands of units of our new shinies with about a month's notice to capitalise on the next sensation. We put it on sale, the people shout `` Shut up and take my money!'' before tiring of it and moving onto the next thing. Then it drops off the left monitor. In that time, I need to have come up with a dozen ideas to repeat the cycle. 
 
 If I sound like this is n't a dream job, well... it is n't. 
 
 Apart from the treadmill of churning out shiny junk for people to buy based on some funny 3-word tweet, Awesome Inc is run by executives who seem to think that every word can be spelled with `` fun''. Honestly, one of the first things they said in their orientation escape game was `` You ca n't spell'work' without'FUN'. Exclamation mark!'' That should have been a red flag, but I laughed it off. Turns out that nothing is fun when it's compulsory. And one compulsory thing that is n't fun is about to happen now. 
 
 `` Attention customers! You have five minutes to find ten employees, and bring them to the cash register! Three... Two... One... GO!'' 
 
 Give her credit: she puts more effort into that announcement. 
 
 They did this every other week. They would invite in a dozen customers just before the store opened to the public, and organise a game of hide and seek. No prizes, no coupons for winners, just for the chance of having a picture taken of them next to people like me who could n't evade capture. Then it gets tweeted, and they get internet famous for about 30 seconds. Except for a couple of rooms kept locked and marked as off limits, customers had free run over the shop floor, the stock room, and - I quickly found out - the back offices. I never survived the hunters: I tried to hide for the first few months, but now just sat at my desk and awaited the inevitable capture. Today, I knew I'd get caught again, but I was n't at my desk. I had an urgent call to attend, and I could n't hide in time. 
 
 I heard the outer door open, and footsteps approach my inner door. The game was up. I was trapped. I had mere inches to my left and right, no room behind. The only escape was 2 feet in front, and no longer an option. 
 
 BANGBANGBANG! 
 
 Not now. Please not now. 
 
 `` Hey! There's someone in here!'' 
 
 This really is n't a good time. 
 
 `` Anyone got a screwdriver?'' 
 
 Normally, I can avoid being caught like this, but last night I ate something I should n't have... 
 
 `` Here we go! Open... Sesame!'' 
 
 Click. 
 
 The door to the cubicle opens. A man in a loud shirt and red denim jeans now stands between the sink and my seated position. He has glasses with frames apparently made of flashing lightning bolts, and no lenses. His hair is dyed black and spiked in a way that's `` so random''. He is wearing the Awesome Inc Noise Jacket ( TM ) which connects via bluetooth to his phone to play music through eight loudspeakers built in where most jackets have pockets. He has a screwdriver in one hand, and his phone in the other. He has a grin that shows a lack of awareness as to our situation. It's too much to hope for an embarrassed silence. 
 
 `` Found one! You're mine!'' 
 
 He taps his phone and plays a fanfare through his black ergonomic ghetto blaster. The noise hits me full in my self-respect. Then he takes a picture. Then he stares at me expectantly, waiting for me to come along.
