The Incompetence Bureau

by Daemon McRae

Chapter 4: Lemon Zest’s Day In… Hell.

Chapter 4: Lemon Zest’s Day In… Hell.

“So… this is the mail room,” I say, pointing a hoof in the general direction of the door. It says ‘Mail Room’ on it in big letters, so I don’t know how anypony would miss it. Twilight looks at me expectantly. I roll my eyes, and open the door for her. Of course, I let her walk in first.

Which was my first mistake. “OH MY DEAR CELESTIA!” the Princess yells, and I almost jump out of my hooves.

I run into the room behind her. “What, what?!” I look around, expecting to see another raccoon, or homeless guy, or extradimensional portal with a bit meaty paw coming out of it. Discord is super grabby. I don’t see anything out of the ordinary, though. There’s nopony in here, as our mail staff consists of me, my boss, and one other mail pony, and the other two don’t show up til like, an hour after I do. I’m supposed to open up, and start sorting. “What is it?” I ask, returning my attention to the alicorn.

“This place is a MESS! How do you find anything?!” She looks frantically around the room, like it’s offended her somehow.

I give the mail room another once-over. Mail sorted by department, large bins full of mail yet to be sorted, packages in their designated bins. “It looks fine to me, wha-”

Twilight’s wings twitch. “Fine?! Look at all this unsorted mail! You have all this stuff sorted by department, but not by recipient! And your packages are all just… just… in a bin! And don’t get me started on your outgoing!”

I roll my eyes. “Oh, please, it’s not that bad. We only lose like, one or two pieces a week-”

“ONE OR TWO?!” she bellows, “That's unacceptable! What if it’s really important?! What if it’s super-private information?! What if one of your patients or doctors gets their identity stolen?!”

I feel the MIGHTY NEED to stifle a laugh. “Um, have you met our patients? Or our doctors? Nopony wants to be them. I mean, for serious, that’s dumb.”

Her eye twitches violently. “Dumb?! There’s nothing dumb about being organized! Out! I need to sort ALL of this!”

“But I need to-”

“OUT!”

-----------------------------

I’m pacing back and forth in front of the mail room, just waiting for somepony to yell at me. Again. There’s another crash behind the door, but I don’t investigate. The last time I did I got kicked out. By a torrent of envelopes. Multiple, so many papercuts.

It’s been like, half an hour, and I’m supposed to have sorted a bin and started delivering by now. I’m totes gonna get fired. And, as if on cue, my boss walk around the corner. A big, hearty earth pony stallion with a deep sea blue coat and steel-gray mane, who I probably would have tried to bang by now if he wasn’t like forty years older than me. Still looks really good. Like one of those ex-military types who kept in shape long after he retired. He levels a well-disciplined glare at me. “Lemon Zest, why, exactly are you in the hall?” he says calmly.

I heave a sigh. “Well Mister Weight, Princess Twilight has started auditing the company and her idea of an audit is to start job shadowing a bunch of different ponies who all apparently have interesting employee files so today she’s following me around and she took one look at the mail room and started organizing-”

He holds up a hoof, and I see his eyes have gone wide. “Princess Twilight is here? In my mail room? Organizing?!”

“Y-yes sir...”

“Oh dear Celestia,” he says quietly, and runs into the mail room. “Princess Twilight!” I hear him yell, as the door closes.

This is followed by a muffled serious of loud noises, and yelling, and what sounds like a thousand angry paper birds. The door flies open, and Paper Weight is pushed back into the hall by a torrent of paper. He pushes back valiantly, forcing his way back into the room despite the onslaught of stationary. The door closes behind him, and I hear it lock. The yelling and loud noises continue.

Just as I think I must be hallucinating, my other coworker shows up, coming down the hall from around the other direction. “Hey Zest. Sup? The hell is that noise?”

“Hey Quill,” I nod to the gangly unicorn. He’s got paper-bag brown fur and a light-tan mane, done up in gawdy spikes. “Paper Weight is in there fighting with Princess Twilight Sparkle about how we organize or mail room.”

He tries to raise one eyebrow, but fails, just looking really confused and kinda dumb. “Uh, it sounds like a war zone in there.”

Oh my Celestia. “Did you not here what I said? Our ex-military boss is fighting with the Princess of Friendship in there!”

Quill whistles quietly. “Whoa. THIS I gotta see,” he says, unlocking the door with magic and walking in.

“No wait, Quill! You’ll get murderlized!” He doesn’t listen, and the door is slammed shut with the force of… something, and I hear screaming.

I look around, kind of panicked now. “Oh, man. If they both die, I’m a thousand percent fired! But… papercuts. So many. So sharp. But… aww, damnit!” I yell, throwing the now unlocked door open, and running into the fray.

------------------------

Cinch looks around the room at the collection of wounded ponies. At one end of the rather familiar conference table sits Princess Twilight, her hair wildly frazzled, covered in bruised, with bits of paper stuck in her wings. At the other, Mail Chief Paper Weight, head-to-toe in paper cuts and forwarding address stickers.

The two smaller ponies, Lemon Zest and Quill Feather, sit across the table from Cinch, both covered in cuts, stickers, ink, bruised, and Celestia knows what else. Zest’s mane is a runaway whirlwind of paperclips and postage stamps. Quill just looks like a giant bruise with enough postage to reach the other end of the world.

President Cinch massages a temple with her hoof, sitting as calmly as possible, and asks a simple question: “Who, exactly, is responsible for this?”

Three hooves point immediately to the Princess, the smaller ones still shaking. Cinch raises an eyebrow at the Princess of Friendship.

Barely looking up from her seat, Twilight mutters, “The boxes started it.”

Comments

[EchoWing]

...yeah, never underestimate someone with OCPD and their obsession with organization.

[Booster Spice]

In the UK, its called WalkSort. you throw all the post for a given area into one bin, the postie for that area takes the bin, then Block Pidgeon sorts to the given road he walks down, then reverse pidgeon or Quick sorts as he goes.

Stick Twilight on the Mail Train. That would keep her happy. Going round and round and round.

Its a real pity they didnt have Johnsons Sorting Machine. Would explain Discord.

[Solemn Vigil]

I wonder if ends ups as one of CRRAP's patients by the end of this fic?

[Daemon McRae]

8382012
OH no. Even better.

[BlueNinja]

with a bit mgeaty paw

*meaty

her hair wildly frazzled, covered in bruised,

*bruises

Somehow, I'm not surprised that Twilight lost to the mail room.