The Fund

With Christmas looming on the horizon like a drooling rapist waiting at the top of a steep hill ready to take full advantage of the tired and weary shell of a human left after the arduous inclined journey that was 2013, I'd like to bring to light some high level corruption that hasn't even been unearthed in the Wikileaks dossiers.

Rather like countless 70's conspiracy thrillers I have suddenly come round to the chilling realisation that the company i work for, along with the colleagues that beam ever so brightly at me at the mornings start, are secretly being run by a new breed of Mafia.

When i started here I was asked politely, but now come to think of it quite firmly cajoled, into joining a Tea Fund. This seemed innocent enough and I tight fistedly obliged even though they all drink 27 cups of the stuff a day, to my mere 1 or 2. This was swiftly raised to encompass the biscuit and cake supply and before I knew it money was freely flowing out of my ever lightening pockets into this voluminous office pool quicker than it took to snap a Kit kat.

Eventually the overly elaborate outbursts of sighs and tuts and all round general stare led arm bending, led me to make my first gargantuan Tea round involving the kind of planning and execution usually reserved for the on set catering staff of such behemoth productions as 'Ben Hur' or 'Cleopatra'.

This routine soon became a habit which quickly sent me spiralling into the dark depths of addiction as my 1 to 2 cups became 3 to 4 and then 7 to 8 or more as the Tea Rounds slowly sucked me into the rapid swirling hot broth of my colleagues dark world of libation, and who's rabid thirst knew no satiety.

Much though I fought it, the caffeine withdrawal took me into double figures by only my 5th week and this was when the feeders stepped up their game. Offering just biscuits at first and cackling maniacally at my defence of 'being on a diet'. The stakes were soon raised to fondant fancies and the like and before I knew it I was waiting on the daily cream cake delivery with a fevered sweat, fighting my way to the front of the cue to desperately snatch at the days sugar frosted bounty.

They had me in their control for sure and as the seasons changed so did my empty pocketed size 32 jeans to a breezier, easier 34 waist. I was so dosed up in a saccharine dream that unbeknownst to me they were hitting me left, right and centre for Birthday gift and leaving present money while Tea Fund collections came more frequently and with increasing menace.

It was the sudden introduction of lottery and charity collections that set my alarm bells ringing and it was then i decided it was time to blow the lid off this Kitty of injustice and break this Party Ring of vice for good. I swapped my Tea for hot water in the rounds and poured my colleagues offered infusions into a nearby plant. The biscuits and cakes were carefully hidden about my person and discarded in the yard at break times.

It was only after a few days of being clean that my eyes were truly opened to the sheer cunning and size of this covert underground operation. The Tea and Cake fund monies being taken added to up to far too much for the paltry Asda Smartprice Bourbons and discount out of date cakes and when I delved deeper still I managed to track the spare funds from this shake down up the food chain as high as number 10 with some of the cash even going to some evil mastermind living in London named Simon “Bear Head” Cowell who was ploughing it into shameless fake TV shows to make even more money off unsuspecting hypnotised fools in the  infamous old “This Shit is Gold” scam.

The money for birthdays was being taken for people who i didn't even know! They were never seen and neither were the gifts or vouchers. The people supposedly “leaving” turned out to be people who had questioned or tried to opt out of 'The Fund' and I have a feeling it was more than the office confines they were escorted out of on their 'final day'.

All of the confectionery i saved up was enough to buy me a friend on the outside who managed to get me out in a fake secondment role but when I went to the papers with the story I was greeted with the familiar glaze of a sugar doped drone who said they'd get right on it and then had me followed home. I managed to lose him at a Dunkin' Donuts.

This thing is so much bigger than I thought. There is widespread con-manship afoot out there and It might be happening in your very office? You might be reading this just as someone in 'The Fund' places a hot sweet brew down with a couple chocolate hob nobs on the side? They might even be suckering you into a false conversation of “How did that thing go at the weekend Bob?” whilst they peruse this very post you're reading, meanwhile Doreen in 'Accounts' is downloading your emails and bank details whilst packing her bag for Switzerland?

Either way, 'Beware the Eyes of Mars' and all his covert confectionery cohorts and start planning your break out now, god damn it!, now!

*This post is abridged and printed with permission from the book "Three Days Of The Kit Kat" by Randy Pumper.