New Year’s Eve at the Desk

I arrived at my post with high hopes. I expected quiet. I expected order. I was wrong.

Three minutes in, a sound shattered the calm. A crash onto the wooden table. I froze. Then another crash. Louder. And another, so forceful it felt like the table might splinter.

I walked to the terminal. The man responsible looked back at me, casual, as if gravity itself had nothing to do with his actions.

I said, “If you strike that mouse one more time you will leave this floor and find a new terminal somewhere else.”

His response was almost comical in its simplicity. “I was just trying to make it work.”

We all know that brute force does not bend technology to your will. I looked at him sharply. Then I returned to my desk with the weight of silent judgment pressing the air around him.

Thirty minutes later, a second man approached. He carried confusion like a badge. “I cannot find what I am looking for. I must be stupid,” he admitted.

I moved through the digital shelves, quietly guiding him. Then he asked, “What is your New Year’s resolution?”

I replied evenly, “I do not make resolutions.”

He leaned closer. “Do you know mine?”

“No. Tell me,” I said, detached.

“To flirt with more women,” he declared proudly.

I said nothing. Nothing at all. The silence grew. Birds would have chirped.

He continued. “Oh, you are like... my resolution is to ignore people like you.”

I let the silence stretch further. Birds chirping louder and longer. The universe itself could have learned patience from that moment.

Finally, I found the information he sought. I sent him in the direction he needed to go. The outcome was intact. The balance remained.