The curious story of Gabby the office Guinea Pig

On the 10th of May 2019 I had an idea. I frequently have ideas. Some good, some bad, some quite frankly awful but, as this particular idea was based around the part that Linkedin can play in collaborative exercises, I thought I'd give it a go.

And the idea was this - to write a short story using only the comments on a Linkedin thread - with each commentator writing one sentence each, as a response to the last comment that had been made.

At the time of writing, the original post had received 40 comments and the story took up just over 2 pages. If you want to contribute to it, feel free, it'd be interesting to see how long this runs for.

And, to keep it within the realms of being "suitable" for Linkedin, the intention was that the story would start with a vaguely business related theme - the opening sentence being:

"She nervously tapped on the boss's imposing office door."

And here, for your delight and entertainment is the story as it sits currently:

 She nervously tapped on the boss's imposing office door. Michael her boss, bellowed for her to enter. She entered the room in a sheepish manner. Gabby was a complicated character. 

Her history of terrible cross-species relationships had left her untrusting of men, but there was something about Christopher that made her little tail wiggle

 Meanwhile, Gabby - the office Guinea pig - munched some straw in her cage in the corner; little did anyone know that it was Gabby who made the decisions around here, not Michael.

Cringing, she gingerly opened the door and peeped round...

To find Michael sat in his underpants, cigar in one hand, spoon for Coco Pops in the other. His hand danced like a half melted Cornetto in a sea of pencils. "That coffee was strong" she thought. As she tried to avert Michael’s intense glare shifting herself nervously her eyes focused on a small brown mouse in the corner of the room.

The mouse was reading the FT at a little desk, occasionally tapping on a mini keyboard and squeaking into an intercom. And she saw it: Thinking “oooh flip what have I done”

Brexit! And there was this one time at band camp

The mouse had originally applied for the role as Michaels assistant as he heard he was the “Big cheese” but misunderstood the reference, never the less, the pension and other benefits were generous and had he not taken the job, he would never have met Sandy at the water cooler.

Sandy was close friends with Juliet, so the mouse suddenly sat up and watched as Micheal started asking her what she wanted to achieve with the business.

“Al just called from the docks” she said, her voice quivering slightly. “Customs have impounded your shipment on some trumped up excuse about the paperwork. He says they won’t release it until we settle with Baby Face on that load of Peruvian guanna bats last month”

"What we need around here is more discipline!” said the mouse, looking much happier now that she knew humans couldn't work together to save their stupid lives. Michael's stepped toward the mouse and with his piercing blue eyes questioned her silently from under furrowed bows. Tammy, Michael's overeager assistant consistently whispered his National Insurance number into his ear.

Michael was completely shocked with mouse behaviour at the camp . Thing`s went POP and they called www.pleavinpower.co.uk to fix it :)

And then, as if from nowhere this monster cat appeared, thinking.... “suppers’ ready”, and then Phil his owner screamed... a flower! When something very strange happened...the flower exploded!  The end.

All the walls were covered in pollen which was no good for Phil's hayfever. Blinded by the yellow mist and falling petals, he rummaged around for some antihistamines. Meanwhile Michael was oblivious to the explosion, as he wanted to sort the issue at Customs, so he told Juliet to get on the phone to Richard and get it sorted out otherwise she wouldn’t get her bonus he had planned for her at the end of the day

“Dammit!” Thought Michael, “Why wasn’t that picked up on the CAT scan?”

Harry, the office gremlin, Had once again ingested way too much caffeine and was seen in the office riding a wave of customer satisfaction through the glass echo chamber of the chocolate teddy bears of old. As the wave crashed around the corner of the corridor, Harry screwed up his blood shot eyes and got ready for....

Kevin from OSHA to arrive, eager to cite Michael for incorrect health and safety procedures in the office, he was keen to shut them down after what happened last month... 

Sandy met Kevin and took him to the water cooler to have a chat, whilst Michael summoned, Harry, Phil, Juliet and the mouse for a lunch time meeting about the event so far today. Kevin, being slightly hard of hearing arrived at the water cooler with a cat

The mouse ran for shelter. But they were closed for lunch so he ended up in the Salvation Army. Sky Masterson arrived with a flourish. Dumping the files on the floor.

Juliet was also overwhelmed by the pollen and start sneezing profusely that she couldn't even speak, let alone call Richard to get things sorted out. At that very same moment, she said goodbye to her bonus as well, which she had planned to spend on further educating herself in blockchain.

And rode him like a nicked pushbike.  A pushbike with slightly rusty pedals and a few broken spokes.

And there you go - that's the Curious Story of Gabby The Office Guinea Pig - as told by several members of my Linkedin Network - and me. Yes, it's not particularly work related, yes it may not have been a particularly good investment of your time but, for me, it's been a successful experiment - I've gathered together a number of people who may not normally have had reason to communicate with each other to collaborate on something creative.

Bit of fun for a friday eh!

And a powerful demonstration of how Linkedin works!