Going Forward

At the Grand Office of Progress, a towering concrete behemoth where innovation was strictly monitored and creativity required a permit and a three-week approval process, a new initiative was about to be born. It had been decreed from the highest levels of authority that the workplace was not, in fact, “efficient enough.”

The order came from Lawrence P. Chumble, the High Commissioner of Forward Momentum, a man whose job title was designed to sound like it meant something. Chumble, a gray-suited entity whose natural habitat was the windowless boardroom, had gathered his most trusted bureaucrats:

• The Committee for Continuous Improvement (who had never improved anything).
• The Subcommittee for Necessary Adjustments (who lived in constant fear of being adjusted themselves).
• And, of course, The Compliance Whisperer, a shadowy figure who was said to be fluent in over 300 pages of regulations and able to recite them in his sleep.

Chumble cleared his throat, a sound that struck terror into the hearts of mid-level managers.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, adjusting his tie to precisely the approved angle of Corporate Readiness (47°). “We have a problem.” A murmur spread through the room.?

No one liked problems. Problems meant change, and change meant paperwork.

Chumble pressed on. “There is too much inefficiency in this office. People are moving unpredictably. Loitering. Meandering. Worst of all…” He paused for dramatic effect.

“Some employees have been seen walking in circles.”

The room gasped. Someone fainted. The Compliance Whisperer leaned forward, his eyes glinting like a stapler in a dimly lit supply closet.

“This will not stand,” Chumble declared. “Going forward, we must ensure that all movement within this office is structured, orderly, and most importantly—always forward.”

And so, with a flourish of his pen, the Workplace Directional Movement Compliance Policy was born.

The First Rule: All employees shall walk in straight lines. No deviations. No hesitation.

A memo was distributed. Employees were ordered to sign it immediately, acknowledging their full and enthusiastic compliance (or risk being invited to an Employee Behavioral Enhancement Seminar, commonly known as The Room With No Windows).

And just like that, progress had begun.

By the following Monday, the office had been transformed. The hallways were lined with newly painted arrows, guiding employees in their mandatory forward trajectories. At every intersection, employees were required to submit a Form 48-T (Request for Rotational Adjustment) if they needed to turn. Processing time: 3-5 business days.

A new position was created: Deputy of Hallway Compliance. Gary from HR was promoted to the role, given a reflective vest and a whistle, which he used liberally.

“Stay in formation!” he bellowed at two junior analysts who had slowed their pace to tie their shoes.

“But I—” one began to protest.

“FORWARD!” Gary shrieked, sending them both sprinting ahead in terror, their untied laces flapping wildly.

Even bathroom breaks were restructured. Employees now had to request an Urgent Lavatory Forwardness Exemption Form (ULFE-22) to avoid being accused of stationary loitering—a punishable offense.

Not everyone adjusted well to the new system.

Martha from Accounting, a known free-thinker, attempted to turn left without pre-approval. She was immediately apprehended by Gary, who cited Clause 6, Subsection B: Unauthorized Lateral Movement.

“You don’t understand,” she pleaded. “My desk is literally to the left.”

“No excuses,” Gary said grimly. “Report to the Compliance Chamber for Remedial Forwardness Training.”

She was never the same after that.

Barry, an intern, made an even graver mistake. In a moment of sheer carelessness, he walked backward to retrieve a dropped pen.

Witnesses later described the scene as “chaotic.”

Alarms blared. The Compliance Whisperer materialized out of nowhere, hissing like a sentient audit form. Barry was immediately surrounded by a Task Force for Directional Integrity, shackled in ergonomic wrist-restraints, and escorted away.

“Where are you taking him?” someone asked.

“Forward,” was the only reply.

And so, the Grand Office of Progress continued its glorious march toward the future—one straight line at a time.

With the Workplace Directional Movement Compliance Policy successfully implemented, morale had never been higher—at least according to the Officially Approved Morale Survey, which employees were required to fill out under the watchful gaze of the Compliance Whisperer.

But High Commissioner Lawrence P. Chumble was not satisfied.

“This is only the beginning,” he declared at a Mandatory Efficiency Appreciation Assembly held in the company’s newly designated Forward Advancement Hall (formerly known as “the break room”).

“Forward movement is good, but true efficiency requires that all aspects of our operation reflect the spirit of going forward.”

He adjusted his tie precisely 47 degrees—the official Angle of Corporate Readiness—and continued.

“Starting today, we will be implementing additional rules to ensure absolute adherence to progress.”

The room remained silent. No one dared to speak, as Unsolicited Questioning of Progress was now categorized as a Category 3 Efficiency Violation.

The first new rule: All emails must begin with "Going forward," even when discussing past events.

“What if I’m referring to something that already happened?” asked Kevin, the intern who had narrowly escaped exile to the 42nd floor.

Chumble narrowed his eyes. “Then you must say: ‘Going forward, we acknowledge that in the past...’”

“Seems redundant.”

There was a sharp intake of breath. A few employees instinctively stepped away from Kevin, lest they be implicated in his act of Verbal Inefficiency.

The Compliance Whisperer took out his notepad.

“I mean—” Kevin stammered, realizing his mistake. “Going forward, I will fully comply with all email structuring guidelines.”

The Whisperer nodded and disappeared back into the shadows.

The second rule: All employees must sit in forward-facing chairs.

“We’ve discovered,” Chumble explained, “that sideways sitting fosters lateral thinking, which is dangerously close to lateral movement. Backward sitting is, of course, out of the question.”

Thus, every chair in the office was replaced with the Forward-Facing Synergy Seat 3000, a rigid, unmovable structure that forced employees to stare directly ahead at all times. If someone needed to speak to a colleague next to them, they were required to schedule a Pre-Approved Conversation Window (PACW-Form 88) at least two business days in advance.

A week later, a Temporary Exception Clause had to be introduced after a secretary nearly broke her spine trying to hand a document to her boss without violating the No Sideways Interaction Policy.

The third rule: Meetings could no longer deviate from the approved agenda.

“If a topic is missed,” Chumble explained, “employees will simply wait for it to naturally cycle back in the next scheduled meeting… which will occur in five years.”

This led to an incident where a major budgeting error went uncorrected because it had been omitted from the official discussion points. When an employee tried to mention it, Gary the Hallway Compliance Officer shrieked, “OFF-TOPIC!” and tackled them to the ground.

The mistake was not revisited until the next scheduled financial review.

With the new policies in place, the office environment grew increasingly vigilant. Employees, desperate to maintain compliance, began snitching on each other for minor infractions.

• Bob from IT was reported for turning his head too far to the left.
• Susan from Marketing was written up for accidentally walking in a slight curve.
• Trevor from Accounting was caught whispering a joke about the Forward Movement Policy and was last seen being escorted to the Compliance Reflection Chamber.

By the end of the month, the office had transformed into a bureaucratic police state, with Gary from HR now wielding a corporate-issued whistle to call out violators.

“FORWARD! ONLY FORWARD!” he screeched at an employee who had instinctively stepped backward when startled by a falling stapler.

To reinforce adherence, Chumble introduced The Workplace Forwardness Recognition Program, a reward system where employees could earn Forward Star Points? for reporting colleagues who displayed non-forward behavior.

The points could be exchanged for exclusive benefits like:

• A one-time exemption from the Mandatory Compliance Chant.
• Permission to use both hands while typing.
• An extra five-second break during their scheduled 7-minute lunch period.

By the end of the quarter, Forward Star Points? had created a culture of paranoia, with employees eagerly turning each other in just to earn the coveted reward of Basic Human Privileges.

With hallway movements optimized and seating positions strictly forward-facing, there was only one unresolved issue: the elevators. Under the No Reverse Policy, employees could not move backward, which meant that anyone who took the elevator up could never return down.

One unfortunate afternoon, an intern named Kyle stepped onto the elevator, pressing the 45th floor button by mistake. Upon realizing his error, he turned to step out—but was immediately stopped by Gary, who had been waiting for this exact moment.

“NO BACKWARD STEPS,” Gary intoned.

“But I pressed the wrong—”

“YOU MUST MOVE FORWARD.”

Kyle hesitated. Compliance agents began whispering into their walkie-talkies. The Compliance Whisperer lurked in the corner, preparing to take notes.

Defeated, Kyle sighed and rode the elevator to the 45th floor.

And there he remained.

Trapped.

A victim of Forward Thinking.

By the end of the week, the 45th floor was fully populated—a ghost town of employees who had accidentally taken the elevator up and, due to the rigid enforcement of progress, could never descend again.

The company refused to acknowledge the issue, instead reclassifying the 45th floor as a new “Upper-Level Innovation Division.”

From time to time, employees could hear their trapped colleagues banging on the elevator doors, pleading for rescue.

But as the Workplace Directional Movement Compliance Policy clearly stated…

Going forward, there was no going back.

By now, the Grand Office of Progress had achieved a level of bureaucratic purity unseen in modern times. Employees moved only in straight lines. Conversations adhered strictly to the Pre-Approved Discussion Matrix. The 45th floor, now referred to as the Upper-Level Innovation Division, was fully occupied by those who had taken the elevator up and were forbidden by policy from returning.

But still, High Commissioner Lawrence P. Chumble was unsatisfied.

“This is not enough,” he muttered to his committee during a Mandatory Vision Alignment Symposium (formerly known as “Wednesday”).

“We have achieved forward motion. We have optimized behavior. But progress does not sleep.”

The room nodded in perfect unison, as required by Clause 18, Subsection F: The Corporate Agreement Synchronization Mandate.

“We must now take this to its final logical conclusion.”

And thus, the Grand Initiative for Absolute Forwardness was born.

“It has come to my attention,” Chumble declared at an all-hands meeting, “that some employees have been observed glancing backward.”

Gasps rippled through the crowd. Someone fainted.

“This is unacceptable,” he continued. “Looking backward is a gateway to regression. If we permit people to see where they’ve been, what’s next? Remembering things? Reflecting on mistakes?”

Murmurs of horror spread through the audience.

“To address this issue, we will be issuing Official Workplace Vision Alignment Headgear.”

Within days, all employees were fitted with Forward-Facing Blinders?, large, opaque shields that prevented peripheral vision and made it physically impossible to turn one’s head.

To ensure total compliance, a new position was created:

The Bureau of Optical Progression, staffed exclusively by the blindfolded enforcers known as The Seers.

Their job? To detect and report any employee who might be attempting to glance at the past.

Bob from IT was the first victim.

“I just wanted to check if I left my coffee mug at my desk,” he sobbed as The Seers dragged him away.

“You don’t need to know where you’ve been,” one of them whispered. “Only where you are going.”

Within weeks, the Grand Initiative for Absolute Forwardness had reached its next natural step:

Doors were abolished.

“Doors,” Chumble explained in an emergency compliance memo, “represent choice. And choice implies an ability to turn around. This is contrary to our principles.”

Effective immediately, all doorways were converted into seamless, one-way entry points.

Employees could enter any room they liked—but never leave.

When someone asked what would happen if a meeting room became overcrowded, Chumble simply responded:

“Meetings are meant to be permanent. Ongoing conversations ensure continuous productivity.”

By the end of the week, over 17 employees were permanently trapped in the conference room, forced to hold an eternal discussion about Q3 revenue projections.

They begged to be let out.

But as the Workplace Directional Movement Compliance Policy clearly stated:

Going forward, there is no going back.

Despite the apparent success of these initiatives, the company’s productivity had mysteriously declined.

With employees unable to exit rooms, look at documents from previous projects, or walk in anything but straight lines, most tasks became impossible to complete.

Departments were cut off from each other.

Meetings spiraled into infinite loops.

No one knew what was happening outside of their immediate line of sight.

Employees trapped in the Upper-Level Innovation Division (45th floor) attempted to send messages down by folding memos into paper airplanes and launching them at lower windows.

But looking up had been banned as an act of Vertical Non-Compliance.

Thus, all information was lost.

Confused and disoriented, employees simply stopped moving altogether.

Some were still sitting at their desks, hands poised over their keyboards, staring into the abyss of absolute forwardness.

It was Gary, the Deputy of Hallway Compliance, who finally broke first.

One fateful afternoon, he took a step backward.

The alarms shrieked.

The Seers arrived, blindfolds twitching.

The Compliance Whisperer materialized, whispering unspeakable things about protocol violations.

But then, something strange happened.

Nothing.

The office didn’t explode. The walls didn’t collapse.

In fact, as Gary looked around at the silent, motionless employees, he realized something:

No one actually knew what they were doing anymore.

People were following rules for rules’ sake. Decisions were being made for the sake of enforcement, not efficiency.

They weren’t going forward.

They were going nowhere.

And so, in an act of unthinkable rebellion, Gary took another step back.

Then another.

Then another.

The office gasped.

Employees, mesmerized, began turning their heads—slowly, cautiously—backward.

They saw abandoned work, unfinished projects, memos from five years ago, and most importantly… their own mistakes.

And just like that, the illusion shattered.

Someone removed their Forward-Facing Blinders?.

Another person walked in a slight curve.

A door was kicked open.

The 45th floor descended the stairwell.

And then, in one final act of defiance, someone—no one knows who—pressed the elevator button.

It went down.

High Commissioner Chumble watched in horror from his office, his entire empire of mindless forwardness collapsing.

“This is chaos,” he whispered. “Pure, unregulated lateral movement.”

The Compliance Whisperer simply shrugged.

“It was inevitable,” he murmured, before walking sideways out the door.

Chumble sat alone, gripping his last remaining memo in trembling hands. On it, in bold capital letters, were his own words:

“Going forward, we must ensure absolute progress.”

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