A Bat-tered Workspace

I arrive at work to find my manager standing in front of the glass panel that’s next to my office door. He has his face pressed against the glass and his hands cupped around his eyes as if he’s trying to spy something in the darkness of the unlit interior.

Me: “Uh, good morning [Manager]?”

My manager jumps and whirls around, exhaling in relief when he sees me.

Manager: “Oh, it’s just you. Sorry. Uh, yeah, uh, I actually meant to call you and say you might want to work from home today. We’ve, um, got a bit of a situation here.”

Me: “A situation? What happened?”

My manager jerks his head back to the glass window as something audibly thumps against it. I look over and behold, there’s a bat, a legit winged sky-puppy, flying around my office, occasionally ramming into the windows as it tries fruitlessly to escape.

Manager: “It was on the reception desk when I got in. I… erm… shooed it over to your office cause it’s the closest one. I’ve called animal control, but they’re taking their d*** time getting here!”

I watch as the bat continues madly flying around my workspace, occasionally retreating behind the potted plant I keep in the corner for a rest before resuming its attempts to find a way out of its predicament. My manager continually freaks out every time it gets near the door.

Me: “How…how did it get in here? We’re on the fifth floor, in the middle of the floor, and all the doors require keycards!”

Manager: “I don’t know! I just want it gone!”

Animal control finally showed up an hour later, after most of the staff had turned up and gotten to behold the spectacle of our unexpected visitor destroying my workspace.  

Thankfully, the bat was safely caught and removed without harm (aside from my coworkers wanting pictures of it in the handler’s hands) and I got to spend the rest of the morning cleaning up my desk and scrubbing the ‘parting gift’ from what was technically my first client (at least that’s what my coworkers joked it was) off the windowsill.