His "Office Wife" Liz

Rick carded himself out the R&D "lab"space and across the coridor into Project Management land. Waving at a couple of people he often worked with he quickly crossed the big open space office in the middle and to one of the small offices that occupied three of the four walls. Only a few square feet big and with a big glass pane and a glass door, they were just a step up from the communal office space outside, but that step was important.

Looking inside he saw Liz walking the three steps back and forth the space behind her desk allowed her, a headset on and her arms waving around in descriptive gestures while she talked on the phone.

Liz was a couple of years older than him and of Taiwanese descent. On the small side but quite curvy for an asian woman, she did everything with five times the energy that Rick could hope to muster. She was a riot in a little soft package and made it easy to like her. Also she could drink and curse like a whole bunch of seamen.

Liz had taken him under her wing from day one, when she sat down at his desk and introduced herself as the one who would be responsible for most of the work on his agenda.

She was of course right, balancing half a dozen projects most of the time gave her LOTS of work to spread around. But she was always fair, caring and ready to help. Also she was great fun to be around and they started to hang out most lunch breaks and lots of friday evening drinks at the Bodega down the road from campus.

Knocking on her door made her look up and smile, waving him inside.

"...no, no darling. That was in the last version. We changed that requirement, I sent out a mail, messaged you on Slack and opened a Ticket in the system....yes.....yes....no....right. There you go. Now please be a sweetheart and get this done before thursday. Perfect, good girl!"

Liz blew Rick a kiss and waved at the chair in front of her desk, rolling her eyes theatrically.

'Marketing' she whispered, holding her hand over her microphone.

Rick grinned at her and made a wanking motion, which made Liz snort and nod with emphasis.

'Five minutes'she whispered and made a sipping gesture. Rick just nodded and went outside again, heading for the coffee corner to get them two cups.

Before Liz he drank only the occasional coffee in the mornings, but that woman basically had replaced her blood with java-juice and got him hooked as well, especially since he learned what actual, good coffee should taste like.

Liz somehow had managed to get the budget for a decent swiss made coffee machine and kept a stash of decent, italian arabica roast locked away. The only one with a key apart from herself was Rick... which basically made him her blood brother (java brother?) and most trusted person ever, including her sister and mom. "I love 'em but those bitches would empty my stash in a second without regrets. Chinese women are evil!" she told him once.

Checking the coffee machine he saw that it still had some of the good stuff in the built in grinder and simply pressed the button for cappucino, listening to the relaxing sounds of the grinder and later the steamer, preparing the first cup.

Looking around he saw a few other people still working. A big milestone was coming up and most of the company was on crunch time, either here or working from home if they had kids and family to take care of. Things have been crazy stressful and there was no real end in sight. If nothing changed, morale would fall out through the bottom, but higher management seemd to be oblivious.

"Gaaaaah! I am sooo done with fucking conf calls goddammit!"

Rick turned around and saw Liz coming his way, waving her vaper at him.

"Come on Stud! You! Me! Roof! Nicotine!"

She grinned and stretched while she waited for Rick to fetch their coffees and took the lead going towards the exit and the lifts beyond.

"Christ! I am used to having too much to do, but this is getting ridiculous Rick. I am so wound up, I can't really get any rest going in the evenings. How are you holding up sweety?"

RIck just shrugged.

"I manage. Wrote specs all day, which is ok. Tomorrow there will be meetings back to back, THAT I dread"

Liz nodded empathically.

"I hear you Dude! Half of them are just a fucking waste of time, the other half is stupid. And the tiny rest of useful meetings are mostly double the length of what is necessary"

She stepped into the lift and finally took one of the mugs from Rick.

"We need a plan! R&R! Something to decompress right fucking now! Gimme some options Ricky!"