You set it early to do this your way.

Your eyes upen before your 6:30am alarm has a chance to wake you. Okay, you'll be there, but you'll do things your way. You shower and dress, packing a couple of extra items in your briefcase.

On the way to work, you stop at Heavenly Donuts. The hippie mama working the early shift sells you a tray of sticky cinnamon rolls, Miss Cast Iron's favorite indulgence. You admire the donut woman's long-legged curviness, and wonder if she was the model for the shop's sign, a decidedly lusty-looking angel in a skimpy white robe with a doughnut halo.

At work before Denise, you set things up to your liking. You cut one cinnamon roll out and put it on a plate, leaving the rest in the mini-kitchen, and start the coffee brewing. In case Denise comes in before you're all set up, that should hold her for a few minutes.

Your first move is to get a little piece of enjoyment back into the day. You set up a mini webcam under her desk, pointed (you hope), up her skirt. Connecting it to the office network, you see a little green light go on. You stick a dot of tape over the light and anchor the camera in a shadowy corner. For good measure, you roll the blind off her skylight. It's going to be a warm day, and some extra light and heat will be just the thing to make her feel sticky and squirmy.

That done, you breathe a little easier, and set up a little extra insurance. Your second piece of equipment is a remote on/off adapter for a power outlet. You go into a dusty storage room and plug in the adapter into the wall, then plug in both a portable air conditioner and a portable heater, adjusted to maximum. You smile. One click of the remote in your briefcase, and the circuit breaker will pop. No power, no work, and nobody will come to fix it on a Saturday.

You go to wash your hands, and when you're back in the main office, Denise is there in the kitchenette, wolfing a cinammon roll. "Oh, theh yar," she says through the sticky pastry. She swallows. "On time for once, Doe. Let's get to it."

She taps your foot as you pour yourself a coffee.

Denise hands you a stack of proposal drafts and a checklist. "All right, John," she says. "This is Edward's first half-baked version. I blue-penciled them last night and emailed you a link to his documents. This," she says, handing you a thick plastic-bound booklet, "is the technical proposal specifications your overpaid slacker friend Edward, let us just say, forgot, to pick up from his box. So you will need to integrate my changes and cross-check his numbers with the specs. I'll give you my additional changes as updated documents today, and you will have to merge them in and send them back to me."

You grit your teeth quietly, rather than groan and have Denise light into you with her sharp tongue. She goes to her office and you to your cubicle.

The morning work is tedious, but not too annoying. By ten you are through two of the five draft proposals, including Denise's changes for one. You stretch your arms and legs out in your chair, and stand up to get another cup of coffee.

As you come back with the coffee, walking by Denise's door, you hear her voice raised, talking to someone on the telephone. She shuts her door with a loud "thump!" and lowers her voice slightly. You hear her chair squeak as she sits down again, and she starts talking again.

You pause to listen in. If you can't hear anything interesting, maybe it's time to tune in the camera.