It was a drizzly Friday, at four o’clock,  when Dot arrived on the eighteenth floor. Most of these clowns started their weekends early after long boozy lunches. She sighed when she heard bombastic voices firing out of the corner office. They’d come back. God knows why they’d come back; they weren’t getting any work done.

“And so I told her that she’d have to get it done or her job was toast. Am I right or what?” said Mill. Her voice dripped with the privilege that comes with an expensive education. The only thing to make Dot’s skin crawl more was the sycophantic laughing of the other banker, Gill. It was so obvious he was trying to get into her pants. The laugh was the verbal equivalent of unsolicited nude pictures.

“I love getting the cleaners fired. Sometimes I mess up my office just to send photos to HR. Extra points if you make them cry,” boasted Gill.

They were pathetic. Dot, who’d worked here longer than the pair of them put together, remember the old boss. Derek was lovely. He’d always remember everyone’s name. The bank thrived because everyone, every cog in the gears, knew they were a part of a much bigger machine, a valued piece. He had a quote over his desk. “Lowliness is young ambition’s ladder, whereto the climber upward turns his face.” Dot knew this was important. She tried to teach these spoilt sprogs that lesson and she had her methods.

“Here’s ya tea.” Dot cheerily chirped after she knocked on the door.

Gill grunted in her general direction and Mill ignored her completely. They took the tea and took thirsty gulps. Their liquid lunch had dehydrated them. Mill let out a burp and Gill gave that laugh again. The one that wriggled under Dot’s skin. She waited for them to down the second half of their tea before she said anything.

“You pair of worthless little ingrates,” she began. She didn’t shout but her change in tone made them both look up at her. They opened their mouths to talk but she didn’t give them a chance. “You were both clearly given a leg-up in this life and what have you done? You’ve spat on those who weren’t as lucky. You are here because your parents had enough money to send you to the right school. Better men and woman than you have to put up with the sludge and bile that spews forth from your witless heads. What makes you better than Maggie, the cleaner you had fired for extra points last week?”

Mill stood, eyes bulging, but not because of anger. She panicked as she tried to draw a breath and couldn’t. Foam collected at the corner of her mouth when she hit the navy blue carpet tiles moments before Gill. They twitched a couple of time then never moved again.

“That’ll learn ‘um,” Dot muttered as she pushed her trolley up to the lift. She popped down to the incinerator to get rid of the poison bottle as she had many times before. Then she’d head back up to 19. She had her methods.