The Survey (Short Story)

This is something I've been working on for a little bit. A while back, a friend sent me a screen grab of an reprinted article. They used the title, "The form is always there, menacing you," which was a direct quote from the poet who was interviewed in the article. Well, that line got me thinking, and I decided to write a short story, treating the quote as a writing prompt.

It sat there, on my desk, waiting, knowing that I would need to get to it soon. The boxes on the form just needed to be filled out, but no matter how much I knew I needed to do it, I just hadn’t. I was honestly dreading filling it out. The form must have known I was ignoring it, because whenever I glanced at the paperwork, somehow it seemed to be creeping closer toward me, menacingly coming toward me, insisting that I complete it.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. It was paper, it couldn’t move, and yet somehow, it had slipped off the book it was sitting on and crept toward me. Maybe it was just me bumping into my desk that was doing this, or maybe it was my tail softly shifting behind me as I worked.

I sighed and picked up the form and grabbed a pen. I should get this out of the way.

“Hey Bobby, you do your employee satisfaction survey yet?” said a cheery voice poking her head into my cubicle.

I pulled one of the earbuds out the bottom of my ear. “I’m doing it ri—”

The snow leopard smiled at me in her neat business skirt, her tail held carefully behind her. Janet was my supervisor. “Make sure you fill it out!”

“I’m on i—”

“It’s very important to management,” she added, a little too loudly, “and the ratings should directly reflect our department and what it’s like to work here.” Her tail flicked subtly. “Be honest!”

This time, I waited to see if she had anything else to say before responding.

“Right, of course.”

“Good, I know I can count on you Bobby,” she added, in her so-cheery-it-hurts voice she only used when she was trying not to show how nervous she was.

I nodded and she sauntered off, and I put my earbud back in. I turned back to the form.

It sat where I left it, still somehow closer to me on the desk than I swear it was when I put it down. I really needed to watch how much tail thumping I did. I sighed and looked at the first question.

On a scale of 1 to 5, how do you rate your job here at X-Tech, with 1 being bad and 5 being best.

If I was being honest, I was thinking a 3, and why didn’t I want to be honest?

The ding in my ears over the soft music I was listening to told me I’d got a message on the work chat. It was from Janet.

“Fucking A, Janet, I’m doing it now,” I muttered before I clicked on the message.

Hey, I just wanted to remind you to do your employee satisfaction survey, the message said, followed by a small smiling emoji. Also, if you’ve got some time after work, we should do drinks at Flanagan’s, was on the next line, below it.

Janet, for as much as some people pegged her for being an airhead, was sharp. Really sharp. She only ever followed up something with the suggestion of meeting for drinks at Flanagan’s if she wanted to sit and vent. Plus, that subtle tail flick of hers earlier was one of her tells that what she was telling me on the job was laden with corporate speak coming from above.

With a sinking feeling, I picked up my phone and typed a quick message to Janet on her cell phone. That bad?

The response that came in only a moment later was what I feared. Oh yes. Does 6 work okay?

Oh, she wasn’t even willing to put this in writing. Oh boy. On the computer, I typed a response back. Sure, and doing it now.

That got a quick three heart emojis back, and I turned back to the form.

It continued to menace me, now with the added threat that what I put down could be used against us. Management must be expecting glowing results, and who knows what the others were putting down.

The vibe I was getting from Janet was concerning, but I never got a perfect review at work. I couldn’t give them a perfect review either, but I also couldn’t tell them how I really felt about things, so I selected a 4, suggesting a positive experience with room for improvement. The next question though, should not have surprised me: Please explain your score.

In the box I added Good job and moved to the next question. On a scale of 1 to 5, how do you rate your manager?

Of all the managers I’d had Janet was my favorite, so 5 was not a stretch, and yet as I felt the pinprick of discomfort as I selected it, almost as if I the form itself disapproved of my choice. The follow-up also made me pause. Please explain what your manager could do to earn a higher rating. Please include their name.

I thought this was supposed to be anonymous. If I put Janet’s name down, that meant the survey was one of her five direct reports, and from there, it shouldn’t be hard to pick out my handwriting.

My phone buzzed again, and I picked it up. It was Janet. Drinks at 6, my treat, but please, please give me a 5. They’re saying if I average below a 4, I will get put on a pip, and Jeff I think gave me a 3.

A Performance Improvement Plan? That was excessive and the first step toward termination. I glanced back at the form. It looked back at me silently, menacingly, waiting for my feedback.

I would never give you below a 5, I typed into my phone and sighed, putting it down. It buzzed, probably with an emoji or a thank you, but the adversary was waiting for me. Below the question about my supervisor, there was one about coworkers and another fill-in-the-blank block. Jeff was sometimes difficult to get along with, but the others were easy to deal with. This would be my chance to strike out and complain about him. If Janet didn’t have a high enough score, maybe it would help.

But seriously, were they really going to fire someone for being only an average or slightly above average manager?

The form remained silent as I stared back at me, and in its silent stare, I could see the truth. Noticeably, there was no question about upper management or the CEO. They were above reproach, but what if I did have issues with them? Management liked Janet because she told them what they wanted to hear, on the clock. Off the clock, she was a whole different person, but Jeff didn’t know that. Hell, I only knew that because Janet and I had known each other before working here.

Jeff, if he really did give Janet a 3, was probably blind to the consequences of such a rating, and saw it more that she could improve, and he’d have written something down to that effect. It’s not that he didn’t like her, but he wanted more than just preppy platitudes, and Janet, for as much as I loved her, was prone to them, at least on the clock. Jeff, in the meantime, was the type of guy who expected to hear about it if he fucked up, and he wanted to know how to fix it.

The form waited to see if I was willing to throw someone under the bus. For my part, I just put down, Janet is perfect as she is. That made my hackles stand up, because no one could be perfect, and the form knew that. Management knew that, but that was all I could bring myself to say, even though I knew I was being uncritical. At the next question, I put down a 4. I thought for a minute, and then wrote in the box about explaining my rating on my coworkers, They’re really a 4.5, but I can’t give them half a point. Jeff did good work, and it wasn’t worth nitpicking that point, even if he did cause us all to have to work overtime two weeks ago when he accidentally deleted one of our reports. We all had our own fuck ups.

On the back was another series of questions about the workplace environment and then a final box for comments. I took one glance at the questions and just gave them all high ratings. The final box though, I took a few minutes to consider. Here was my chance to strike back at management for this stupid survey, but what would that get me? Could I really express myself at work without fear of reservation? For all the paperwork we did digitally, this was somehow a paper form. It would go in a file, possibly my employee file.

Wait, did we still have paper employee files? I thought those were discontinued years ago.

The last question on the form waited, daring me to say something. Daring me to voice my opinion and risk my job, just so I could feel better. At a better job, I could do that, but not here. Instead, I just left it blank. The music in my earbuds was joyful, but I didn’t feel it. The form, for its part, felt almost angry in my paws, like it wanted me to say more, that it was hoping I’d say something that would give them an excuse to write me up. Instead, I’d barely said anything of substance at all , and that wasn’t what it wanted.

I left my earbuds and their happy pop song in my cubicle, and went upstairs to HR. There was a drop basket for the surveys, but the receptionist out front waved me over when she saw me heading toward her.

“Is that your employee survey?” asked the vixen.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Great, what’s your name?” she asked me.

“Aren’t these anonymous?” I inquired.

“Well yes, but they want us to write down who turns them in.”

I narrowed my eyes. “This isn’t anonymous, is it?”

The vixen cleared her throat. “It’s Bobby Hawthorne, isn’t it?”

“Yes…”

She held out a paw. “Thank you for your feedback. I’ll make a note that you turned yours in.”

I handed over the survey and she glanced at it, and her muzzled quirked up. “I’m sure they’ll find this quite enlightening. Also, you work for Janet don’t you?”

“Yeah…”

The vixen leaned forward and whispered, “Let her know I’d love to join her for drinks, but sadly I have other plans tonight. I’m sure we have a lot to talk about.”

With that the vixen leaned back and gave me a clear wink. “Anyway, thank you, and let me get you doing this recorded.” She turned back to her computer, and I walked out of the HR office with the form sitting on her desk. I thought I could almost hear an angry snarl in my ears echoing through the office that caused my tail to curl underneath me. It continued until I reached the elevator and the doors closed behind me, whisking me downstairs.