An office. Jake sits behind his desk as Diane confidently enters and sits down.
Jake How are you Diane?
Diane Brilliant, Jake. I’m doing brilliant.
Jake Good. So as you know, we’re considering several people for this promotion.
Diane I do know that.
Jake Yeah, so I guess, what I’m looking for here, is what edge do you have over the other candidates?
Diane That’s an excellent question, Jake, I’m glad you asked it. Here’s the thing, Jake, everyone else you’re interviewing for this position. They’re all dogshit.
Jake Excuse me?
Diane Dogshit, Jake. Every single one of them, and I’ll tell you why. Let’s start with Stuart.
Jake How do you know who’s applied?
Diane I took iniative, something you’ll never see Stuart do, by the way.
Jake I’m the only one with the list.
Diane Stuart steals, Jake. Office supplies. Every day. I’ve seen him take reams of paper with him at the end of the day and put it in the trunk of his car.
Jake I password-protected the document.
Diane Listen to me, Jake. I’ve done the maths, over the past 5 months, he’s stolen at over £1000 worth of supplies.
Jake Over £1000?
Diane That’s right.
Jake Do you have any evidence of this?
Diane I sent you an email just before I came in. There’s photos of him putting stuff into his car.
Jake looks through his computer.
Jake Is it the one with the subject line “Eat shit, Stuart”?
Diane That’s the one.
Jake There’s over a hundred photos here.
Diane I know, he’s klepto to the bone, can’t promote him.
Jake I’ll have to report this to HR.
Diane You should, he’s cost the company a lot of money.
Jake No, I mean, you, what you’re doing, it’s weird.
Diane Is it weirder than watching two people in cat costumes having sex in a giant litter
box?
Jake What?
Diane Because that’s the kind of stuff that Ed’s been looking up on his computer on company time.
Jake Diane, listen.
Diane His hard drive is basically wall-to-wall porn. Slows his computer to a crawl which is bad for company efficiency.
Jake Diane, you’re not gonna get the job like this.
Diane You know that virus that shut down our server for like 3 hours last month? Came from Ed’s computer.
Jake I’m not going to – wait, really?
Diane Oh yeah, guy’s a menace.
Jake Wow.
Diane That’s right, now unless you want someone who’s liable to send Garfield erotic fan art to the Head Office, I’d suggest giving the promotion to me.
Jake I’m not doing that.
Diane Why not?
Jake Because…this is…you’re weird.
Diane I’m not weird, I am driven.
Jake I think this interview is over now.
Diane What, don’t you want to hear what I’ve got on the last candidate?
Jake No, I think I’ve heard enough.
Diane I think you’ll want to hear this.
Jake Alright, what is it? Is he embezzling funds? Dealing drugs outside the parking lot? What, what?
Diane No, nothing illegal like that. He did have sex with your wife though.
Jake What?
Diane Yeah, I’ve scheduled an email to send about 2 minutes after I walked in the room. You should receive it now.
Jake It’s another email that says “Eat shit, Stuart”
Diane Really? Ugh, I copy pasted the wrong subject line.
Jakes opens the email.
Jake Oh, God.
Diane Sorry you have to hear it from me, but it’s true, Jake. Now me, I haven’t had sex with your wife. And here’s the thing, Jake, I don’t even want to. It’s not even a risk, your wife will be totally safe if you promote me.
Jake I can’t believe Tony had sex with my wife.
Diane Tony?
Jake Yeah!
Diane No, Simon had sex with your wife.
Jake Simon?
Diane Yeah. (Diane points at the screen) That’s not Simon, it’s Tony. I guess it is hard to tell at that angle.
Jake You’re telling me Simon had sex with my wife?
Diane Yeah! Why did you think he was Tony?
Jake Because he’s one of the candidates!
Diane Wait so, you’re not considering Simon?
Jake No! When did he have sex with my wife?
Diane I dunno, a bunch of times. So you’re considering Tony then?
Jake A bunch of times?!
Diane That’s a good choice actually, Tony’s great. Good team player, excellent communicator, rarely missed a deadline.
Jake How many times?
Diane I think he handed in an expense report a day late, like one time.
Jake No, how many times has Simon had sex with my wife?
Diane Oh, well the first time was during the Christmas party?
Jake Since Christmas?!
Diane Of 2015, so a while ago. I would imagine they’ve done it a fair few amount of times.
Jake Jesus Christ.
Diane Yeah, it’s amazing they managed to keep it under wraps so long. Anyway if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to withdraw my name from consideration. Tony is absolutely the right man for the job, frankly he’s a lot more deserving of it than I am. I’ll just get back to work.
Diane gets up to leave. Tony stays seated, reeling from the information that he’s learned.
Diane Oh, and if you could go ahead and not act on any of the stuff that I’ve told you. I mean, obviously bear it in mind next time a promotion opportunity rolls around but it’ll be a little awkward if I go back to working with everyone after revealing all of their deepest, darkest secrets.
Jake You’re fired.
Diane Aw, what, why?
Blackout.