Sent Packin'

TTM, INC, LLC runs a profitable call center, but nobody on the payroll understands exactly what they do for their customers. Yet everyone knows what goes on at their two office locations.Workplace politics. Open floorplans. Employees and managers. Instant messages. Bulleted lists. Rumors and gossip. Inside jokes. Midday parties. Tight deadlines. ALL STAFF emails. Leaked information. Arts and crafts. Meetings with HR. Time off requests. Confusing acronyms.It's just another day at the TTM, INC, LLC office until someone gets a one way ticket for the sent packin' train. A standalone workplace satire from the DUTY CALLS series of juror backstories. Music aficionado and author of the rock and roll time travel novel Timely Persuasion. DUTY CALLS is a tale about jury duty. More accurately, it's a tale inspired by jury duty.Back in 2008 I was a juror on a two-month trial. One thing I learned is that even though a trial lasts two months, the jury isn't actually doing two months worth of work. There is a lot of waiting. Way more waiting than anything else.All that time spent waiting with my fellow jurors gave me an idea for a different kind of jury story. One where the case is the least important aspect -- maybe even a non-existent aspect. Create twelve characters. Give each one a featured flashback of their life outside of jury duty. Put them in the waiting rooms of justice to kill the boredom by shooting the breeze. And give them a mystery to solve that requires teamwork.These flashbacks form a series of loosely connected short stories set in the same universe. They can be read in any order and work on their own, but you'll find some common references and easter eggs that start to unify them.One day each character will receive a summons to serve on a jury, collecting all of their tales into a novel interspersed with a collaborative courthouse mission.Until then, duty calls...