Ye Olde Admin, As Important as Ever

Admin is everywhere, and it has been forever, so it’s infuriating that most forms of fiction leave out something that crucial. I’m an avid reader of high fantasy, and while some writers take pages and pages to describe battle scenes, or councils of war, they spend no time on the administration side of things. Offices might not have existed in their current form, but there still would’ve been a bunch of bookkeepers scratching away with their quills, making sure the company has enough funds and that the budget is kept tight.

Even contemporary fantasy fails. Imagine a plot thread wherein the good guy organisation needs to get some office interior design from a company in Melbourne, which isn’t their first choice but they go with it anyway.  After much deliberation they get some office fitouts and it goes really great, and everyone learns a valuable lesson to not judge a city for its office design before they actually experience it.

This is later given a callback when one of the ordinary office workers is accidentally gifted the power of general manager. They must learn to control their new power and later fight their way through the horde of accountants in order to get the company back on track. Then he thinks back to his time as an ordinary office drone. Thinks of those office fitouts they got, that made the whole place seem much lighter, got rid of those oppressive cubicles, and put the water cooler in a more convenient location for all. The manager is now seeing themselves through the eyes of their employees. Quickly they engage the services of a design professionals from Melbourne. Office interior design is more important than anyone realised, and they all learn a valuable lesson about responsibility and the burden of leadership.

I’d definitely read something like that, especially if it went into detail about how the office workers help with the budgets, and establishing business partners across magical realms.

-Calum