The city office had been closed for months, and on the first day back, Marcy, the office manager, could already feel the tension building. The smell of stale coffee and forgotten paperwork lingered in the air as she walked in, greeting the lone janitor who was still attempting to mop around the rows of cubicles, clearly unsure if this was part of his duties.

"It's happening," Marcy muttered under her breath as she adjusted her glasses and glanced at the calendar on the wall, the one that still read March 2020. No one had bothered to update it during the lockdown. “The reopening. The revolution of bureaucracy.”

The first sign of impending chaos came when Roger, the IT guy, walked in with a box labeled "New Computers" and a look of terror in his eyes.

“I have no idea how these work. The cables are all tangled, and someone left an entire birthday cake in the server room. It’s... ruined,” he said, waving his hands like an overcaffeinated wizard.

“Perfect,” Marcy replied with a fake smile, trying to suppress the twitch in her eye. “Start with the computers. I’ll go check on the forms we need to file.”

As Marcy walked to her desk, she encountered Brenda, the receptionist, who was attempting to use a megaphone to inform people about the new COVID-19 safety guidelines.

“Wear your mask!” Brenda yelled through the megaphone at absolutely no one in particular. “Stay six feet apart... but also, please move closer to the desk, I can’t hear you. This thing’s broken.”

Marcy simply nodded and backed away slowly. It wasn’t worth explaining that the office was supposed to be half-empty today, just a “soft opening.” She was already trying to figure out how to make sense of the hundreds of forms that had piled up during the shutdown. Of course, they were still on paper. There were no digital copies—because the city’s idea of modernizing was switching to a different shade of fluorescent lighting.

At 9:15 AM, the mayor himself showed up to “welcome everyone back,” armed with a clipboard and a too-tight suit. He clapped his hands together loudly, despite the fact that half the office hadn’t even finished their first cup of coffee yet.

“Alright, folks! The city is back in business! I’ve got a few important things to share about new policies and regulations, so get your pens out—”

“Mayor, we don’t use pens anymore,” interrupted Sheila, the assistant to the assistant director, who had taken it upon herself to update every office policy during lockdown. “We switched to digital signatures two years ago. Remember?”

“Right. Right. Digital!” The mayor said, taking a deep breath and looking entirely confused. “Let’s pretend that didn’t happen. Anyway, here’s the new budget for 2023, and we’ve already cut half of it.”

The room went silent. Sheila immediately began typing furiously on her phone, clearly too busy texting her best friend about the latest office drama to actually listen.

“Budget cuts!” The mayor said triumphantly, as if he’d just announced the cure for a deadly disease. “We can afford fewer pens now, folks! But we’ve got—wait, what’s this?—more sticky notes! Let’s go ahead and give each of you a new stack. So we can stick them everywhere.”

Marcy turned her head to the side to see Brenda in the corner of the room, now trying to balance on top of a filing cabinet, attempting to install the one working printer that had been dug out of the storage closet.

Meanwhile, Roger had managed to plug in exactly one computer, and it was flashing an error message that read, Please connect to the network to proceed. Marcy couldn’t tell if this was a good sign or not.

“Alright!” the mayor continued, suddenly very enthusiastic. “Everyone gather 'round! I’ve brought a playlist of motivational songs to kick off this first day back!”

The mayor pressed play on his phone, and immediately, a deep, soulful rendition of “Eye of the Tiger” started blaring through the office speakers. The volume was set to max.

“Let’s get this city running again!” he shouted, his voice barely audible over the music. Marcy instinctively reached for her stapler and began tapping it on her desk like a drum to try and drown out the noise. Everyone else was either pretending to work or attempting to figure out how to cancel the mayor’s playlist.

By 10:30 AM, it was clear that the office was not functioning. Not even close. Computers were still unhooked, forms were still paper, and the megaphone was still being misused. Marcy grabbed her cup of cold coffee, slumped into her chair, and gave up on pretending.

“Alright, team,” she said, glaring at the chaos unfolding around her. “Let’s make this day count. Everyone get a sticky note, a pen, and pretend we’re being productive. It's going to be one of those days.”

And so, as the mayor began singing along to “Don’t Stop Believin’” on his own, Marcy knew that at least one thing was certain: the bureaucracy would always survive—if only in the most absurd, confusing, and completely inefficient ways.