Rituals are
important; so say the Sun Horizon Female Employee handbook. Okay, so it didn’t
actually say that but it might as well because the handbook was filled with them.
As a girl at the company, I’m supposed to follow all of them and I, along with
all the other girls in the company, intended to do just that.
On the first
official day of the takeover, I woke up earlier than I ever did for work. I
awaken at 5am to brush my teeth and took a morning bath. I took pains to tie my
hair in a neat bun before taking a quick breakfast. After the breakfast, I
walked to the bus pick-up point near my house.
Usually I don’t
do that, I do have a car, but since only men were allowed to park their
vehicles in the building carpark from now on, driving to work was no longer a viable
option for girls. For us, the company had a company bus to pick up and drop us off
from work.
Around 6.30am,
the Sun Horizon company bus arrived. I entered it after thanking the bus-driver
for picking me up. There were already several girls on the bus and most of them
had their hair tied up. Some had even did what I did and tied their hair were
in neat buns. The attire was uniformly casual and demure. Any accessories like
earrings, necklaces or watches were absent. About the only exceptions were wedding
rings and a small handbag here and there.
I saw Sylvia and
took a seat beside her. We smiled at each other, both of us a little
overwhelmed by the fact we were both going to work as second-class citizens,
and also by the fact we were actually looking forward to it. All the girls were
seated quietly with their hands on their laps and I took care to follow them.
It was a strange ride.
I was seated
beside a girl who was formerly my superior but from today onwards, we would be
of the same rank in the company; which was at the bottom of the company totem
pole. I knew from talk in the office that almost all the female executives in
the company had joined Sun Horizon and many of the men had wondered why. As a
girl, I knew the reason. However strange it was to see former executives,
including a former VP, boarding the bus to go to work as assistants to men, the
payoff at the end of the day would be worth it. It might just be the start of
our first day, but this was just a feeling I had. A feeling I was sure of.
The bus stopped
along the road outside the building and as the door opened, we stood up. Before
alighting however, we had to thanked the bus driver for safely bringing us to
work. Some of the girls bowed at the waist but others curtsy. I choose the
curtsy.
We need to take
a short walk from the bus to the entrance of the building and it was
unexpectedly free of protestors. Even though the takeover by Sun Horizon was
friendly, there had been fears of protestors due to the company’s infamous
policy on gender roles. Guess all the public relations work the company did had
worked.
The security
guard at the door was male so as I passed, I did a curtsy. I could see he was
trying to stop a smile coming to his face and had to silently laugh at that. If
the guard was going to continue working here, he might as well get used to this
and enjoyed it.
We went down the
stairs to the basement where it had been converted to the girls’ locker room. To
get the locker room, the girls had to pass the carpark and it was another
strange experience. In the past, I would be driving into this carpark, but now
I was just walking to a room to put on my uniform. I admit; I felt nervous
walking to the locker room but once I entered the room, I took a deep breath
and…once the “Sun Horizon” air filled my body, my anxiety just went away.
The lockers were
assigned via your name and I quickly found mine. I opened it and found the
clothes given to me by Sun Horizon. Just the sight of them made my pulse
quickened. I almost tore off my clothes to put them on.
First was the
black dress. The length of the dress reached my ankles and the long sleeves on
it totally covered my arms leaving only my hands uncovered. With my hair
already in a bun, I decided to do my veil first. I wrapped a white cloth over
my head, leaving my face uncovered. Thank god for Youtube or I would never have
gotten it.
Next came the
face veil. Called the niqaab, it was a veil I had to strap around my head just
above my eyes. The veil dropped down in front of my face, covering it. I then
pulled up the hood of the dress and pulled it tightly around my head using a
drawstring. Tying the string into a knot, I left the knot dangling below my
chin. With the face veil, you couldn’t see the knot from the front but from the
side, you could. I had to wonder why Sun Horizon designed the uniform this way.
It looked different from the uniform they had for the girls of other companies
they had taken over.
Well, that was
nothing I had to worry about. I was just glad to wear it.
I walked out and
back to the staircase. Walking up to the ninth floor, I and the rest of the
girls assigned to the floor began our work. We cleaned the tables, wiped the
phones, watered the plants, placed sweets into the meeting bowls, and tried to
make the office as pleasant to the men as possible.
Although there
was no rule stating it, all of us were silent when cleaning. It just didn’t
seem right to be speaking when we were working and unsupervised by any men. If
someone had walked in on us, we would looked like black ghosts walking around
the office. That would not be an unfair description.
Once everything
was done, we looked over each other’s work and pointed out the minor mistakes
each of us made. It was here that female cattiness began to show and a new
hierarchy began to form.
Agnes Allen was
just a secretary in the office but she was also a mother of 4 boys who did all
her housework on her own. She has a lot of experience cleaning up after her
boys and it showed in her work. Her area of the office was almost free of
mistakes. Kylie Bentley however was a young executive who was on a trail up the
corporate ladder when the Sun Horizon takeover happened. As a young twentysomething
born to upper class parents, I wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t done a day
of cleaning in her life. Her area was terrible and Agnes called her out on it.
To her credit,
Kylie tried to correct her mistakes but her inexperience showed. In exasperation,
Agnes told her something that would shaped the relationship of the two from then
on. “Stop. You’re just making it worse. I’ll do it, you just go kneel over
there.”
Everyone
stopped. Some of the girls looked at each other in uncertainty and while we
were wondering if this was just a slip of the tongue from Agnes, Kylie stepped
to the spot Agnes pointed out and did as she was “told”. Kylie knelt and put
her hand on the hand as it was stated in the handbook.
Just like that,
a new hierarchy between the girls began to form. It didn’t matter what job you
used to hold or if you got a MBA or a high-school diploma; what mattered now
was how well you can do your new job. What mattered now was how well you clean,
how well you served, and how submissive you were. In the new order, Agnes was
queen of the floor and Kylie was the dirt on the ground.
The rest of us
continued our cleaning, ignoring the kneeling Kylie. When the clock reached
7.30am, Agnes clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. All of us
including Kylie went to the entrance of the office. There was a corridor where
you had to pass to enter the office. It was here where we placed ourselves.
We girls divided
into two rows and dropped to our knees. Then we waited. Strangely, while
waiting there for the men, I felt a joy I could not describe. It just felt
right. Logically I know it wasn’t right but…it just did. It just felt natural
and correct.
It soon began.
The bell of the lift stopping on our floor rang and I put my hands on the
ground in front of me. Looking down at the floor, I couldn’t see the men but I
could hear them walking in. Then I heard the signal from the two girls in the
front of the rows. As soon as I heard the sound of their foreheads slamming to
the ground, I too lowered my head to the floor. The submissive sound it made
was music to my ears. I shouted out the morning greeting.
“Welcome Sir!
This girl wishes you a good day at the office!”
