The Daily Life of a Foodie in the Office

Like a double cheeseburger.'"

- Channing Tatum

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It was a sunny Tuesday morning when an email notification came in. Delilah had been sorting the papers that were given to her by her supervisor, Aubree when she heard that distinct 'ping' sound. She stopped what she was doing and took a glance at her monitor, which was showing her email page.

Clicking on the unread email message, her eyes widened as she was reading it. Apparently, it was an email from the Employee Trust Fund department. The Employee Trust Fund (ETF) department was one of the sub departments in the Labour Department in the country. In short, it was one of the public sector's offices that deals with pensions and other financial activities. And according to her email, it seems that there were some missing funds from the past two months' salaries.

For every working individual in the country, it was compulsory for them to deposit a certain amount of money cut from their salary into their ETF, based on their salary. Be it that they were an employee or employer. As long as they have a salary, it was already deemed mandatory for them. Seeing how there was no money being deposited in her ETF yet she remembered that her salary had been cut as usual, it made her suspiciously baffled.

She immediately texted Aubree to ask about it.

A few minutes later, a reply came in, telling her to meet up in one of the meeting rooms on their floor.

Delilah immediately printed the statement off the email and went to the printer area to fetch the papers. She then returned back to her cubicle, grabbing her notebook and her phone, and went to the meeting room. After knocking on the door, she peeked her head in to find Aubree sitting alone, with papers strewn all over the table and her laptop in front of her.

Aubree looked up with a smile and beckoned at her to come in.

Delilah quietly took a seat across Aubree and waited for the latter to start talking.

Seconds later, Aubree stopped whatever she was typing on her laptop and turned her head to Delilah and asked, "What happened?"

Delilah then started to talk about the email that she had received and asked Aubree back in regards to the ETF and why they had contacted her about not receiving any money for two months.

Aubree's eyes widened in shock. From what she had remembered, the last couple of months, the handing over of the ETF was placed in Howard's hands because the one who was supposed to be in-charge of it was on maternity leave. And the other one who was supposed to replace her was still training overseas and had just gotten back a couple of days ago.

Delilah did not actually know that Howard was in-charge of the ETF and Aubree planned to keep quiet about it. For now.

Delilah nodded as she handed her the printed documents.

Aubree began to skim through the document quietly while Delilah fiddled with her hands, waiting for her answer.

After a short while, Aubree placed the paper down and let out a heavy sigh. "I'll talk to the one in charge of this and asked about it. For now, you can leave this with me and I'll sort it out for you," she said, a strange look on her face.

Delilah nodded. She was about to stand up from her seat when Aubree continued, "Please don't tell anyone about it."

Delilah frowned. Why?

Noticing the confusion on Delilah's face, Aubree explained, "We don't want to cause any uproar or uncertainty in the office."

Delilah nodded as she stood up. She then left the room, with dissatisfaction filling inside her. It was not that she was dissatisfied with how Aubree deals with it. She appreciated how she was trying to help her but she felt it wasn't a good feeling to see how your money went missing without you knowing it.

Outside the room, she stood there for a few seconds and let out a sigh. She ignored the confused looks she was getting from her colleagues who were walking past her. She then returned to her cubicle and continued sorting out the papers that Aubree had given to her earlier. She began to write notes on a little notepad and stick it on the documents. While cross-referencing the documents with the digital documents in her computer, it took her almost the whole morning.

Back in the meeting room, Aubree was sitting alone, lost in thoughts after Delilah had left the room. She felt a bit torn between helping her subordinate and covering up her boss. It was not that she condone his actions, she just didn't know what to do.

She sighed. She knew that as a supervisor, she should be firm in her decisions, even if it's at the cost of whistle-blowing. Yet, she also should see from both sides of the story. Now that Delilah had come up with these allegations, she could not simply brush it aside and leave it hanging.

Frankly, this wasn't the first time she had heard the allegations against Howard. She knew it from the beginning. But whenever she told Matt in regards to these, the latter would just brush it off until she got enough. She wanted to tell Sheila about these but knew that Matt would admonish her by saying that they can handle it themselves.

It was hard when you have superiors like these. She sometimes does not understand what was going on in Matt's mind. She always thought that he might get bewitched by Howard's loud clothes.

A sudden thought came to her mind and she quickly turned to her laptop and login to her ETF.

Her eyes widened when she saw that the same thing had occurred to her. If it was only Delilah's, she thought it would be fine to compensate for it but if there were more people who got caught in it, she knew that this was something that cannot be set aside. She quickly privately texted her other colleagues in the HR department.

Few minutes later, she became even more shocked to find that each one of them too did not receive any transactions in their ETF. Aubree then replied to them to be quiet about this as she did not want panic to occur. She then told them to send their statements to her email.

Once she had gathered all the necessary documents, she quickly texted Matt to request for a private meeting. Enough is enough.

Back in the HR department office, Delilah was about to be done with her work when she received a text message from Aubree.

'Let's go out for lunch,' reads the text message.

'Sure, where?' Delilah replied back.

'I'm craving for tuna kimchi stew.'

'And I know the best place for that.'

'Great. Meet you outside in a sec.'

'Alright.'

Delilah quickly finished up her work and set them aside. She then put her computer to sleep as she will continue to work later in the afternoon. She had just packed her necessary belongings such as her purse, mobile phone and car keys when Aubree knocked on her cubicle door.

"All done?" she asked.

Delilah nodded.

The two women walked together out of the office and building and headed straight to the employees' designated parking lot.

The journey to the restaurant was only a few minutes drive. After Delilah had parked her car, they directly went to the restaurant. The restaurant itself wasn't that large. The first thing they saw was the huge floor-to-ceiling glass windows and glass double doors. The windows itself were covered with lots of food pictures, showcasing the restaurants' dishes. Inside the restaurant, the two women could already smell the distinct garlicky scent that was used in most Korean dishes.

They were then greeted with 'Welcome' after they had entered. The waiters and waitresses wore a simple t-shirt with the name of the restaurant printed on the back with black pants and a small black apron.

Delilah and Aubree chose the table which was nearer to the wall. The chairs and tables were made of marble and wood, which was kinda chilly from the air-conditioning when they sat on the chairs.

The waitress handed them the menu. Aubree just placed the menu down on the table since she already knows what she was going to order. She also ordered warm water. Delilah quickly spoke up and said that she would like a glass of warm water as well. She then scanned through the menu. It was then something caught her eye. It was Korean Fried Rice. She could feel herself nearly drooling at the picture and ordered the dish.

The waitress then asked whether she would like to add mozzarella cheese with them. Of course, Delilah said yes.

After the waitress left to get a jug of water and cups for them, the two of them began to talk. They were careful not to touch on the ETF topic for now since they do not want it to dampen the pleasant atmosphere. They began to talk about their families; how Delilah liked to tease her nephew and how Aubree loved to watch funny videos of her niece and nephew. They showed each other pictures of their beloved niece and nephews, showing how much they actually loved the little kids.

Shortly after, their meal came. The waitress carefully placed the dishes in front of them. Delilah was almost drooling at that point as she watched the steam coming out from her dish. Her fried rice was served in a Korean hotpot with thick mozzarella on top.

She grabbed her chopsticks and used it to stick into the steaming hot cheesy rice and scooped it out. The mozzarella cheese stretched out from Delilah's pulling and she could smell the spiciness and the garlicky scent from it. As she stirred the rice around, pushing the cheese to the side of the hotpot, she could see some bits of chicken pieces and rice cakes in the bowl as well.

She picked some of the chicken pieces together with the rice cakes and ate it. It felt hot inside her mouth that she had to open her mouth a bit to let the steam out. Aubree chuckled when she saw Delilah's face turned a bit red due to the heat.

The chicken tasted tender and light as she munched on it. The rice cake, on the other hand, was chewy and soft. She then used her chopsticks to grasp some of the cheese and twirled it around some clumps of rice and ate it. The cheese doesn't have any distinct taste to it but with the rice added to it, Delilah could taste a bit of kimchi and that was when she realized that they probably added a bit of kimchi in the fried rice. She was amazed since she did not see or smell any kimchi earlier. She liked how the chickens, rice cakes, rice and cheese blends together nicely.

The two women ate their meal quietly, both of them clearly looking as if they were enjoying their food.

Then out of the sudden, Delilah held up her hand, trying to get the waitress' attention. Aubree tilted her head in question, wondering why Delilah was calling for them.

Delilah then grinned at her, saying, "I'm going to order bingsu. Gotta try out these beautiful foods while we're at it."

Aubree just laughed as she nodded, agreeing with her words.