The Gerald Incident

The Gerald Incident

Or, How a Rooster Ruined My Perfect Record and Got Me Promoted

By Paul Blakemore

For eleven years, Gary Plotnik has managed the Ridgecrest Community Bank branch in Lodi, California without a single incident.

Not one.

No robberies. No audits gone wrong. No missing money. No compliance violations.

Gary is very proud of this.

Then Gerald arrives.

What begins as a minor problem involving an escaped rooster quickly escalates into a catastrophic chain reaction of accounting anomalies, rogue technology, corporate investigations, suspicious smells coming from the ventilation system, and a two-hundred-thousand-dollar loan to an aspiring meat-truck entrepreneur who believes county regulations are merely suggestions from a low-vibrational universe.

As Gary desperately tries to preserve order, his staff seems determined to embrace chaos.

Linda, the terrifyingly efficient head teller, dispenses financial advice and existential warnings with equal enthusiasm. Devonte is convinced the bank is haunted and meticulously documents paranormal activity in a notebook he calls the Ghost Log. Felix, an unorthodox IT prodigy, has somehow connected parts of the bank's computer system to technology that appears to be operating several decades out of sync with reality.

Unfortunately for Gary, things get even worse when Diane Kopp, the most feared corporate evaluator in the region, arrives days ahead of schedule for a surprise audit. Suddenly, every unexplained transaction, every strange customer, and every suspicious cluck echoing through the building threatens to destroy the spotless professional record Gary has spent more than a decade protecting.

With his career hanging by a thread and the bank descending into bureaucratic madness, Gary must answer an impossible question:

How do you maintain perfect order in a world that has absolutely no interest in being orderly?

Packed with eccentric characters, escalating absurdity, and enough administrative panic to power an entire financial institution, The Gerald Incident is a laugh-out-loud workplace comedy about bureaucracy, community, and the stubborn belief that a well-organized spreadsheet can somehow hold back the forces of chaos.

For fans of Christopher Moore, Carl Hiaasen, and anyone who has ever survived an office meeting that should have been an email.