The middle stall of EA Redwood Studio’s 3rd floor men’s room was for a long time the secondary office of Alex Doe, Senior Copy Editor and the man who signed off our company’s box art for a living. Any other employee at any other employer would have been ashamed to spend full afternoons lounging in the loo, but Alex took pride in what it was he did and where it was he did it.

At first, we harassed him, knowing full well the degradations were slung from a place of jealousy, not malice: everyone thought if they could do what Alex did they would. Not that being the man who signs off every piece box art for EA is without its stresses – it certainly isn’t, the Senior Copy Editor door is a turnstile – but the work comes so rarely and passes so effortlessly, that the process lends itself to one spending the lion’s share of their office hours playing PSP on the john. And so Alex did.

His can turned cubicle with its magazine rack and decoupage coffee coasters was an oasis from our personality-free workstations. Like any precious commodity, we felt it our duty to nurture and protect it.

For years, we took extra care with our copy before dropping it in the men’s room mailbox. We didn’t double or triple or quadruple check, we phoned one another for an extra set of eyes. Alex had a good thing going, we told each other wordlessly each time we gave a helpful copy check. And if we miss a typo and then he misses a typo, then that good thing’s gone.

And that’s how it was that brittle December afternoon Alex served the honchos the printing plate for January release box art. On top, Mass Affect 2. To meet post-holiday demand, the plate had already gone to print. This meeting between Alex and The Big Men was a formality. A handshake for a job well done. But not in this case. Not with 50,000 Mass Affect 2 boxes shipping out as collector’s items, an unintentionally limited Limited Edition.

We can’t remember who owned the account or why they thought the day following the holiday party when everyone was nursing hangovers and dodging responsibility was best to ask for Alex’s approval – doesn’t matter now. The bathroom office reverted to a functional toilet – one we hadn’t appreciated until its reinstatement with the rest of the fleet. No more marked up humor books or folded newspapers, no more sounds chirping from his PSP. All that remained was Alex’s simple white throne.

Alex was gone, but the middle stall was back.