Norman D Gutter graduates with his civil engineering degree, and takes a job with I.C.E. Engineering in far away Appleville. Full of great hopes to make a difference in the world, he quickly encounters the reality of having to work with strange people in a semi-disfunctional consulting engineering company.
There's his immediate supervisor, Ned O. Justice, who has trouble remembering that he has a job to do. His office mates, Peter Pan and Joe The Surly, are quite strange. Uriah Serpe, the Chairman of Founder of the company, is a charicature of the high-stressed, hard-charging aging bossman. Tank Luzano does his job well, but doesn't give Norman confidence of where the company is heading.
The city engineer of Appleville, Chowdahead, lives up to his name. Then there's the illusive J.J. Weast, of the Accounting Department. Is J.J. a man or a woman, and will Norman ever find out? And what about the purchasing manager, Yukin Stuffet, who thinks his job is to make purchasing a nightmare.
And Norman has nightmares, as he becomes his own superhero, transported back in time to solve the engineering problems of history.
THE GUTTER CHRONICLES traces Norman's first year at I.C.E. Engineering. This pokes fun at the consulting engineering business, particularly the civil engineering portion of that.