some note I wrote about a day at work well over a decade ago in another place and another life

Seby walks over here to Jason at least once a day and walks up real fast. The last two or three steps he drags his feet.

DJ got another job. I said to him I half expected the boss to tell him he didn't need two weeks, to go ahead and leave today or tomorrow. But DJ said No, that they only do that for layoffs, and explained to me that the laid-off can be disgruntled. Only he took a long time to explain that.

Seby and Cindi were talking and Cindi said, "We're talking about the bombing in Russia."

We were waiting for a meeting to start and Roy saw a cake in the next room and said "That looks like a good cake" and Doug said "You should go have a piece" and Roy answered "No, I'm trying not to have a piece" and Doug said "That's how you do that—you admire what a fine cake it is."

about decades between crises

Seeing smouldering ashes would have helped us make sense of the dread. Instead, the destruction often remains theoretical. And Tammy really felt the fear with this one, with the encroaching pandemic. Why the difference? She had a lot more to lose now than she did in college when the attack of September 11th happened. Tammy is one of us mercantilists now.

something about "Editors on Editing"

The third edition of Editors on Editing is a collection of somewhat specialized and particular essays about the job of editing. The editor, Gerald Gross, solicited mostly new essays for this edition--this is what is meant by "Completely Revisited" in the subtitle. The only essay I found relevant was "Line Editing, The Art of the Reasonable Suggestion."

Corporate Jabs

Did not enjoy reading Company by Max Barry. Jones, the protagonist, a young, recent grad entering the corporate world, soon finds himself smack dab in the middle of a conspiracy and class struggle in which competing values come to blows.  Jones looks for meaning and finds temptation. But Barry does not explore temptation, and his narrative is predictable, the characters are flimsy, and his humor isn't funny.

Perhaps of interest is the author's treatment of the lowly assistants, those chafing in their entry-level positions, gophering in and around cubicles in service of their masters: Middle and upper management. While the workers are, for the most part, the good guys in this struggle, they are so primarily by virtue of being the unwitting victims in this game. They aren't noble people, likable on their own merits; they are fearful, cowardly, weak. But they are also beaten down, leaving you to wonder if they could do better given the right opportunities.