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 impossible standards

She was added to an email thread that began 24 hours ago, and she jumps into the shit show. Her favorite thing to do. She wants to be involved. She likes to be in the fray. 

She pounds out a long email that tries to get at the heart of the issue. She wants to know what is happening. What is happening!? More importantly, How did this happen?! 

Her initial dive into the breach is executed with a lot of force. Exclamation points. Italics. Maybe even underlining.

Punctuation and formatting choices nobody in their right mind, in most situations, would make. You might say the tone is—hysterical.

But it gets a response. She’s involved. And now she has more context, more background information. But the information isn’t good!

She needs to set people straight. Here are the rules, and here is how it should be done. More importantly, here is how you all deviated from The Right Way To Do This.

It takes a few of these kinds of emails—plus some separate emails she fires off to some other people—but she gets through.

Okay, they say. You are involved now. You are a part of this. Help us out, they say. Make this right.

Hold on now. It isn’t her problem. And she says so. If this is how they do things, and it works for them, that’s fine. Just let her know what’s what from the get-go. Just copy her.

They are confused now. They thought she wanted to be involved in this thing. They thought she needed to be involved. There has to be a process here.

Not exactly, she says. She has guidance to offer. A perspective. A wealth of experience to draw from, to impart. And that is what is happening now. Not some other thing.

That’s what this whole thing was about.

But—it’s her obligation to point out now that something else is wrong with all this, with what they are doing, with how they are going about it. There is a whole other side to this thing. Another box they need to check. Have they checked it? She doubts it.

Emergency. Or hysteria. Email traffic dies down. Everyone is ready to go about the business of finishing this thing and go their separate ways.

Now that all the excitement is over with.

Note: Was thinking of a Raymond Caver style.

something about that dream-like moment between beginning and end

Her eyes tossed bouquets, and I chased after each one. Then, one day, sitting side-by-side on a cafeteria bench—“Okay, I’ll be your girlfriend.” She grew to fill my vision. We lay across the bench, and I felt so good my heart tumbled loose. But, in the very next moment, a centuries-traveled sense leaned in and cursed how her affection would not stay long for me. She was hardly real as it was. I tried to keep my signal-shattered smile a few more seconds.

(posts) some a pleasantry given in absentia

about something said in the breakroom

Lisa, her current husband, and her son from her previous marriage to a convict drove to Toronto during the holidays. Lisa brought back to the office some maple cookies. She told us, as we forced down the cookies, that Toronto is great because, immigration-wise, residents there describe the city as a mosaic rather than a melting pot. This elicited an "Aww" from Cheryl. Lisa then informed us that Toronto was what New York City wishes it was: a city in which people don't have that I'm-too-cool attitude. Also, Toronto has a China Town, Little Italy, and so on.

something about our hello

After he finished his part—a self-introduction to his new colleagues—he suddenly looked very old. His words disappeared from my memory as soon as he stopped talking. Maybe I was distracted by the turn; his gaze, turned down, threw a shadow on us all. The meeting went on like nothing happened.

The poor boy wanted to make a splash. But, as he expected, he shrank into himself. I saw it. Did anybody else?

about perspective

I pushed open the bathroom stall door and discovered on the toilet there a man who looked like Alex Trebek taking a shit. His gaze was locked in the thousand-yard stare—like he was seeing an invisible atrocity unfold in the distance but feeling nothing. A serious shitter. He did not maneuver his eyeballs to see who it was that walked in on his most intimate moment.

A normal man—and he was not one—would have flinched, made a motion, feigned a gesture in a futile attempt to regain agency. Would not a normal man look at the beast moving in on him, threatening the boundaries of his dignity? Amazing. He blocked me mentally; but I knew—and I think he knew—we were the same man.

about a conversation at the office

A woman, Sue, from the policy division, stopped by the office Friday afternoon. She complimented Marcy on a photo Marcy keeps on her desk—closeup photo of a dog. Marcy said thank you. Then Sue reciprocated. She told us that she had her dog's DNA tested, and that the results revealed that quite a few varieties of dog contributed to its making. She provided us with her take on how each of the various breeds were represented in her dog's personality. Sue also shared some stories that illustrated each personality trait.

And a nearby coworker, Debbie, as it turns out, also has a dog. Of course, I knew this and much more beforehand, as she has mentioned it several dozen times. Debbie told us how her dog has started shitting on the two rugs her husband brought from Istanbul to the States. The dog wears diapers now. And, twice monthly, a patch of actual grass is delivered to Debbie's home; her odd son keeps this patch in his room for the dog to shit and piss on.

(posts) the warning that was taped on the refrigerator in the break room

about maybe the first workday snow of winter

At two o'clock, Monica flitted through the office, teasing, "There's flakes! There's flakes!" We all wanted to be charmed by her, and by snow, but responses were mixed. Nevertheless, the giant panes drew us over and offered us the whole world. We wanted only a world-erasing blanket tumbling down. Finding only flurries and a little sleet, most of us headed back. But some stayed, hopes anchored away, and strained to discover signs that conditions were getting worse.

about quitting time

The Earth was nudged some, bringing us to late afternoon. I wanted to leave work without being noticed. I wanted to spend the weekend unnoticeable. What choice is there but to acknowledge the impulse to feel shame for such wants? We'll give that impulse a half-hearted exploration over the next three days. When nothing interests you and you do not have fun, what else is there to do?

about the temp

I am filling in at the front desk this afternoon. A body is needed here. A desk is needed for the body. If someone needs me, they do not belong here.

My man

He always cuts briskly through the office, efficient and determined. Like a man who just learned his plane started boarding at a different gate some 150 feet away. He looks together, but he dresses nicely, which only feeds my suspicion that he's a wreck. Today, dark gray wool pants and maroon shirt. Long sleeves, naturally. Like all the men in his family, he prefers stalls to urinals. Now, picture a cell buried in the flesh around his armpit; this is where cancer slumbers through the day. Some 3000 days from now, just after sipping the last of the coffee, seated in his kitchenette, it will wake and begin its spill through the lymphatic vessels. He will regret nothing.