Adjusting My Work Ethic
Clem looks like she is working hard because she is always on the phone and her office is a mess of paper and lists and bags, picture frames, paper weights and plastic pens.
In the months since I “joined the team,” I’ve not only turned my writing assignments around quickly; I also usually go looking for things to write about. But, after having finally noticed that my work languishes for weeks upon Stevie’s desk, or in her bag, or under some box full of old brochures and used folders in her office, I adjust my schedule a bit.
I begin to take more time to get pieces written. I stop bringing ideas to her, because most of the time I do, it simply results in more work for me or someone else. More work that would be for nothing when she decides it was better the original way or when she can find no one to approve the new approach or, apparently, when you tell her no.
For example, at our March staff meeting, I make the mistake of opening my mouth about some IT project I have no part in, saying something about how it would probably be pretty simple to clean up our department’s files on the servers. Stevie sits up and begins asking me questions about how files should be organized on our servers. I do not notice that everyone else in the room (except Carrot Baby, who might be asleep) is rolling their eyes. Finally, after it becomes apparent that I don’t have enough institutional knowledge to accomplish a reorg of the thousands of files on the department server all by myself, Stevie gets distracted by some other topic and leaves me alone.
After the meeting, however, she begins sending me numerous emails about setting up a meeting with our IT department about reworking our servers. Finally, after I have ignored her for another whole day, she comes into my office. “Did you get my email about the server meeting?” I ignore her question. “Stevie,” I tell her. “I don’t know anything about servers or file company software; I’m a writer. It’s probably better if IT does it, or maybe you could get Carol to reorganize the folders on the servers, if that’s all you are talking about.” It takes me 10 minutes to convince her I am not an IT expert, or a data-cleanser, or a server understander, and that Carol is best equipped to deal with all things organized.
What I learn from this is to never open my mouth in another meeting again. I begin doodling in my book instead of taking notes concerning many things that I never end up having anything to do with. The good thing is that during meetings this makes it look like I am recording information I find important and that I therefore care.
I begin to surf the Internet more and work on my own writing, as planned. Despite the fact that our offices are next door to each other, Clem and I chat online for hours at a time. A typical chat will go something like this:
2:55 PM
Clem: Detoxatrim is safe, effective and conveniently taken in tablet form. Detoxatrim won’t cause negative effects such as diarrhea or stomach discomfort usually associated with detox products. Yay!
3:03 PM
Clem: eat a bowl
Me: Some douche bag “alum” just wrote back to me, "Tyvm."
Clem: Huh?
Me: He couldn't be bothered to write "Thank you very much."
3:04 PM
Clem: Are you fucking kidding me?!?!?!?
Me: No. I am not.
Poor Lisa. Stevie just walked out of their meeting and disappeared.
Do you have access to the goddam servers?
3:07 PM
Clem: I don’t know
3:33 PM
Clem: Stevie has a disease
3:34 PM
Evacuate
Evacuate
Don't share the silverware
Must wash your hands
Don't touch her hair
Back away carefully
Stevie has bed bugs
Don't share the silverware
Stevie has scabies
3:35 PM
Must wash your hands
Stevie has lice
Evacuate
Evacuate
Evacuate
Stevie has worms
Don't touch her hair
3:36 PM
Must evacuate
Stevie has syphilis
3:38 PM
Me: Is that some kind of song?
Clem: Yes, what else would it be?
Me: Dude I'm trying to write.
Clem: Stupid excuse.
Me: I have to have some excuse for being here.
At the time she comes up with “Stevie Has a Disease,” I am unimpressed because I am annoyed because I am actually trying to get some work done. Every so often, I either feel guilty or scared or something and start pretending to do more work. It never lasts more than an afternoon.
But the ridiculous (and obviously factually inaccurate) “Stevie Has a Disease” song becomes a constant refrain between me and Clem. And because of its inappropriateness, we can’t really share it with anyone else. Part of why it’s so funny is because it’s so obviously false. Stevie is almost the last person in the office who would come up with a communicable disease; I might put Carrot Baby after her. Or Marsha. You would never, no matter how bad their lives get, find any of those three sleeping in a bug-infested motel or having sex with strangers.
Clem’s work ethic used to be good, too. Then Marsha started making her glue things and fashion name tags. Marsha is always reporting to Stevie and making assignments to other people in the office. She tried to put me in charge of calling a bunch of Former Farmers[1] once, and I had to basically tell her to take a hike. But Clem can’t say no, so she ends up doing things, or, more likely, pretending to do things like reorganizing files in some closet in the bowels of the Rock Farm or triple-checking[2] the names of alumni who RSVP to events so that the dreaded name tags can be created for them.
Stevie does not seem to mind the fact that Marsha tries to get Clem to do the dumbest things in the office. It is all, apparently, about shit rolling downhill here, and the name of the game seems to be: how high is the ground where can you get? Stevie adores Marsha. In fact, on more than one occasion, she has been known to refer to Marsha as “my child.” The disturbing implications of this are too varied and voluminous to attempt explication in this space. Suffice it to say that no one likes either of them but everyone pretends to, and neither of them is aware of any of these facts.
Clem, whose master’s degree in social work is not exactly helping her out here, is becoming more and more disillusioned with the low level of “work” expected of us. She gets hers done quickly and spends most of her time on the Internet, watching old episodes of “Hunter” or “Facts of Life” on YouTube, sending me links to pictures of puppies or fat brides and ugly babies, and talking to her friends around the country for hours on end on the Farm’s long distance dime. She looks like she is working hard because she is always on the phone and her office is a mess of paper and lists and bags, picture frames, paper weights and plastic pens that the company gives out as gifts (or bribes). Everyone in the office loves her because she is so good at pretending to enjoy the dumb work we are given. Stevie thinks she actually works hard.
Marsha, who is in truth no dummy, checks up on Clem often, making sure she is doing the impossibly inane tasks she is regularly assigned. One day, I come in her office and she is fuming. “Marsha just called me three times in a row and sent me four emails about a list I am making,” she says. “A list! This bullshit is cutting into my phone and Internet time.” I nod in sympathy. “I swear to god,” hisses Clem. “If anyone comes in here and questions my work ethic, I will fucking kill them.”
On her desk in front of her is a pad of paper with some dicks drawn on it, another piece of paper with many stamps of a thumbs-up symbol that Clem scored from one of her fake office supply request forms, and some insurance forms she’s filling out for her new boyfriend who gets anxiety attacks when he looks at such things, and “Different Drum” by Linda Ronstadt is playing on YouTube for what I have reason to believe is the 32nd time in a row today.
“I know,” I say. “I know.”
[1] Alumni of the Rock Farm, of which Marsha is actually one.
[2] Ironically, despite Marsha’s anal behavior and its unfortunate requirements on Clem, the Rock Farm still manages to make embarrassing mistakes concerning Former Farmers fairly regularly. One of my favorites is the making, under Marsha’s supervision and triple-checking, of a name tag for an alum who it turns out was dead, and then Stevie and the President being told by the surviving spouse at the event that said missing FF is in fact dead and would thus not be needing said unclaimed name tag, and in addition, no more business will be given to the company by the surviving spouse who sat through the event anyway, right next to Marsha and the President, who upon her return to the Farm, proceeded to throw a spectacular and public shit fit in our office that involved screaming in Marsha’s and Stevie’s faces (but not Clem’s, because she would never put up with that), crying and rending of clothing, and the slamming of many doors, so that there would never be any such mistake ever again, when in an instance of excellent high irony, the exact opposite of the same mistake does happen in the magazine’s next issue, in which a very alive Former Farmer is listed in the “In Memoriam” section (also triple-checked by Marsha) as having died in a tragic accident after leaving the Farm to work at a hedge fund, not one word of which was actually true.