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I am a strong advocate of our company's open door policy. It's one of the many topics that I feel passionate about. Other examples are my staunch opposition to allowing the hunt of lions, particularly in zoos, and my concern for the plight of jellyfish along the California coast.
As for my company's, that is, our, open door policy, I am always in compliance, since I have no door. In fact, everybody in the company is always in compliance, which is good, and speaks volumes of how ingenious our policymakers are. Everybody has a cubicle, even the CEO. This means our company is egalitarian, they say. I believe them.
Sometimes I imagine I have a door and I make creaking noises when I enter my cubicle, and then I make a slamming noise just before sitting down. It creates a nice illusion. The illusion, however, lasts until someone or something barges in and interrupts whatever it is I'm doing. It lasts, say, for about ten, fifteen seconds. Some people, god help them, don't even have a cubicle. How do you simulate a wall?
There are moments when I'd like to close the door, regardless of the open door policy. Moments like this one. Suddenly, I realize that opening the misguided package that's sitting in my trashcan requires privacy. I am horrified. I control myself, though. Count to ten...
I rescue the package from the trashcan, and I examine it a bit more closely than before. I look behind me furtively. Good. The coast is clear, said some General once and we've been repeating it for decades.
The package seems normal. Nothing unremarkable. Nothing surprising. I check the label again. It is still addressed to my manager, which is a good sign. No delusions here.
Wait a minute, there is something strange here.
The sender is me. I wonder about the delusions, and if they are as much under control as they seem to be.
I open it.
Inside I find papers, papers and more papers. Interdepartamental Reports. Efficiency Reports. Personnel reports. One of the reports is titled 2001 Reports, which leaves me confused as to what exactly the report is about. What leaves me more confused is that the package was URGENT. Why the hell would all this crap be urgent?
Then I notice a loose page, with a single line of text printed in it. The text says: Ted, how far should we go with this?
Now I'm really confused. I try to go the route of the conspiracy theory for a moment, but it doesn't work. I can never bring myself to believe in conspiracy theories. Humans are simply too stupid to make conspiracies work. Conspiracy theories are, as far as I'm concerned, legends. Just a notch below Democracy and Wealth Distribution in the ranking of True and Believable Concepts. I do believe in bureaucracies and people covering their own asses, or trying to gain or buy unfair advantage, or trying to get someone else in bed, which is what's probably behind most of the so-called-conspiracies of the past century, from JFK to Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
I look again at the papers, I flip through the pages. I don't know what to do. This will require extreme measures. I'll have to read them. I put them in my backpack, package and all.
The sleuthing will have to wait until I get home.
oOo
I wake up suddenly. I fell asleep, somehow. Panic. Was I snoring?
I rub my face with my hands, hoping that will be enough to wake me up. The events of the day are bearing down on my concentration. What was I doing?
Ah, yes, working.
Whoever invented the eight-hour workday obviously factored in the six-hour rest into it. I know few people who work more than two hours a day. I always wonder what did people think, way back then, when production lines started to spring up all over the place along with their regimented work schedules and the accompanying factories. Were they scared? By people I mean those in the trenches, workers not intellectuals, the people that worked for ten or twelve hours up to their necks in grease and sweat so they could make just enough to sustain their family. What did they talk about at dinner? Maybe what they experienced was just like it was for us, when one day we woke up and instead of walls we had cardboard covered with fabric all around us. But it couldn't be the same. They didn't have Tom Cruise, or Britney Spears next to a thousand wars and famine on every CNN broadcast.
For some reason there's a question dancing in my head. A voice without voice, the kind that doesn't sound like anything we know, says, If life is a dream, what's the meaning of a McDonald's Drive-In?
A chime. Two chimes. Enough philosophy for the moment.
Instant Messaging beckons.
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