Everybody loves a good red scare
An interoffice feud has occurred. I entered on it the other day, the cacophony of voices which got louder as I approached, and then walked silently through its center and to my desk, taking my seat as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. Today we are experiencing the silent nuclear arms race of the aftermath. The lines in the sand have been drawn, and I am being asked to choose sides. It’s all horrible craziness to me, though: everybody seems marginally insane from my vantage point, and I don’t even know what the argument was about. My coworkers have begun creating all new reasons for interacting with me, so as to get a feel for where I stand in the matter, attempting to tip the scales to one side or the other. Joy corners me in the break room and begins questioning me about drug paraphernalia, which she found in her grandson’s room. “Oh, I wouldn’t really know anything about that,” I tell her, so as to not implicate myself. “Oh, well I just thought you might know,” she says. We stare awkwardly at each other for the ensuing few seconds before parting ways. Meanwhile, back in the office, my other coworkers have taken to talking in hushed tones, reveling in the office scuttlebutt which is their raison d’etre. I can’t believe this is actually my life, I find myself thinking for the one-millionth time. I keep waiting for some obscure European relative to die, leaving me an inheritance which will absolve me from this petty existence, so I can carry out my ultimate dream of doing Nothing. But I just keep waiting and waiting.

It has become obvious to me that whatever minute semantic issue is at hand, everybody is against Joy because she hates her job and says so, which hasn’t particularly ingratiated her among the other people who work here. Nowhere else in the free world could get away with watching Montel and distaining your job between fistfuls of popcorn than in the public sector. But whatever your feelings about her predilections for daytime TV you really just have to appreciate the sheer bravado with which she conducts herself around here, a sight to be seen. I try and sympathize with the other people, the vitriol which produces in gallons and buckets’ full. You can feel them trying to win you over, the bad vibes permeating the common airspace like some kind of mold spores. But like William Shatner said, “I can’t get behind that.”

I end up finding Joy in the hallway, roaming up and down, her newest refuge in an increasingly uneasy refuge. “Hey,” I say, walking over to her. “Don’t worry about it. Those guys are fucked up.” She looks at me incredulously. “You’re on my side?” she asks. It feels kind of weird to admit, but I guess if righteously subverting the man is the task work at hand, I actually am. “Yes,” I say to her, “I AM on your side. Now let’s get back to work.” And then, side by side, we walk back into the office, through two sets of doors that snakes right into the seething hot center of the lair, which is a bay of pigs or otherwise.