The Office Linda

You may or may not have noticed, but there is a Linda in every office. An ‘Office Linda’ if you will. Office Lindas can be recognized by several telltale signs. First and foremost, they are named Linda. Although some Office Lindas go by aliases to confuse and disorient us (Patty is a well known Linda AKA), the majority wear their Linda-ness openly, defying us to decry them as the Lindas they are. Second, no one can quite remember when Linda started, but she’s been in your office forever. One thing is certain about the Office Linda, she’s senior to you and has no compunction about using this fact to undermine and destroy you. Third, Office Lindas are a bitch. The Linda seems to feed off of the negative emotions in the office, she will cultivate gossip and grousing, gathering them to her distended belly as a black beetle gathers dung.

No one knows where Office Lindas come from. I suspect they are grown in rusty pods somewhere in the Midwest. Possibly they are a Monsanto product. But I di know that Office Lindas are very real. I had the misfortune of serving as a Linda’s Assistant once. As an Office Linda gains power in an organization, she sheds parts of her name. She becomes Lind, then Lin and finally, Da. This Office Linda was a junior vice president at a local department store and she had been given the power over an entire department. Her reign was like the plagues of Egypt and misery oozed from the walls. I left that place, but I still bear her claw marks on my back.

Now I’ve begun work at the Assport Office and as must happen in all offices, I have discovered the Linda. She and I do the same job, but she’s been doing it for decades and still seems in awe of the process. She takes the work very seriously and picks apart the smallest details in other people’s work. Since I truly don’t give a shit about the work, this causes problems.

Yet I hadn’t understood her true nature until today. I was doing my work and I dropped a recycling box next to my desk. She walked behind me and said, in an outside voice, “Stop banging around and making so much noise all the time.” No preamble, no ‘excuse me but…’, no please or thank you or any warning that I had in any way deserved to be yelled at in the middle of the office.

Thus we became enemies. I was simply floored by the disrespect, the rudeness, the presumption. She’s an office Linda alright. Luckily, she isn’t my supervisor, I like my supervisor.

I’m almost 31 and I’m a novelist. I do jobs that are fit for recent college graduates because I choose to as a means of furthering my art. I decided some time ago that I simply won’t be treated as a cog, or a child, or a moron in any workplace. I’ve seen too many workplaces where the management behave like parents to a group of spoiled children. This is the sort of environment where Office Lindas thrive. I will not submit to that treatment any longer. Nor will I stand down in the face of blatant Linda aggression. I draw the line here, this far and no further. Office Lindas be warned, I will fight you to the last breath. And all who shed their blood with me in this fight shall forever be my brother… and middle managers comfortable in their corner offices will question their management skills when they hear of our exploits… Upon the Office Lindas’.

- posted by Katherine @ 5:42 PM 305 comments

 
The New Job (Top Secret)
I am legally prevented from writing about my job without express premission from the Secretary of State. Therefore, in order to say anything about it, I would first have to call Condoleeza Rice on the phone and say, "Yo Beayatch, are you down with a little bloggin'?" I shall therefore not write about my current job. I shall instead write about a fictional job that I do not currently hold. Thus begins the fiction:

I started work this week at the Minimal Assport Poppis. The Poppis is a division of the Great Department, so oddly, I found myself actually caring about the mechanations of the Bush administration as he shuffled his cabinet. After all, the new head of the Great Department would be my boss's contractor's contractor's boss's boss, and would therefore have unprecidented power over my life. Then, in a sudden flash of clarity, I stopped giving a shit and went back to shuffling papers.

My job, what I know of it, is processing Assport applications into actual Assports. The process is an assembly line, each step broken down to the simplest task, so that simpletons, Federal Employees and aspiring novelists can only occassionally screw up. I have very little negative to say thus far. The job is mindless enough so that I can listen to audiobooks all day. The people are nice, emphasis on 'ice'. And while the offices are themselves nightmarish holes filled with ecru cubicles and flourscent lighting, there are large windows nearby that let in pleasant natural light and which afford sweeping views of the city.

I am, of course, working for a Federal Government who's current head I distrust, dislike and generally dis. Oddly, I've yet to meet anyone in this office who professes to be a Bush supporter, and several who vocally bemoan his second term. This gives me hope.

The couch in the employee lunchroom is sad and flat, the elevators shudder and snap thier doors on your heels before you've exited. The people are dull, yes, but there's a pleasant odor in the air that is absent from so many offices: perspective. The powers that be know that this job goes on and on and on and on and that every day there will be more applications and more applications and that we, the employees, will get to them when we get to them. So long as we don't fall behind and at least appear to be at our stations, then it's all good. I've witnesses so much corporate madness and drive, that this attitude feels almost like laziness. Sweet, sweet laziness.

If I can stave off the crushing boredom with entertaining literture read by semi-retired b-list actors, then I might just do well at the Assport Office.

- posted by Katherine @ 5:08 PM 3 comments

 
"Hhhhrrrrrmmmrhrmrm..." --Horatio Hornblower
When captain Horatio Hornblower, from CS Forrester's fine maritime series, felt the need to say something effusive or revealing, he would instead clear his throat and keep to himself. In response to Joe's viscious, naughty and altogether humbling rant about both writing and my person, I shall clear my throat.

Ahem.

But instead of remaining silent, I shall proceed to be effusive and revealing. You stand forewarned.

- posted by Katherine @ 4:54 PM 4 comments

 
More Urban Legends of the Future
Roomba Rescue
 
First told in 2006 by the cousin of a friend of the woman this happened to.
 
So this woman, in her mid thirties, she lived alone in a one bedroom apartment with a couple of cats.  She liked to keep the place tidy, but hated sweeping three times a week to keep the cat hair down.  So she decided to buy herself one of those little robotic vacuum cleaners… a Roomba.  I don’t know if you’ve seen one of these things, it kinda looks like a hubcap and rolls around the floor.
 
Anyway, the Roomba was cleaning the floor one day and the woman decided she’d use all her free time to make herself a nice meal.  She cooked up a steak for herself and sat down to eat.  Now while she’s eating, a fine, juicy piece of steak went down the wrong way.  She coughed, trying to dislodge it, but with every breath she felt it sliding deeper into her windpipe.  She stood, her mind green with panic.  The steak stuck in her throat, no air getting past at all.  She tried giving herself the Heimlich, but to no avail.  Her vision darkening, she stumbled toward the phone, hoping to dial 911 in time to save herself.  Blackness engulfed her and she fell to the floor, her hand still grasping toward salvation.
 
The woman woke up a few hours later.  She was breathing normally.  The world was dark and she felt something hard and heavy with little pointy bits resting on her face.  She smelled dust and new plastic.  She raised her hands and found her Roomba balanced on top of her face, its vacuum positioned directly over her gaping mouth.  When she checked inside the Roomba later, she found a cat-hair-coated piece of steak in its particle bin.
 
The Girl in the Fog
 
First told in 2057 by this one kid in gym class who knew a guy who lived near there.
 
Ever since global warming happened and the sea levels rose, there’s been a lot more fog in the Seattle Archipelago.  On an average day, you can hardly see from Queen Anne Island to Capitol Island, let alone First Island. 
 
One day, this 13 year old girl was walking home from school along the shoreline.  It was a cold, lonely place filled with brambles and the tumbled remains of houses that had partially fallen into the Puget Sound.  Of course, her parents had told her countless times not to play there, but she liked it because of the solitude and the occasional treasure left there by residents who had abandoned the area decades before. 
 
As she walked along the glass beach, kicking an old soda can, the fog rolled in.  The fog leapt off of the water, rolling across the land, engulfing the girl and everything around her like a grey blanket, like porridge, like wet cement.  The girl could see nothing, not even her hand in front of her face.  She could no longer hear the waves lapping at the shore.  Even her own voice was devoured by the fog.  She wandered, her hands spread in front of her, falling over broken furniture and cutting her knees on exposed rebar.  For hours, she walked, calling for help.  None came.  Days passed… and then weeks and then months.  She wandered in the fog, exhausted, cold and afraid. 
 
They say that whenever that fog rolls into the Archipelago, the girl is still trapped inside of it.  She wanders there, calling for help, growing colder, growing lonelier with each passing year.  If you’re ever lost in that fog on that beach and she finds you, she’ll take you with her into that blankness to ease her grief. 

- posted by Katherine @ 3:52 PM 4 comments

 
I Want a Roomba
Of course, I'd heard of Roombas. I'd seen cartoons spoofing Roombas. I'd heard people talking about Roombas the same way people talked about digi-pets and robot dogs that were so hot in the late 90's and early 00's respectively. I have even seen one in the flesh, sitting like a dumpy Frisbee on a vacuum display at The Bon. But I have not, until today, desired a Roomba. Then I learned some FACTS:

That Roomba was designed by the same people who designed the Mars rover.

That Roomba is smarter than a cricket, but less smart than a Chihuahua.

That Roomba comes in red.

It's a robot vacuum cleaner, sure. Sounds like a gimmick, a fad-to-be, something that rich people buy when hiring a housekeeper would actually be cheaper. But I believe in Roomba. I believe in what Roomba stands for: the future. My generation has lived with the tantalizing hope of a science fiction future within our lifetime. We weren't alone in ticking off the months until the year 2001 rolled around, but unlike the generation that had conceived the ideas of personal robots and Pan Am flights to the International Space Station, we were going to be young enough to enjoy it. We weren't blind, however. We knew commercial spaceflight wasn't happening and flying cars were a bust. Personally, I even felt a tad disappointed when the War Against the Machines didn't begin in 1996. All the cool milestones of technology and culture have been pushed back a few decades. For instance, we're only now beginning to experience George Orwell's vision... twenty years late.

I can vacuum my apartment, my place isn't that big. Every Saturday, with the regularity of ritual, I sweep and vacuum and dust. For the remainder of the day, my apartment is clean, but by midnight, the dust bunnies are already peeking their noses out and rolling across the floor. Nonetheless, I don't begrudge the work.

The Roomba's symbolic meaning is almost as, if not more, important than its ability to clean floors. Sure, it's ideally suited to low carpet and hardwood, both of which I have. Sure it can clean under beds effortlessly. Sure it would be amusing to see my cats run terrified from the room whenever it approached...

A semi-autonomous robot, built for a purpose and performing that task well, seems simple, but it's not something that has ever existed in the average home before. It's certainly nothing that's existed in my home before. The base model Roomba costs $150, which is only $50 more than I paid for my bottom of the line, Dirt Devil upright vacuum, and the Roomba does do the work for you.

We are in the prologue... the montage at the opening of the movie showing a brief history of robot evolution. The moody music plays, Linda Hamilton's voice rises out of the music, low and serious: "In the year 2004, robots served humanity..." And the first shot is of a dumpy little Frisbee looking thing that cleans floors.

I'm not going to hold out for a bipedal android that calls me "mistress." I want a Roomba.

- posted by Katherine @ 3:57 PM 4 comments

 
Thoughts from a Proud American
Since the founding of the United States, one thing has kept our great shores safe for freedom, free for democracy and democratic for the electoral college… our brave Oceans. Atlantic and Pacific, these brave and selfless young bodies of water have done more to repel the forces of tyranny from our purple majestic mountains than all the armed forces in all American history. Spanning hundreds of miles and posing a nearly insurmountable barrier to large troop movements, these salty sentinels have ensured that no foreign army (excepting the British… just that once) could ever reach our hyperbolically nifty homeland.

As a proud American, I support our oceans and everything they’ve done to secure freedom for you and me. Whether repelling Imperial Japan’s incursion into Los Angeles, or keeping Saddam’s Republican Guard out of the White House, our oceans deserve our respect and gratitude. God bless our courageous oceans!
- posted by Katherine @ 4:06 PM 3 comments

 
High Resolution
I'm not telling you anything new when I say that making resolutions is easy and keeping them is hard; but sometimes circumstances make resolutions easier. This is unusual, as circumstances are frequently cited as the monkey-wrenchers: my job is really hectic this week, things have been crazy at home this week, I didn't mean to break the pretty lady's neck this week. Circumstances make the little plans of mice and men go awry.

Despite common sense, I've made a resolution this week. I am once again unemployed (go me, it's my birthday!) and for the period of my unemployment I shall do the following: get up at 7:30-ish every morning, shower and dress, do a couple of exercises and then sit at my computer and work on my novel as if that were my 9 to 5 employment. Of course, anyone who understands my work ethic will know that when I have an office job, I spend a large part of it reading, surfing the net and writing on my novel. So if I were to truly recreate an office environment for myself, I'd have to take a break from writing and work on some mind-numbing data entry in the stolen moments between brilliant paragraphs. So if anyone has some data entry they need done, let me know.
- posted by Katherine @ 9:08 AM 3 comments

 
Literature Warning: This Product Should Not Be Used While Operating Heavy Machinery Or Sitting In An Office
Listening to an unabridged audiobook of Of Mice and Men may cause the user to burst suddenly and uncontrollably into tears, especially when George tells Lenny (sniff) about the rabbits and Lenny is SO happy because he’s all innocent (sniff) and you just know that George loves him so he tells him about the rabbits again cause he knows that Lenny didn’t MEAN to kill the pretty lady and the pup and he thought George was gonna be so angry at him but George ain’t because he knows he didn’t mean no harm but Lenny’s gonna get lynched and George (whimper, sniff) takes out the gun because otherwise Lenny will die afraid and George wants his last moments to be perfectly happy and you just know that George is ruined too cause all his hopes and dreams were borrowed from Lenny and taking care of Lenny gave his life meaning that it would never have had and now he has to shoot him in the back of the head and then he’s going to just crawl into a bottle and his soul will die along with Lenny on the shore of that river…

It is therefore not recommended that you read this book at work or you might have to run into the bathroom and huddle in a stall and cry for ten minutes.

Personal Note: Like using any controlled substance while at work, it was kinda nice to feel some genuine emotion while trapped beneath the fluorescent tubes.

- posted by Katherine @ 5:26 PM 3 comments

 
Let's Talk About God... Baby.
I'm an atheist, you might have noticed. This doesn't mean I don't like talking about god, God, Gods, Goddesses and so forth. I usually approach such talks in the same spirit as I discuss Buffy The Vampire Slayer: as an involving and exciting fiction. I can get very excited about Buffy.

So with this in mind, I'd like to direct you to a post on Joe's website, Labyrinth of Meat Coils. I'm also reproducing my commentary here on my site, mostly because I need to fill space and look like I've been writing. Read Joe's original post first, then:

That was good stuff. Thought provoking even. As a moral relativist, I'm actually most interested in the last point you make: the idea that God (air quotes) may be on everybody's side. Or maybe God (air quotes) is on no one's side? Let's assume for a moment that God does exist, and that God is in fact an active participant and observer of all terrestrial happenings. Then what conclusions can we draw? The quickest conclusion is that we're saddled with your typical uncaring god, but the more interesting conclusion is that god does care, and cares equally for all points of view. Terrorist and World trade Center employees, Hitler and the Allies, Joe Lopez and George W Bush are all equally rightous in his sight.

I'll actually take my queue from JRR Tolkien here: in The Silmarillion, Tolkien creates a new, albeit heavily borrowed from Genesis, creation myth for Middle Earth. In it, Illuvata (AKA. God (air quotes)), creates the Valar and then conposes a song for them to sing. Then after they start singing, he gives the greatest of them the freedom to improvise. Most of the impovisers harmonize nicely, but Melchor sings a dissonant little tune, cause he's bad. As Melchor starts screwing up the song, Illuvata redirects the rest of the choir around him and the song becomes even more beautiful. This happens sevral more times, and from this song, Middle Earth is created. The Valar go down to Middle Earth to give it form, and Melchor spends the rest of Eternity trying to screw it up (Sauron and those guys come later).

The point is: to God, the dissonance was just as beautiful as the song, perhaps more so, because it added complexity to his song and allowed even greater harmonies to be created. Every act Melchor took to destroy, only made it more beautiful in the mind of Illuvata. Maybe not to the people of Middle Earth though. To them, the actions of Melchor brought death, suffering, blood and the ruin of entire civilizations.

Does that mean God doesn't care about our suffering? Not at all... he thinks it's beautiful.
- posted by Katherine @ 10:25 AM 6 comments

 
We Were Experiencing Technical Difficulties
One reason I haven't posted here in a long while is because my old blog template didn't seem to work with the new blogger software. So I've gone back to one of thier pre-made templates. Not overly flashy, but it works. I'll be better, I promise.
- posted by Katherine @ 9:11 AM 2 comments