The Corporatorium--Episode Two
Welcome to the Inferno
Monday.
Stepping out of my car, feeling like a prisoner returning to
incarceration after a weekend pass, I stared at the squat red-brick and
brownstone monolith waiting to swallow me. Drawing a deep breath, I started to drag
myself across the parking lot—a vast wasteland of BMWs, which were apparently
the new Chevy (did they really hand them out to every 22-year-old college
graduate along with a diploma?)
Half way across the hectare of asphalt I realized I should
have eaten breakfast or at least packed a lunch because my energy was fading
fast and the building was still so far away. I stopped and leaned against a car
that was parked between two BMWs. Shiny and black, it sported a vinyl “Landau”
roof with what appeared to be a monogrammed “G” on the side. Realizing it was a
hearse, I shuddered and hurried on.
Reaching the building’s entrance at last, sweaty, and exhausted,
I struggled, as I did every day, to pull open one of the pair of massive, and
wildly improbable, ornately carved bronze doors. The lobby’s brick vaulted
ceiling made the entry feel less like an office building than the reception
room of some demented Monsignor’s palace. Or, maybe, the anteroom to…hell.
The lobby was a blizzard of white marble tile and blazing lights.
I was immediately hit with a blast of heat from the massive Rumford fireplace opposite
the front door. The juxtaposition of the chilly marble, cool white lights and the
furnace-like heat, was disorienting; seeing the devil, himself, lounging in one
of the whimsically over-sized wing chairs surrounding the fireplace would have
been no more startling.
The doors closed and the elevator began its crawl upstairs. To
distract myself, and keep claustrophobia at bay, I thought about the scores of
newly hired and uninitiated who trekked through that lobby and onto this elevator
each year without realizing they were entering a firestorm of greed, confusion,
and ego.
Those who remained pure, stubbornly clinging to hope—which
had left the premises eons before, never to be seen or heard from again—were
incinerated to ash and later seen "temping" or making up café mocha
lattes at Starbucks. Others, less pure,
less human, baptized by the fire, were baked into a kind of corporate
carapace, hard, impervious as Teflon. And as warm. You could easily recognize
these Officers of The Corporation by the Audis they drove, and their suits of
cinder and ash.
The doors opened, and I stumbled out of the elevator and
stood in the hall that was carpeted in blood red wool, waiting for my eyes to
adjust to the dimness. Beneath the steady hum of fluorescent lighting there
was…silence. The doors to the conference room on my left was closed, so I knew the
officers were meeting. Sometimes—as I was doing now—if you listened outside the
door of the officers' meetings, beneath the corporate-speak and buzzwords, you
could just hear tiny human voices clamoring to be freed.
I heard a chair scraping against the stone floor and got out
of there quick, for there’d be hell to pay if I was caught lurking near the
officers’ domain. In addition to their own conference rooms, the Officers had
their own bathrooms and kitchen. The refrigerator in their kitchen, which was
stocked with company-paid water and soft drinks, had an engraved brass plate
bolted to its sleek steel and glass door: ITEMS IN THIS REFRIGERATOR ARE FOR
OFFICERS ONLY. The rebuke was as sharp as the slap of a ruler on a tender young
palm.
The Corporation created a kind of artificial society, not
unlike that found in any American High
School. There were three
professional-social strata—the leadership team, officers, and at the bottom:
non-officers, people like me, or as we’d named ourselves, the mushrooms. We
chose the name because, like mushrooms, we were kept in the dark and fed shit.
Out of this darkness and shit, the grapevine grew, strong
and resilient, as it has since time immemorial.
While the drums of yesterday sent their messages, couched in pulsing
rhythms through the air, unintelligible unless you knew what to listen for, we sent our messages back and forth
using the same air the officers breathed without so much as tickling an
eardrum. Because we were sure email and instant messages were monitored, we
employed a locked Twitter stream and Facebook and text messaging to communicate
stealthily, but constantly, with each other.
The Corporation itself preferred communicating via web cast
and Memorandums of Opportunity, otherwise
known as MOOs. These MOOs generally detailed problems that needed fixing,
though they often presented solutions to problems that did not exist, or which would
only exist once the solution was implemented. At any rate while they were usually
problem-related we were no longer allowed to use the word “problem,” or even “challenge”
for these words led to negative thinking. Like the state in Orwell’s 1984, which had created “newspeak,” leadership
was sure the route to happiness and a problem-free workforce was to simply
eliminate all words related to dissatisfaction, unhappiness or problems. Thus
all problems were now known as “opportunities.”
Anyway, back to the MOOs. These pointless missives came out
almost daily and carried the signature of management though no one knew who the
author or authors were. Today's MOO:
M E M O R A N D U
M O F O P P OR T U N I T Y
We have been informed that our landlord, Evel Property
Group, has a number of indoor parking spaces temporarily available because of
tenants unexpectedly breaking their leases. These spaces are being offered to
non-officers only, as officers have indoor parking under our building
already.
The available parking is located in a garage at the far end
of our campus but will provide you with sheltered parking during inclement
weather. As this garage is some distance from our building, you may want to
pick up a copy of the Shuttle Bus schedule prior to requesting a space.
These spaces will be assigned on a first-come first-served
basis, so email us your request as soon as possible, along with your car's
make, model and license plate information.
As I finished reading this, Nigel sent the first tweet of
the day.
Nigel Gale @MannequinMan
re: today's MOI: ROTFLMAO
Diana Prince-King @TAFKAP
How was this helpful to anyone?
How was this helpful to anyone?
Prometheus Jones @Theus
Isn't that garage like
in another county?
“Pssst!”
From my seated position I could see Barbara the second’s
tiny, dark head with its moon face rise over her cubicle’s walls.
We all stood, our heads popping into the air prairie-dog
style.
“What’s up?”
“Are any of you interested in that parking space?”
“Why?” Diana asked.
“Well, I’m thinking of applying—for Otto, you know.”
Diana Prince-King
@TAFKAP
Who’s Otto?
Nigel Gale @MannequinMan
Miss thing’s BMW.
Diana Prince-King
@TAFKAP
She named her car?
Prometheus Jones @Theus
Yes. I’m sure she’d name her dick if she had
one
Nigel Gale @MannequinMan
What makes you think
she doesn’t have one?
I chuckled. Nigel was still smarting from an incident that
had occurred early during Barbara the second’s tenure. Seeing her struggling
with a heavy, awkwardly shaped box, Nigel had gone to assist her. “Hey, Theus,”
he’d called, “Come help me—”
Barbara the second had shoved him away. “I don’t need your
help!”
Bruised, Nigel had half-whispered, “I only thought we men
could—”
“Could what? I can do anything a man can do,” she had
barked, “Except stand up and pee!”
“Actually, I once knew a lesbian who could stand up and pee.
She’d demonstrate at parties…”
Barbara had glared at me so I’d shut up.
“Hello?” Barbara the second said sharply. Guiltily we all
three looked up from our phones.
“I want that space. I’m afraid Otto will fade being in the
sun all day. And you know we paid extra for that color.”
Diana Prince-King
@TAFKAP
Paid extra? It’s
blue—who’d pay extra for blue?
Besides Barbara Two continued, “I had to park next to a
hearse this morning!”
Diana Prince-King
@TAFKAP
A hearse? Is she on
crack?
Prometheus Jones @Theus
No, she’s not hallucinating—I
saw it this morning on my way in.
Diana Prince-King
@TAFKAP
Why would there be a
hearse in our parking lot?
Nigel Gale @MannequinMan
It’s mine.
Prometheus Jones @Theus
It’s yours?
Diana Prince-King
@TAFKAP
Nigel, why are you
driving a hearse?
Nigel Gale @MannequinMan
Why not? This place
has killed my soul. I’m quite dead inside. Besides I needed new car and it was
cheap.
Diana Prince-King
@TAFKAP
Where does one even
buy a hearse?
Nigel Gale @MannequinMan
Craigslist
Barbara the second whined loudly, “Hello?”
“Oh! Sorry,” I said, “None of us are interested
so go for it.”
“Great! Thanks!” Barbara the second sank
out of sight.
Episode 3: Wednesday, June 22
Copyright © 2016 Larry
Benjamin
D I S C L A I M E R
The characters and events described in this blog post exist
only in its pages and the author's imagination.
damn! Episode two was too short(she whined). Still lovin' it Larry!
ReplyDeletelol. thanks. Episode 3 is next Wednesday.
DeleteWow ~ when DID we work together??? Good stuff! Looking forward to the next installment.
ReplyDeleteLol. I get that a lot. I think there is a certain commonality of work experience in this series. Thanks for reading. BTW, 6 more episodes have been posted. You can access them in order from either episode 1 post or using the blog archive on the upper right.
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