Monday, December 9, 2013

Knife Work, if You Can Get It

The silence in this room makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs.  The passive-aggressive daggers shooting sideways at me from every eye have my patience and sanity balancing on razor’s edge.  I want to bash this computer monitor onto the floor, sling my laptop out the window like a Frisbee, and watch it fall, fall, fall four floors down.  Then I want to breathe in that blessed fresh chill air . . . let it enfold and consume me . . . step to the edge . . . leap out into it and just . . . fly. 
I am in Corporate Hell. 
            Not to be confused with Hell’s Corporate Headquarters, although I imagine the two would be quite similar. 
            I’m working in a conference room with eight other women.  No, we’re not having a meeting; we have all been displaced from our cubicles during renovations and must work literally side-by-side for two weeks.  My Work Wife and I have been informed that at least two people in this room are dogging our footsteps, keeping spreadsheets on our movements:  what time we arrive, what time we leave, how long our lunch breaks last, how often we use the restroom/get coffee/etc. 
            They don’t talk; not to us, not to each other.  It’s just clack-clack-clack on their keyboards, and occasionally one will try to sneak a peak at our monitors to see if we’re working.  If one of our work phones rings, necks snap in our direction and they eyeball us like we just devoured a batch of aborted fetuses and splatter-shat them out in the middle of the room. 
Slouched down in my chair—done with my work for the day—I’m thinking about something I’m certain no one else is.  I am wondering . . . how many knives should I take with me this weekend?