Cubicles In the Mist

For those of you who don’t know me that well, or for those of you who know me well but are not familiar with the string of jobs I’ve had over the last, say, 7 years, you wouldn’t be aware of the fact that some sort of omniscient hand has been conjuring places of employment for me that have created a vocational obstacle course. It’s more than that, actually; my last five jobs have been so excruciatingly painful that there have been times when I have sat at my desk and stared into the Excel sheet or the gray Photoshop canvas, knowing full well that I could snap. I’ve yelled at bosses. I’ve called meetings in order to denounce plans of action suggested by the partner of a firm. I’ve even stayed late at the office to do research in order to present my findings in such a way that would surely cripple the office’s motivation for tackling a certain type of job, all because I couldn’t handle doing the project for fear of insanity or entrance into a fugue state. In all of these cases, I was sure that I would be fired. I wanted to be fired. Instead, and this is where the humor lies, I got promoted. At times, I got pay-raises. I got a $7,000 raise once after I yelled at my boss in front four employees of the federal government who had come to our office to help us find work through government set-aside programs. But all of these jobs and ridiculous raises, all of the yelling and stress-induced bowel problems, each and every single one of them has provided me with great material for the novel I will one day write.

The job I was sent to today through my temp agency here in Minneapolis aligns with my previous experiences, and my novel is getting richer by the millisecond. Today I was sent to do direct marketing (read telemarketing) for a company that designs a mist used to treat wounds, wounds that look as though the body bearing the mark couldn’t possible have survived the trauma that caused it.

“Will, come back here and take a look at these pictures.”

“Oh, sure.”

“Now,” long pause, “these pictures are a little disturbing, but if you look over here you’ll see the kind of wound that our mist works on.”

“[Acute silence]”

“See, these are wounds that normally just don’t heal. If you look at this gaping, well maybe not gaping, no, well, it’s gaping, if you look at this gaping, gash-like wound on this person’s buttock…well, that just shouldn’t heal.”

“Is this a life-sized picture?”

“Just about.”

“[Sadness]”

“But the mist, well it’s a bio-activated mist…”

“Bio-activated?”

“…it forms these gaseous pockets within the tissue and that sort of…”

“What’s an example of something that isn’t bio-activated?”

“…well it just sort of heals the wound.”

“Yeah, okay…”

“So what you’re going to do today is call hospitals and inquire about the advanced methodologies they use for wound care at their facilities.”

“[Loud blink]”

“And here’s the list of hospitals. I don’t know how many there are exactly, well, it looks like there are about 75 pages or so, and maybe, well, 50 hospitals on each page so…”

“Okay. This is…”

“It could take you a few hours or maybe the whole day. But I give you complete artistic license on this. There’s a script there in case you don’t know what to say, but feel free to deviate from the script.”

“The script.”

“And, oh yeah, you don’t have Internet access.”

I sat there, in a cubicle that was high enough to block out all exterior light, for seven hours straight, and I called about 55 hospitals. The ones in Georgia took longer because I couldn’t understand what they were saying and I think I was talking too fast for them to understand me. The word “wound” is surprisingly difficult to negotiate with a Southern accent. All in all, I probably said the word “wound” 1,000 times today. And I have to go back tomorrow. Two women, a Stacy and a Heather, inhabit the surrounding cubicles. I haven’t actually seen them (because of the cubicle walls) but I hear them talk all day. It’s like Beckett radio play. There’s a constant flow of words about vaguely medical topics that I don’t know anything about and that I don’t want to know anything about. I thought about introducing myself, but then I realized that I just shouldn’t put that kind of effort into this experience.

The long and the short of it is that you will all see this material again one day. In the final version, I will certainly use the real name of the place. It’s a name that fits the environment so well. It’s not an office, it’s The Office. I’m going back tomorrow. Pray for me.