Sunday, November 30, 2008

An Excerpt From "Temp-to-Hire".

   The people who'd been working in the office for a few years began getting suspicious of me.  They had every right to, but they didn't know they had the right to, and that's what's been cheesing me off recently.

   I started as a temp, but then it got out of hand.  My boss, Mr. Horn, thought I was "too qualified", and gave me a promotion after two weeks.  I didn't have the heart to tell him I had no idea what I was doing; I didn't know anything about stocks, bonds, interest rates, or audit trails.  He called me into his office on my third Monday on the job.

  "I'll bet you're wondering why I called you into my office," he said.
  I figured I must have done something wrong.  The temp agency made a mistake in sending me here, I thought.  Mr. Horn continued.
  "I'll bet you're wondering why a busy man like myself has taken time away from the first minutes of my work week to talk to someone like yourself." 
  "Sir, I'm sorry if..." I started, but he interrupted.
  "There's no need to call me 'Sir' anymore, Kevin.    I'm giving you a promotion.  From now on, you call me 'Mr. Horn'."

  He explained to me that since I'd begun working with his firm, profits had tripled, and I was the only X-factor he could discern in the equation as to why that happened.  I would earn far more than my current salary, plus commission.  Hiring me full-time, he said, would also scare the weak links in the office into buckling down and doing a better job themselves, that my upgrade would send a message that new blood is out there waiting to dominate the field.  "Plus," he said "it wouldn't hurt to have someone around the office who wasn't totally hideous."  I smiled and nodded to thank him for the compliment, but I didn't know specifically  what he was talking about.

  I thought that if I stuck with it at least a few more weeks, I would be financially secure for a long time.  But now, it's officially been fourteen months.  I still don't know what I'm doing, but my firm continues to be successful.  Any time I thought about learning about what my job entails, I stopped myself, reasoning that awareness of any kind would become a hinderance to any of my achievements.  I know now that the firm's success had nothing to do with me, that I had been in the right place at the right time, and if any other person landed that temp job, they would be in my position instead of me.  But just because I'm a phony, that doesn't mean Randall and Dave have the right to give me dirty looks around the office.

Friday, November 14, 2008

My Thoughts From Last Night Would Make For A Great Few Paragraphs Of A Novel, I Think

Zach turned the last page. He had finished reading the book he had been working on for a month. He looked longingly at the number on that final page: 617. "Gee, that's a lot," he thought to himself. "I wonder if I could ever muster enough writing to reach that many pages -- particularly in a font as medium-small as the one in this book." Skimming through the book again, it became apparent to him that to make a book last long, a lot of things need to happen to a lot of people, and those things and people need to be described in great detail. He thought...
_
The next morning, there was a knock at the door. Zach still lay in bed an hour after his roommate, Gillian, left for work. He opened his eyes to a bright cloudy morning, typical of a Seattle autumn. His blanket and comforter with the sea green duvet, askew from another night of tossing and kicking, were almost too heavy for him to lift in his state of sleepiness. Upon more knocking, he finally got up, left his room, admired Wendy the Cat who was once again looking cute, and answered the front door.
_
It was none other than Archie Mandrake, the local sports newscaster in his usual pirate outfit, complete with a live parrot perched upon his shoulder. His long nose and wide ears seemed to grow bigger when he gestured to the donation can he held in his hand, the one which he motioned towards with his hook. His hook made Zach wish he had put on a pair of pants.
_
"Good morning, young chap," Mr. Mandrake said delightfully. "I'm making my rounds, collecting for the Voluntary Orphange of Washington State -- children with parents too awful to bear who may or may not have actually died. Would you feel comfortable making a donation today to help these unfortunate children?"
_
Before Zach could answer him, he lost his voice which crept out of his mouth, across his shoulder, down his right leg and onto the floor, where it melted and left a mustard-yellow stain on the carpet. He motioned to Mr. Mandrake that he could not speak, and Mr. Mandrake gave him an empathetic nod.
_
"Poor boy," he said with a noticably more melancholy tone. "I never should have asked anything of you."
_
He turned around and moped down the stairs. Zach closed the door behind him, and went into the kitchen to get some paper towels.