From May 27, 2002 to April 16, 2002, I wrote four week-long pieces describing my days working at the local paper (where I'm still employed). Most of it is fiction. But I won't say which. Each of the four pieces begin on Wednesdays, skip the weekends, and finish on Tuesdays. The papers go to press on Wednesdays, so that's how the timeline in my mind runs. I am aggrieved how little my job at the paper has changed over these last nine years. Anyway, as I say...
First thing in the morning 1.0
2.27.02 The building is barely empty except for the news department wrapping up the week’s assignments. The papers go to press today and will be warm and toasty at community homes by tomorrow morning. Opening your mailbox will just be like taking the towels out of the dryer, the soft steam of journalism and advertising warming your chilly uninformed hands. In the lunchroom, the Coffee-matic 3000 gurgles and drips into steel soldiers lined up and ready to wire the employees they’re sworn to caffeinate and defend. I’m at my desk, a soft green divider blocking the conquering sunlight squeezing through a TV-sized window which perfectly frames Mt. Hood. The whirr of the fax, the hush of the hard drive, I pick up the receiver of my silent phone. Its archaic design lacks any indicating message light, lacks any lights at all. My eyes fail me at this moment. Slowly (I can almost here the long high-end drag of a Hollywood violin), I arc the earpiece to my ear, barely stirring the fuzz of my lobe, and listen for that awful, awful beep beep beep…P.G.! No message! Into the day…
2.28.02 A minor buzz through the Pit this morning. The Pit is the cavernous lower level of cubicles containing the Retail Advertising, Production and News departments. Overlooked by the upper offices of management, we sweat and slave on a Dickensian scale, with only our passion for public service to sustain us. From above, the scene below more closely resembles Houston’s Mission Control or the essential set of “Wargames.” As the Traffic Coordinator (a term as farcical as the Pit), I receive and disseminate incoming e-mails and ads for the Advertising Sales Representatives. So I’m printing out the morning e-mail only to recoil in horror at the absence of the printouts at the printer. After much high-pitched bewilderment and dockside swearing, I am relieved when my Associate alerts me the printer is not on and clicks the switch, revealing my hollering to be the impotent whining of an impatient buffoon. The printer spits out the emails. The newspapers were delivered early this morning to our building, standard for the Thursday dawn. First I brew some coffee, heat up a cup of tea for myself and pay the snack machine to drop me a Blackberry Fruit Pie, and flip to the Police Log for the latest surreal adventures of our local malefactors. Into the day…
3.1.02 Friday morning, the best morning. Well, not as good as Saturday morning, what with the cartoons and all. At 7:08, the office is especially vacant, except for my Associate who arrived even before I did. The relative silence is often infinitely more entertaining than the blather of the crowd. Not that an interesting crowd doesn’t work here. After all, we microcosmic documentarians feed an otherwise unfed organ of the community. Anyway, there’s a birthday today! Cake and pie has been brought in. Helium-rich balloons turn slowly over the recipient’s desk, a safe distance from the high-ceilinged fluorescents that waste no time bursting unwelcome flying objects. A grand affair indeed, the office birthday party. Does anyone care about your birthday? Probably not, but no one’s saying. It’s like that joke Woody Allen tells at the end of “Annie Hall” about the guy who sees a psychiatrist because his brother thinks he is a chicken. ‘Why don’t you bring him in for treatment?” the psychiatrist asks. “I would, but we need the eggs.” They need the cake. Into the day…
3.4.02 The weekend has set like the sun behind the bulk of Mt. Hood while over its peak Monday has arisen. Processing the e-mails and listening to a Laura Nyro collection. A little Bronx soul in the a.m. serves me well. The morning begins with ad-related problems, insignificant in the scope of human existence, but still a sugarless hassle to me. I hear the crescendos of panic in the opposite cubicle. They quickly die down. These uprisings occur all day long. Such is the nature of the newspaper business (such is the nature of business). Into the day…
3.5.02 A moldy mug of coffee pathetically slumps on my desk. Spores swirl around the dusty surface of the drink like the swamp on Dagobah. The hags of Macbeth shove each other aside for a glorious glimpse. Truly awful. But it happens. Sometimes you get three or four cups going at a time. One always gets lost in the shuffle. But this cup isn’t mine. I’ve never let my beverages go unattended that long. I mean, this coffee was old – even the mold had mold. The mug was placed on my desk for comic effect by an Associate. Is food poisoning funny? Into the day…
Another week in the work-life of an Advertising Assistant rolls to a stop. We’ve learned a lot about ourselves, haven’t we? Well, we learned about something, right? ‘Member when I talked about cake? That was great.
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