The Cubicle Next Door (16 page)

“So tell them to study for themselves. They need to learn to own their knowledge. Take responsibility for it.”

“I would have been embarrassed to ask my instructors these kinds of questions. They would have thought I was an idiot.” He threw the ball at the wall again.

I flinched. “Why don’t you just go work out? Don’t you have to exercise? Keep in shape?”

He paused. “Maybe I should.”

“What’s the worst that could happen? All those poor cadets would have to read the book for themselves?”

So the next T day, the first period before lunch, he worked out. And no less than ten cadets came to see him.

“Is Lt. Col. Gallagher here?”

“No.”

“Do you know when Lt. Col. Gallagher will be back?”

“No.”

“Can I wait here for Lt. Col. Gallagher?”

“In my office? No.”

When he finally returned, his hair was damp, his cheeks were red, and he smelled like soap. He was practically glowing.

“Have a good workout?”

“Great! Thanks for the suggestion. I’m going to keep it up. Every T day.”

“There were about fifty cadets who stopped in looking for you.”

“Really?”

“It seemed like it.”

“So did you help them? Or did you just tell them they heeded to own their knowledge.” He dimpled before he disappeared into his cubicle.

“I would have if I’d had the time, but I was supposed to be working in between keeping track of you on behalf of the cadets. Because we all know our only function in life is to make them happy.”

Next T day, before Joe left to work out, he taped a sign to the end of the cubicle wall. “That should take care of anybody’s questions.”

“Should it? What does it say? Joe’s dead, take a hike?”

“It says, PT eleven to twelve.”

“Which would be short for…?”

“Physical training.”

“And everyone knows that’s what it means?”

“At the Academy? I guarantee it.”

I wish he would have guaranteed everyone knew how to read. People still asked me questions about where he was, even after I told them to read the sign. I drew the line at taking messages for him.

Secretary.

Systems administrator.

Two separate job descriptions. And neither of them included being Joe’s keeper.

THE CUBICLE NEXT DOOR BLOG

Treat me right

Here’s something you don’t know, John Smith. Everyone treats me like your secretary. I spend half the day not telling people where you are. Not telling them when you’re expected back. Not taking messages for you. In fact, there’s only one person who doesn’t expect me to be your secretary: You.

Posted on September 11 in
The Cubicle Next Door | Permalink

Comments

In fact, the word “secretary” was coined in the Middle Ages for someone who dealt in secrets or could be trusted in confidential business. Only later was the term applied to those who recorded business transactions. The word “secret” has the same root as “seclude” and “secure,” all of them words identifying a person or thing set or kept apart from others.

Posted by:
NozAll | September 12 at 07:23 AM

Doesn’t treat you like his secretary? Then give him a break! He’s a keeper.

Posted by:
justluvmyjob | September 14 at 08:17 AM

Sixteen

S
o. I was sitting in a staff meeting, ostensibly taking notes about computer issues while in fact making a grocery list. I had then moved on to drawing a series of ocean waves. Embellished the scene with a beach. Palm trees. I was just starting on sand dollars when I heard my name taken in vain.

Estelle responded, pen poised over the tablet she used for taking the minutes of our meetings. “How many people in total?”

Joe answered. “Four, plus Jackie.” He didn’t usually attend the meetings; he was only sitting in for someone else.

Estelle scribbled down the information. She glanced at me over the top of her reading glasses. “Is that okay with you, Jackie?”

I glanced around the room.

Joe was giving me a thumbs-up.

“Yeah. Sure.”

Being volunteered for assorted and sundry team and committee meetings was not uncommon, so I wasn’t worried. I’d find out all the details when I read Estelle’s minutes. Minutes were one thing she did quickly. Mostly because the colonel required an almost immediate report on the action items. The minutes would be broadcast to the entire department within the hour.

I returned to my sand dollars.

An hour later, I was staring at my computer screen.

“Um, Joe?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you read Estelle’s minutes?”

“Reading them right now.”

“This part about the Emma Crawford Coffin Race?”

“Yeah?”

“I think Estelle put my name into the wrong item…right?”

“Nope. She got it right. You volunteered to be Emma.”

“Emma?”

“Emma Crawford. You know, sit in the coffin while the history department team pushes it down Manitou Avenue.”

“No, no, no, no, no. I
never
agreed to do that.”

Here’s how I knew I hadn’t agreed. The Emma Crawford Coffin Race was run in Manitou Springs every October, the Saturday before Halloween. It was in commemoration of Emma Crawford, who had come to Manitou Springs at the turn of the last century in search of a cure for tuberculosis. She met an engineer who was working on the Cog Railway, became engaged to him, but died before the wedding took place. Her fiancé buried her on top of Red Mountain, where she could commune with nature and the various spirits she insisted were waiting for her up there.

Many years later, after having been buffeted by Colorado weather, the peak disintegrated and let Emma and her coffin go. Nameplate and all. She took a ride down the mountain and was discovered by two local boys.

I was not going to be Emma Crawford.

And I was certainly not going to sit in a coffin while it was being raced down Manitou Avenue.

“Yep. I’m pretty sure you did. At least, that’s what the colonel thinks.”

Great.

Just great.

Because the colonel had this thing about responsibility and accountability. Whatever it was a person agreed to in a meeting was what that person absolutely had to do. You had to come through. Because, in his words, “If I tell you I’m dropping a bomb on Bolivia, I sure as #$!% better not drop it on Beirut.”

Dang. Double dang. Dang, dang, dang.

He also had a thing about department togetherness. And if I was going to ride in a coffin race and four department members were going to push me, then at least half the department was going to be arm-twisted into watching us.

Mandatory department fun.

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Could you at least wait until after the Coffin Race?”

Three weeks later I was wishing I
had
been responsible and kept accountable and followed through on my threat to kill Joe.

“Look dead.” Joe was standing in front of me, scrutinizing my face.

“I’m trying.”

“You don’t look dead enough.”

“Listen, do you want to wear this dress? And this hat? Because we could change costumes.”

It was 10:30
AM
on the day of the race. We were at Joe’s house. The four mourner-runners and I. We were being dressed by the mourners’ wives. They had gone all out. Joe and his cohorts would be running in tails and top hats. They were all sporting black armbands and walking sticks.

I had been being dressed for over an hour. Someone had put way too much work into my costume. There were bloomers and underskirts and petticoats. A camisole and corset. The dress was of gray satin with a low square neck edged by white lace that was attached at the shoulders with white roses. Fake ones. The sleeves looked like deflated puffs and hung down around my elbows. They were also edged in lace. The waist was gathered and then it dropped to the floor and trailed out behind me. A tripping hazard. I was required to wear a helmet during the race, so they had hidden it inside a hat. A decorated version of a top hat, it sprouted bows and feathers and all sorts of other things. It also had a gray veil draped across the front, conveniently located for maximum opacity for the coffin ride down Manitou Avenue.

The women were coating all my available skin with white clown paint. “Don’t move your mouth,” one of them cautioned “or the paint will crack.”

They finished painting me. Fastened the helmet onto my head. Then it was time for pictures.

The other three mourners got up from the couch where they had been watching football. They put their jackets on, stuck their hats on their heads, and pulled the elastic bands down under their chins.

“Where should we take them?”

“Let’s take some on the couch. Then we can take more outside with the coffin.”

“Jackie,” one of the wives grabbed me by the elbow and dragged me over to the couch. “Lie there and pretend you’re dead.”

There seemed to be a lot of that going around.

I fell onto the couch, trying hard not to move anything with paint on it. I clasped my hands on top of my chest. Joe shoved a bouquet of black roses into them.

The four guys knelt beside the couch in various poses of grief.

Joe looked the most stricken. Of course. He knew his time on earth was limited. By me.

Outside, Joe lifted me into the foam-padded, red-satin lined coffin. For the first photo, I lay down, reenacting the pose I’d struck inside. Then I sat up, the way I would during the race.

He grabbed my arm. “Look d—”

“Don’t…say…it.”

The guys smiled. I didn’t.

After the pictures were taken, they wheeled me down Pawnee Avenue.

“Hey, want to practice, Jackie? We could let go. Race you to the bottom of the hill.”

That’s Joe. Always the joker. Because flying down the hill on Pawnee Avenue would send me whizzing across Manitou Avenue and dump me right into Fountain Creek.

They didn’t let me go.

We arrived safely at Memorial Park and lined up with the other coffin contestants waiting to be checked in. We had our coffin inspected and measured. Received our race schedule. I stood beside the coffin while our team was judged. Then we joined the Parade of Coffins.

Joe and the other guys each carried a bag filled with slimy rubber eyeballs and globs of gook filled with maggots. From time to time they reached into their bags and threw their ghastly treasures out into the crowd. A chorus of shrieks accompanied our coffin on its way down the street.

I sat in the coffin and waved, but not too often. I didn’t want to crack my paint.

Crowds lined the avenue, separated from the coffins by garlands of tape, in some cases looking suspiciously like the black-and-yellow tape used to rope off crime scenes.

All sorts of people watched us go by. Average families composed of Mom, Dad, and two kids. Groups of punked-out teens. Clusters of aging hippies.

After the parade we waited in Memorial Park until it was our turn to race.

The racing was done in pairs. Each coffin was responsible for keeping in its own lane.

The mourners wheeled me up to the starting line. They each grabbed hold of a regulation handle, attached firmly to the side of the coffin, projecting not more than ten inches from the sides.

I looked over at the other team. They were dressed as ghouls with gray-green faces and drooping black robes. The woman sitting inside was a skeleton, complete with white hair and black-rimmed eyes.

Creepy.

“On your mark!”

I grabbed onto the edges of the coffin.

“Get set!”

The guys bent forward, toward the finish line. Joe was on the left side, at the back.

“Go!”

We were off.

The crowd was cheering, I could tell by their faces, but the only sounds I heard were of shoes slapping the road and heavy breathing.

“This thing is a bear to push!” We weren’t even 50 yards into the race and one of the guys on the right was already complaining.

I glanced over at the other team. They were catching up to us. “Just run!”

“Did anyone put oil on the wheels?”

A couple paces went by before anyone answered Joe. Then they all answered at once. “No.”

“Stop talking. They’re catching us!” Turning in my coffin seat, I could see the other team advancing with every step.

“Go faster!”

Joe tore his eyes from the finish line. Glanced up at me. “You’re supposed to be dead!”

“Faster! They’re passing us!’

“Be…dead!”

There were only 100 yards left. “Go, go, go, go, go!” My chants were interspersed with Joe’s “be dead, be dead, be dead.”

At ten yards we were coffin-to-coffin.

“Come on! Push it! Let’s go!”

The guys exhausted the last of their energy and sprinted across the finish line. By the time they crossed, I was curled into a crouch, holding onto the sides of the coffin, screaming and yelling my head off.

I stood up, reached down, and high-fived everyone.

Then I realized what I was doing.

I was supposed to be dead. Boy, I’d really screwed that up.

But Joe whisked me off and gave me a hug before setting me on my feet.

The colonel was there, with his wife and about 15 other families from the department. They all congratulated us.

An hour later, it was our turn to race again in the first of two final heats.

Again, we won. Again, I wound up at the finish line on my knees, inside the coffin, cheering on the guys.

The winner of the next heat was faster than us by two seconds.

Oh, well.

Runner-up wasn’t bad.

At the end of the day, we’d almost won, I’d almost lost my voice, and I’d almost decided to let Joe live.

THE CUBICLE NEXT DOOR BLOG

Surprise, surprise

I had the chance to work on a project with John Smith. On a project I would have vetoed out of hand had it been up to me. The results were of no importance to myself or anyone else. It was extracurricular in the way only mandatory office fun can be. But I found myself behaving in completely unexpected ways. Maybe even…enjoying…the experience. I still don’t know what it means.