Secrets

It’s cold out today. Because of the nature of my job, I’m in and out of my office frequently. I’m not outside long, just dashing between one building and another. I need a white coat for most of the rooms I work in, and I can’t bring an outside coat into those rooms. I’m therefore usually outside without a coat on, carrying my white coat folded inside out (to protect it from outside contamination), hurrying between doors. On days like this it’s almost pleasant to go from the warmth of the office to a brief interlude of race-walking in the cold until I get to the warmth of the building again. On rainy or snowy days (such as they predict tomorrow), it becomes a major pain in the ass though.

Getting to go outside gives me a chance to keep up with things that others in my company don’t even know exist. I know about the mallard that raised her ducklings in the stream out back last summer (I didn’t get to find out if she came back this summer, since I was out on disability). I know about the great blue heron that flies northward over our parking lot in the early morning hours, and flies southward over our parking lot in the early evening. I know about the flock of a dozen or so sparrows that take shelter in our little out-of-the-way corner, and who I worry won’t be able to find enough to eat in this cold asphalt desert and who I worry are going to crap on my car. I know who sneaks cigarettes out behind loading docks 1 and 2 when they think no one is watching. I know about the illicit Pepsi machine that some of the guys hid out in the maintenance bays (because they wanted Pepsi but the company has a contract with Coke so all we have are Coke machines in the main building). I even know who switched the Chevy emblem on a coworker’s pick-up truck’s hitch cover to a Ford emblem, and I know that the Chevy owner has so far remained clueless.

So if my coworkers forget to tell me that there are donuts in the main office for somebody’s birthday until there’s only half a vanilla-sprinkle cruller left, that’s OK. I know where to get the Pepsi.

The two offices adjacent to mine are too close for comfort. Neither has a door to the outside, requiring the Mouth and the Minion (my companions in Timbuktooville) to use my door or one other. As I type, the two of them huddle in the next room over and solve the company’s problems.

They speak in pronouns and non-specifics: “he said”, “today’s event”, “the reason behind what happened”, “it is going to cause problems”, “they think”. I know perfectly well what they’re discussing, but since M & M are in the next room over, I have to pretend to be deaf.

They think they know something I don’t know. They don’t know that I know what they know. They keep the event secret, I keep my knowledge of it secret. Who has just one-upped whom here? I get tired some days of the games, the lies, the politics, the one-upmanships and the knife to the kidneys. And yet I play along, if only by encouraging them with my silence.

I bite my tongue when the Minion says that you “can’t single one employee out and show him what he’s done wrong” because it will make him resentful. I bite harder when the Mouth agrees, and says that it has to be a blanket announcement to the entire department. My tongue begins to bleed when they talk about enticements to get it right, such as half days off and pizza parties.

What ever happened to taking the employee aside and letting him know about the problem? Why do we need to turn a twenty-five cent solution into a five hundred dollar pizza party? Why do I even let this aggravate me?

I’m not part of the solution, so I guess I’m part of the problem. I’m not putting my order for extra cheese and pepperoni in yet though.

I know who my 21,000th visitor was, but I’m keeping that a secret too. I suspect that special person in my life wouldn’t want the attention anyhow.