Apes

Sticky notes arranged along the base of my computer monitor offer me a reminder of all the clouds hanging over me. For focus, to overcome feelings of overwhelm. Then, it’s noticed. A coworker does the same beside me, hanging his own row of signal flags. Mimicry is a form of flattery, or like apes can act as the foundation for connection.

No. 047

A Sidebar

“Did I ever tell you about when he died? We were working on the first season. His boss at the time was a real hard ass, a terrible boss. He didn’t give a shit what happened in any of his employees’ lives, just worked them to the bone. This was a few months after he tore his meniscus, you remember that? Still on bed rest. Working 18-odd hours a day. Which was because of us, sure, but if his boss had been managing it better… Anyway, you remember what it was like working here then, you can imagine what the artists were going through. One day, he decided he needed a break from work, so he went out for a hike. He called me on the phone, told me he was taking the afternoon. Of course, I told him, do whatever you need, but are you sure about your legs? They aren’t healed! He insisted he needed to be outside, see the trees, feel the sun. He needed to feel alive again, after so many months on bed rest and the long work days. Anyway, you know what happens next. He gets heat stroke, has a heart attack. Dies on the trail. The paramedics get there just in time and revive him. They get down to Cedars Sinai, and he passes again. Then he’s revived again. He calls me, asks me to come down to the hospital. What am I going to do, say no? I was one of his only friends. I go to Cedars Sinai. When I get there, he’s back in a coma. The nurses tell me it’s not looking good, there’s a big clot they don’t think they can get rid of. Blood pressure was 94 over 60. Skin was gray. He wasn’t going to make it. I get there, I tell him what a good job he’s doing, that the show looks great. Then right after me, his ex-girl walks in. Suddenly the charts start spiking, his heart rate goes up. It’s like he knew she was in there. He was waiting for her. He opens his eyes, wakes up from the coma, says hello to her, and then dies, again, for the third time, except this one was for real. I was there when he died. I held his ex-girl, and she told me he’d been stressed out, the job was killing him, turning his hair gray, ruining his blood pressure. I’ll say! It was the stress of the job and that horrible boss that killed him. I know stress; I’ve seen what it can do. And he was a great artist. It’s a shame he couldn’t work on season two.”

No. 026

calculations

Today I counted all the cameras I encountered at work: one on parking garage level 3 (presumably one on every other level: P2, P1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6); one at the elevator from the parking garage to the main walkway; two outside the back door of the building; one at the security desk; one at each elevator bay separated by a series of badge-required gates; one at the vending machine in the kitchenette on the third floor (presumably one on every other level: 1, 2, and 4 and in the other two buildings, also four floors each); one on my laptop; one on the front of my phone; three on the back of my phone; four at the front gate of The Lot; two at the front doors of each building on either side of the courtyard; one in the focus room I accidentally walked into; one in the conference room I had a meeting in; one on each of my coworker’s computers; minimum one on each of my coworker’s cellphones; one rearview camera on my truck; one on every car in the parking lot manufactured after a certain year (total garage capacity: 1500); one front camera on certain models of certain cars manufactured after a certain year (total potential unknown).

As I calculated these amounts, B. approached me at my desk, coming to release his daily allotment of anger. It became a ritual of our relationship to vent—almost always the venting flowed one way: from the furnace of his anger to the icebox of my personality. Sometimes I felt similarly, and fueled the frustration. He complained about the actions of another team that had cross-dependencies with both of ours, going on, at length, about their lack of due diligence, of constantly turning to him and kicking the can.

“I can say this because I’m the kind of person that’s very self-critical. I’m very aware of my own flaws. It’s the only way I can get better. I guess it’s the Virgo in me.”

I understood his frustrations, and expressed my own discontent with the team in question. 

“When I have my yearly review next month, I’m going to go in on myself to D. I can sense all the ways that I’m failing, all the things I’m doing poorly. I can handle criticism from anyone; it’ll never be as hard on me as I am myself,” I said.

We continued at length on this subject; sometimes all it takes is another person who mirrors your personality to reflect back at you your own flaws. It’s one of the easiest ways to identify them.

No. 007