The Big Important Meeting (fiction)

In honor of Joshua Ferris’ Then We Came To The End, I’ve written a short piece of office-set fiction:

Here’s how it began:

We were all - four from my team and four from our partner team, plus our Sponsor, and the Legend, and the Dragon, and the Grownup, and someone’s Admin, sitting around the table in the Room for Important Meetings.

My hands were shaking. I’d never presented to the Legend before. I had never even met the Dragon - and she was known to make grown programmers cry, much less very junior Planners like me.

The Dragon took a pen out of the plastic coffee mug in the center of the table and rapped it loudly on the table. She took out another pen and stacked it on top of the first. Very rapidly, using all the pens in the mug, she began to build a log-cabin type of structure out of ballpoints and softgels. As she did this, she glanced pointedly at the Legend.

“What’s with the pens?” asked our Sponsor.

“Oh!” said the Dragon. “Earlier on, my Junior lost a pen. The Legend thinks we’re stealing them.”

“You need a personal stash. A locked cabinet or a helicopter delivery,” said our Sponsor to the Legend.

The Legend nodded. Those of us who were there to present waited for some signal that the meeting should begin. We had handed out our handouts; my counterpart had his computer all set to display the Flowcharts, and I had my printed notes laid out in front of me, marked with red pen, ready to explain the Plan.

It was a Plan not unrelated to Plans that other junior Planners had presented before me. These previous Plans had all more or less gone down in flames. My ambitions for success were pretty much limited to avoiding derision and the sort of embarrassing screw-ups that lead to multiple nights of insomnia. If I came away with a good story, that would be a golden success. If no one asked how I’d gotten hired and no one said, “It sucks, go away and come back when you have your heads out of your asses,” I would be ecstatic.

The Legend got up and left the room. The rest of us waited. In most meetings, we would have opened our laptops and started checking our email or sending instant messages to one another. In this meeting, we sat quiet, our hands folded. We waited.

After a while the Legend came back and sat down.

“Let’s get started,” said our Sponsor. She reminded everyone of why were here, what we were here to talk about, and what we wanted from the Titled in the room.

“Thanks,” said the Senior on our team. He gave a followup introduction, explaining in a little more detail why we were here. He introduced those of us the Legend hadn’t met.

And then it began. My counterpart gave the first section, brought up the first Flowchart on the projector screen, and then nodded at me. I explained the Flowchart, what we wanted to do and why. My counterpart and I had carefully laid out the rhythm of the presentation: he would lead in; I would explain the What, which was the longest section and most prone to questions; he would explain the Why; he would close and I would support. Our Seniors were there for backup. Our Engineers would take any technical questions.

I got about halfway into my section.

“We get it,” said the Legend. “But why not....” and explained what he wanted.

“Oh, sure,” said the Dragon derisively. “We could just....” and spun out her own idea.

“We need to consider the revenue from...” said our Sponsor.

My counterpart and I sat quiet. Every now and then I asked a question or ventured a statement; every now and then my counterpart attempted to bring the conversation back to our presentation. He didn’t have much luck. Once one of our engineers raised a point about data flow. The Legend answered, and the conversation returned to its previous track of possibilities.

About an hour later, our Sponsor asked the Grownup for his opinion. “It sounds okay,” the Grownup said.

My team, and our partner team, and the Dragon, and our Sponsor, all nodded, stood up, and left. The Legend and the Grownup and the Admin stayed behind. Already there was another junior Planner waiting to present. We were two and a half hours late.

We went to the room next door and Debriefed. What was the outcome? What were our next steps? Who would drive? An hour and a half later we had made our way through a Thought Experiment and were on to Deliverables.

Outside the window we could see it was growing dark.

“Okay,” we said to one another, “okay.” We wished each other good weekends and good Friday nights. We wished these things sincerely. One person who knew I still had to pack a bunch of stuff before the movers came wished me good luck.

We picked up our laptops and car keys and notebooks and pens and empty recyclable coffee cups. We gathered our jackets in our arms, balancing everything carefully (but some of us would drop things anyway).

“Later,” we said, as we left the room. We did not specify what would happen later, or what we were referring to. Tired, exhausted, with a sense of the week having drawn finally - gratefully! - to a close, we followed one another out into the darkened hallway, and dispersed into Friday Night, and the Weekend.

Book #8: The Louisville Review, Spring 2005

I bought this a few years back because it was edited by my favorite author. Surely it must therefore be a trove of wonderful writing, poetry and stories I would enjoy for years to come!

Sadly, no.

Last night I reread it, skimming over poems that didn’t grab me, sinking into the one short story that did, always with the standard question in the back of my mind: do I give it shelf space?

Shelf space is at a premium. So no - no, I do not give it shelf space. Out it goes.

In memoriam, here are the poems I liked:

• Maureen Morehead: Morning
• Brad Davis: Anticipating Retirement
• Jonathan Weinert: Blazes
• Amy M Clark: Do you want to hold the baby?

All of these appeal due to the sense of recognition I get from reading them: here is someone who has described something I encounter, something I understand, pretty much exactly. I think I recall reading somewhere that appreciation due to recognition is the lowest form of enjoyment - but a) so what and b) I’m not sure I agree anyway. If someone has put into a words a feeling I’ve had trouble pinning down, and reading it helps me understand it, why isn’t that as artistically compelling as opening up a new idea?

I also sank into one story: David Brendan Hopes’ “Night, Sleep, and the Dreams of Lovers.” This wasn’t great - it was a little contrived and the ending didn’t match up with what had gone before - but I liked the idea. I liked what I imagine the story could have been. General idea is that a painter, very skilled, has his paintings stolen by a fellow student (an MBA, amusingly) - but the fellow student is stealing the paintings and resellling them for the painter’s benefit. In the end, the two characters interact less & less, and finally the painter disappears - which I thought was a bit of a cop-out. I would have rather seen the two characters go at it. There was nothing in the story itself that precluded interaction, fireworks, etc. - so why not indulge the reader’s curiousity?

Book #7: Reading, Writing, and Leaving Home, by Lynn Freed

For about a year I have been searching out books about writing: Stephen King’s On Writing, one by Annie Dillard, a couple of workbook-y things that appear to be part of a series, and most recently, Reading, Writing, and Leaving Home by Lynn Freed.
I have no idea who Lynn Freed is. I bought the book because of the picture on the cover: a young woman with neat 1950s hair, wearing a green dress and carrying a typewriter.
A chapter in, I almost gave up on the book. It was all about the writer’s childhood, her reactions to South Africa and her family, ie things guaranteed to bore me. I find that books about place which are written by people with a strong emotional connection to that place almost always do bore me. There’s no element of discovery, only justification of why the writer is writing about this. Ugh.
At any rate, I plowed on. The book was a convenient size for tossing in my backpack and reading in bed. And I still liked the picture on the cover.
Partway in, the author finally got around to talking about writing: the frustration of false starts, the need to bury or immerse oneself in words to make anything work. “Fiction does not come out of ideas....” “I had deafened myself with thinking....” “A wonderful thing happened. I gave up.” “I opened the notebook and wrote ‘Untitled.’ Then I had to lie down on the bed and sleep for the rest of the day.”
And from talking about writing, to talking about travel: “I have always been a natural foreigner.”
And about the course of life: “still I was asking myself the question I had been asking for as long as I can remember: Is this what you want? ... only now did an answer arrive without a hint of prevarication: No.”
And finally, and most important to me currently, about writing programs, about workshops, about MFAs: a long chapter about the misery of teaching in such, about the inherent contradiction between an environment of incremental progress in a group setting and the solitary nature of getting words down on the page. I read this as justification for not studying what I spend time on, both visual and textual, for the arrogance of thinking I can churn out a manuscript in the next few months. I read this as a challenge, or, better-phrased (since my response to challenges is usually to glare and decide not to play) as inspiration.
Those parts of the book, I couldn’t put down.
I only wish those parts of the book composed more than half.
So I am left with a quandary: give it shelf space? Photocopy the chapters that matter to me and sell it off? Reread it again in a year and see what I think?
I still like the photo of the girl in the green dress, staring out so precisely with her typewriter in hand.

Menus for the week: Jan 18

Brussels Sprout & Mushroom Ragout
from Vegetarian Suppers
~~
Walnut Crostini with Cambozola & Pears
from Small Plates
~~
Buckwheat Crepes with Fried Eggs
from Vegetarian Suppers
~~
Guacamole & Chips
n/a
~~
Leap year cocktail
from what’s-its-name cocktail book

The media tells me that during a recession, people nest (tangential: and so big-screen TVs may do OK after all). During a recession, we all hunker down: conserve resources, have friends over for dinner, reduce-reuse-recycle, save.

And indeed, this weekend I spent two nights out of town, but at a friend’s house rather than a hotel, and contrary to custom there was no fancy restaurant involved. Instead, last night H made paella and we played with the baby and drank wine in the living room and looked out at the lake.

Today I logged on to PlanetOrganics.com to check out my upcoming produce order, and rather than my usual attitude of ‘let’s see what’s in the vegetable box and cross our fingers that it goes together to create dinner,’ which does occasionally result in my throwing out things that I either didn’t have time to prepare or just didn’t get around to, this week I planned what I will cook. See above. I’m assuming some nights of bread and cheese and a frozen pizza or two and fruit salad and mac-and-cheese and a couple of nights out.

Given that this week I’m also going to a Sharks game and presenting to one of our Most Senior Execs at work and trying to make progress on the Crazy Project and going to the gym three times (three! not two like last week!) and probably some other stuff too, I figure this is plenty ambitious. One relatively fancy thing, two simple yummy standbys, and a medium-difficulty. Not bad, I hope. The mushrooms are there as a tease, to get me to do the most complicated thing early-on, before they have time to go bad. If I can pull that off, the others will be easy by comparison.

Social graces

In Peets this afternoon:

Me (taking out computer powerplug out of bag and looking down at electrical outlet, which is full): Um....
Guy at next table: Oh, do you need one of those?
Me: Yeah, I’m about out of power.
Guy: Ok, can you wait like five minutes? I’m almost done.
Me (thinking: WTF? You’re one guy using two plugs! And you ask me to wait?!): Oh, are those both yours?
Guy, tone very annoyed: Yeah, are you like totally out of power?
Me (relieved I won’t actually have to point out that one person using two outlets and then refusing to share is ridiculous): Yeah, I have about thirty seconds before this dies.
Guy, after a pause where we stare awkwardly at one another: Okay, you can unplug the computer. The lower one.
Me, unplugging: Thanks.

And we return in silence to our screens.

And I think to myself:

WHO DOES THAT?! Really?! You use up both available electrical outlets and then act like you’re doing someone else a big favor by giving one up a little earlier than you want to?! Really?! That is SO RUDE! And it just totally violates the unspoken ethical code (“share stuff”) of People Who Take Laptops to Cafes!!!

And okay, fine, taking a laptop to a cafe may be a little pretentious, but I’m testing the theory that I’ll get more done on the Crazy Project if I don’t go straight home first so I have a Worthy Goal and anyway at least I’m not charging my *!/$% phone at the same time!!!

I mean, come on. You’ve been here for at least twenty minutes so you’ve had time to get your battery partly refilled.

SO RUDE!!!

Of course, I didn’t actually say any of that....

A study in contrasts

Yesterday evening, at about 11:30pm, I finished reading War and Peace.

This evening, at about 9:30pm, I finished reading Stephanie Meyer’s New Moon.

I’m sure that says something about ... something, but I don’t really want to think too hard about it.