-"If you cut it off, throw it away."-
"If you cut it off, throw it away" - The label someone has adhered to the front panel.
Papercutters unnerve me enough already, and now I'm seeing it up close.
It started yesterday, when I'd just completed one week on the job. I'd known I was in trouble when I showed up at the 8 AM meeting to find someone other than the big man leading it. The office was in happy turmoil preparing for the trip to New York, and he had left early. Perhaps a new temp could skulk about unnoticed in the fracas, particularly one now spending as much time tracking down resources as proofreading. Perhaps, but the implication of my boss's absence has me wondering if anyone with a hidden grudge, or opportunistic sadism would try to take me down.
The moderator ignored me for a half hour. She gave everyone else light tasks to allow for packing, flight wrangling, technology concerns, and NCAA banter. Once or twice, I caught the technical writers peering at me, but they quickly turned away when I turned toward them. When the meeting was over, the moderator crooked a finger at me while studying some papers on the table.
"You may continue to look for references," she said. "But I expect we will have some edits for you, also."
Fair enough. She got up and left me at the table. I took a circuitous route to the temporary cubicle, which turned out to be a very bad idea. The last hall was empty, and silent except for the PA system static. Someone had placed a red pen on the floor, pointing toward the only well-lit doorway. Placed, not dropped; it was too perfectly aligned to be an accident.
Even then, I knew this was a cue to go back, but I kept moving forward, even stopped to pick it up. Idiocy.
Hands seized me from every angle, and pushed me inside. With a chilling efficiency they never exhibited in their work, watercooler workers teamed up with cubicle-leaning workers to lift and invert me, banging my nose on the grid surface of the papercutter. Damn! I thought. No time to think of some cool last words.
The lever and the wedge, I thought sadly. I heard the scrape of the blade rising. There's nothing quite like that sound, or the sound of it coming down. The other workers took up an incomprehensible chant, and marched out of the room to a rumba. They'd left an identification badge on a lanyard, but had thrown my extra hair out in accordance with the papercutter rules.
 | It is a lever and a wedge in one. |
"If you cut it off, throw it away" - The label someone has adhered to the front panel.
Papercutters unnerve me enough already, and now I'm seeing it up close.
It started yesterday, when I'd just completed one week on the job. I'd known I was in trouble when I showed up at the 8 AM meeting to find someone other than the big man leading it. The office was in happy turmoil preparing for the trip to New York, and he had left early. Perhaps a new temp could skulk about unnoticed in the fracas, particularly one now spending as much time tracking down resources as proofreading. Perhaps, but the implication of my boss's absence has me wondering if anyone with a hidden grudge, or opportunistic sadism would try to take me down.
The moderator ignored me for a half hour. She gave everyone else light tasks to allow for packing, flight wrangling, technology concerns, and NCAA banter. Once or twice, I caught the technical writers peering at me, but they quickly turned away when I turned toward them. When the meeting was over, the moderator crooked a finger at me while studying some papers on the table.
"You may continue to look for references," she said. "But I expect we will have some edits for you, also."
Fair enough. She got up and left me at the table. I took a circuitous route to the temporary cubicle, which turned out to be a very bad idea. The last hall was empty, and silent except for the PA system static. Someone had placed a red pen on the floor, pointing toward the only well-lit doorway. Placed, not dropped; it was too perfectly aligned to be an accident.
Even then, I knew this was a cue to go back, but I kept moving forward, even stopped to pick it up. Idiocy.
Hands seized me from every angle, and pushed me inside. With a chilling efficiency they never exhibited in their work, watercooler workers teamed up with cubicle-leaning workers to lift and invert me, banging my nose on the grid surface of the papercutter. Damn! I thought. No time to think of some cool last words.
The lever and the wedge, I thought sadly. I heard the scrape of the blade rising. There's nothing quite like that sound, or the sound of it coming down. The other workers took up an incomprehensible chant, and marched out of the room to a rumba. They'd left an identification badge on a lanyard, but had thrown my extra hair out in accordance with the papercutter rules.
posted by Benedict | 7:45 PM
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