A
day in the life of corporate Silly Putty
Note:
Any resemblance of the corporate situation and putty described below
to my own is a sheer, though possibly remarkable, coincidence.
 Meeting
1. No Silly Putty. It’s too early for putty. It’s
8:00 am. No one shows but the meeting organizer and me. People tend
to just think they are exempt from anything that starts before 9:45
around here. It’s weird. He tells me what the project is. I
do it in 10 minutes. If only techwriting were really like this.
Meeting
2. Was the Silly Putty there? I probably didn’t need the
putty just yet. I usually understand what this particular manager
tells me. I would have returned to my desk to do her project immediately
were it not for…
Lunch hour
job fair. Bring silly putty. Plastic egg rolls around in car.
Long lines at contract agency booths suggest desperate air of Titanic
after passengers catch on that there are only so many lifeboats.
Job fair was quite a different picture two years ago, my friends,
back in the days when 401ks were a good investment.
Meeting
3. Manager 1-1. I usually bring putty to these. I go in nervously
smooshing the putty and armed with questions. I declare my demand
for managerial clarity and decisiveness. I depart smooshing the
putty and armed with questions.
Meeting
4. Manager A is brandishing a Vis a Vis white board marker and
heatedly declaring the wrongness of Manager B’s thinking process.
Crazed white board diagrams sprawl like Manson blood graffiti. Manager
C, who is sitting across from me, witnesses my repetitive, unprofessionally
blatant smooshing of the Silly Putty I have brought in lieu of a
notebook. I am open with the putty now. There is nothing to lose.
Meeting
5. People I have never met discussing things I do not know.
Snapping of Silly Putty egg under the desk. If I snap it closed
slowly enough, can I prevent the conspicuous snapping sound? Repeated
experiments reveal the answer to be No.
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