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don't worry your PLH
Friday, January 14 2000
Whenever I poke my head up from the isolation of my cubicle cluster, I'm amazed by how tense the workplace environment has become. I think most of this tension comes as a result of a superficial cliqueness which has origins in the founders. It's something rather difficult for me to notice directly, since I maintain (and enjoy) a personal isolation from the distracting politics of the company, but everyone with any social awareness who talks to me about what's wrong in the organization brings up the subject of cliquishness. I mostly see this cliquishness manifesting itself in patronizing attitudes and an overall withholding of information. A pervasive attitude of "don't worry your pretty little head about this; all will eventually be revealed" occasionally drives me to sardonic retorts. Much of what happens in the company is done purely for show, and it's a kind of show whose purpose is to bully. It's nauseating, but (for the most part) it can usually be completely ignored without repercussions.
Everything was going well tonight between Kim and myself until I witnessed her take my Slanted & Enchanted CD out of the CD player and casually slap its media side against the case en route to putting it away. Horrified, I snatched it from her hand and (by way of furious revenge) treated one of her new Cowboy Junkies CDs with a parody of the disrespect she'd just demonstrated. I was irate that Kim had ignored everything I'd said the other day about the proper handling of CDs and that she was now evidently proceeding on a thoughtless campaign of destruction against all the CDs I'd just shipped from Virginia, CDs that had somehow managed to survive Matthew Hart, Gutterpunks, drunken parties and even some of my more egregious blackouts almost completely unscathed. It may seem like I was overreacting a bit, but in my mind Kim's abusive handling of my CDs was symbolic of everything that is wrong with our relationship: her indifference about the value of things, her intrusiveness and her lack of elegance and patience.
Kim was beside herself with a mixture of anger and sadness (along with just a dash of remorse). She pleaded that she's always had a certain amount of trouble with "small motor skills," for example breaking an unusual number of dishes back when she was in high school when her stepmother had her washing dishes.
The fight continued well into the evening. Kim eventually gave up on trying to reconcile with me (all I did was shout at her whenever she came into the computer room), so she went across the courtyard to Jason's apartment to hang out with Jason's mother.
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