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CounterPunch
December
23, 2002
Copy, Escher, Bach (You Copy?)
by ADAM ENGEL
I've been educated in the finest Universities
in preparation for this breakdown. Literate, patient, diligent.
Fit for the cubicle. I will work hard for the Company. I will
write winning copy. I won't get up to pee, on company time, unless
I really have to go. I won't smoke. I'll sit staid before my
monitor. Grim determination. Won't fidget. Write winning copy.
Advertisements, marketing, executive
speeches and proposals. Inter-office memos. Company newsletters
and PR.
I will rise with the sun. Better yet,
I'll beat it. I will shower, shave and lower myself like a diver
into my suit. I will travel by bus and by train to the tall building
that contains my station. I will leave my cubicle, from time
to time, to attend meetings. I will participate in the meetings
like a team-player, an eager worker, who wishes to communicate
his ideas to others, to share ideas with others, to interact
and cooperate with others in their communal effort to get things
done.
What is to be done? We must create messages.
Mission statements. Slogans. We must convey Executive concepts
in clear, friendly, and when appropriate, witty language.
Lunch. I'm not hungry. I want beer. But
I will not drink beer. Might slow me down. Perhaps a roll or
a bagel and a bottle of seltzer.
I am no longer young. No cigarettes in
the stairwell. That's for kids. The go-getting, tireless young
with their palm pilots and twelve hour days. Must I work twelve
hour days? No. I will not work twelve hour days. I will work
eight hours, like my predecessors. Still, with the commute, my
day will amount to twelve hours. Eight hours in the cubicle,
four hours on trains and buses.
But I will have my own station. A place
to call home five (or more) days a week. How will I decorate
this cubicle? With photographs of loved ones to remind me of...my
reason for living? I love my wife. Perhaps, if we work hard,
we will be able to afford children. I will place photographs
of The Wife and Kids in the cubicle to remind me that the day
will end, that I will be going home to loved ones.
I will work hard in my cubicle to help
the Company earn value. But sitting all day, I might injure my
back. Perhaps I will score a small amount of percocet from time
to time. I will go home and do yoga. I will ride the stationary
bike. I will meditate. If there is time left, I will try to write,
though it will be difficult to pen my own ideas after typing
the thoughts of the Company all day in my cubicle.
At last I will crawl into bed and read.
But there won't be much time for reading, for I must fall asleep
early so that I may rise early to begin the journey to my station.
Also, if we do have children, when they are very young they will
wake me in the night. As they develop, I must spend quality time
with them so they don't feel neglected and grow up to be degenerates
and cause me no end of grief in my declining years. Then again,
these are my declining years, these years in the cubicle. How
many have I left?
Maybe, after a time, if I write winning
copy, the Company will move me to an office. My own office! In
my office I will pace back and forth as I think hard for the
Company. I must be creative and productive. After all, the Company
allowed me my own office. They raised my salary. The health and
well-being of my loved ones, the very roof over our heads, depends
on the success of the Company, depends on my success within the
Company.
But I will grow older, older, and the
workers will grow younger and more vigorous. I will grow tired
of pacing. I will lay down to rest on the nice couch in my office
and snooze to Fugues and Cello Suites.
And then the vultures will descend. As
they carry me away, I will remember life before the cubicle,
a dream. I will remember memory itself, and desire. I will remember
wanting. Nevertheless, I won't miss seeing when the vultures
tear away my eyes. I won't miss knowing as they shuck my cranium
like an oyster.
Adam Engel
reads you. Reads you. Copy. Copy. Over and out. Copy to asengel@attglobal.net
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December 10,
2002
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