Left To Our Own Devices

Two weeks ago, a survey was sent out to each employee of the company. On it read the following question: Would you like to go back to the office? 

No - marked Johnson, a man in his thirties. 

"Because I don’t want to” wasn’t a suitable follow-up, thought Johnson. So he wrote "to take care of my family,” though his family was already plenty taken care of. He submitted the survey with a hint of proudness from his creative answer. He hadn’t exercised this muscle in a while, certainly not at his job. 

To Johnson’s disappointment, management thought differently. However unknown to him and the rest of his fellow co-workers, there was a unanimous plea to work remotely with a whopping 99% of the answers having to do with taking care of family. One co-worker had forgotten to add this extra-creative spin to their answer, and  so “because I want to” remained as the sole differentiated response.

So everyone came back to the office.

While their feet moved begrudgingly to the office, and Johnson most begrudgingly of all, they all made it there before 8:30am. Johnson squeezed into the meeting at 8:29am as the last attendee to the company meeting. He surveyed the participants. Each face gleamed with the exact caffeine from one grande cappuccino sans regular milk plus oatmilk. 

During remote work at his home, Johnson was accustomed to reading kindle books on his computer while on Zoom meetings. He even shook his head once in a while when his subconscious picked up the end of a colleague’s monologue. Johnson figured nobody would be able to tell the difference between his rapt attention on books vs. calls. It turned out he was right. Everyone in the company agreed – Johnson was, by far, the most attentive employee at meetings.

“And so our company projections are good. In fact I think we’ll do better next quarter,” said one of his co-workers who eyed Johnson to see his reaction.

Johnson, without the use of Kindle books to aid him, stared blankly at his computer screen thinking about his options for dinner.

The co-worker walked closer to Johnson, “I tell you all, we’ll improve this quarter by my estimation 47%,” with a flourish in Johnson’s direction, looking for any indication of approval.

Johnson scratched his nose and had moved his thoughts to what he might have for breakfast tomorrow. 

The coworker exasperated, sat down with a plump. 

Johnson heard nothing and continued to stare at his screen, trying to hide behind it literally as he had metaphorically when working remotely. When the company meeting was over - Johnson went directly to the smaller team meeting across the hall to listen to his boss rant.

Four weeks ago, Johnson had listened to a World War I documentary while working on a past memo. He remembered how men would run into incoming fire at the beck-and-call of safe-and-secure generals. He thought he would prefer the shrapnel tearing through his body at the rate of fifty bullets per second at 400mph then the lecture of his boss which was causing equal damage to his mind. 

Hell was reserved for weekly team meetings. Johnson was sure that this was true. Unlike the weekly company meetings which could be skipped on occasion, team meetings were a must-attend. It even said so on the Google Calendar invite. And so when Johnson heard the first words out of his boss’s mouth “Good morning troops!” he pinched himself to see if it hurt. It did. This had the effect of exacerbating his fears that he was definitely in Hell. 

Johnson always felt most protective of his time when it was being impinged by others. But when given free time, he was careless. Because right when the meeting was over with fifteen minutes to spare before another meeting he went straight to the restroom to check if he had to pee for the fifth time that day. Once he was sure there wasn’t a drop left from his bladder he spent the reminder of his time looking at the lackluster snack selection. It was food that tasted like cardboard or cardboard that tasted like food. It took nine minutes before he decided to forego the snack altogether. 

The rest of the day flowed not by time, but meetings as Johnson bounced around from one to the next. His autopilot consisted of forced smiles, forced laughter, and everyone once in a while forced confidence in his words when he needed to show he was paying attention. This had the effect of thinking about other things, mostly what it might be like to never work at all as the clock ticked down to the final minute before he could leave without anyone raising so much as a single eyebrow.

And then repeat - marked Johnson in his head as the elevator took him down, down, down. 

————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Jones had left his job. And by left, he had finally quit at the solid age of 32. To his mild surprise, there was not a parade, not even a goddamn silver flute. Everyone still remained in their rigid positions. Those fools! - thought Jones, as he skipped out the doors despite no on-going festivities in his vicinity. 

Jones had just escaped this horrendous situation, and it felt like he was seeing clearly for the first time. Nobody else seemed to notice though – it’s like they were on autopilot as Jones had passed them on his way out of the office for the final time. They don’t even know they’re in a prison, he thought. 

On his way home, Jones did a few calculations. If he spent the same amount he had done so in the past month, he could survive for exactly twelve months. If he wasn’t able to generate even one extra dollar in a year from now, Jones would have as much money as the homeless man four blocks away everyone called Paddy. Perhaps less because everyone really liked Paddy in the neighborhood.

Jones lay on his full-sized bed in his studio apartment contemplating the opportunities before him. Without his time devoted to work, he had time to train for the marathon he had always wanted, study Portuguese spoken by his grandmo… 

A message popped up on his iPhone. Actually it was three by the time he had managed to free his phone from the most sequestered corner in his pocket. An email, a tinder match, and an ESPN notification. After turning to his clock for some, he realized time had played a cruel trick on him. Two hours had passed within the span of checking a few notifications or was it many? 

Jones' stomach growled for a second as if his whole world was collapsing. He could cook something, but now called for a celebration. When he was at work, time constraints made him choose with haste on his food-ordering app. But now, not only could have the decent amount of time to devote to studied research for the exact food he was looking for, but he could also do a price comparison between apps. His time was now in his hands. 

With the time poured into his research, he found that it was too difficult to decide between the six options he had always wanted to try. So instead he lamented, threw his hands in the air, went to his past history, and chose something he ordered the week prior to this. Well at least I know I went with a good option – thought Jones. 

Jones had a blank sheet of paper in front of him with a special pen reserved only for occasions of importance. The blankness seemed as formidable as his old boss did, except that it had more possibility than regional manager to the slightly more prestigious general manager. Jones motioned towards his pen, but another buzz filled his pocket. 

Time stopped and nothing moved. 

Jones could hear only one thought, Should I pick it up or not. 

Time moved just as slowly as his Portuguese grandmother’s choice between television channels after one glass of wine. Click. Some words in Portuguese followed from her lips. “Esse show é uma merde.” Then after what may have seemed like she had finally settled in on a channel, Click. And just as Jones had settled in on the choice that he was not going to pick up his phone, Click. 

Before his brain could function properly, he sprang toward his phone in such a way that he managed to look like he was in pain. The pain of anticipation. He grasped the edges of the phone deep in that same spot in his pocket and pulled. When it was just him and his reflection bouncing off the screen, Jones clicked on the button. And absolutely nothing appeared. 

Jones was now a victim. Researchers at Concordia University introduced students to each other followed by games such as Monopoly, Charades, and even Twister. They then added them all to a group message over cellular devices and sent them to take a test with their phone within the room. Students would often check their phones in their pockets looking for any sign of a message. This is what researcher Sarah von Gotz, behind a two-way mirror, labeled the phantom buzz.

Still, Jones went through his routine he knew in the back of his mind was a habit but had ventured to explore. “So many possibilities” was shrinking as he went through Gmail, three different dating apps, and Instagram. He found himself on Youtube watching his latest movie trailer when he remembered his task at hand. He had promised his friend that he’d be free for dinner to tell him how his first day of freedom was. But first his restaurant selection needed research.

It was late at night, when Jones returned to his apartment. He noticed the blank white sheet that somehow triggered feelings of immense guilt. It almost put him into a panic, but instead he took the medicine of assuaging himself that he would in fact get this to-do list done tomorrow. 

For some reason perhaps the couple of drinks he had with his friend Jones had an impulse to actually create something to write!

It was just a paragraph or two before he set it aside. But he was sure he would continue this for tomorrow along with the check list of possibilities. He checked his phone one last time, and just as he was about to mentally and physically let go of this short piece - he signed his name with a flourish of imagined fame, Jones Johnson. He looked at the signature admiringly. 

Maybe one day the man with two last names would be an author.