Category Archives: Fiction

The Elevator

It didn’t take long to realize that corporate culture was a phrase that companies use to describe, or more often than not, cover up their weirdness. One company where Max interviewed described themselves as “fast, fun, and friendly” but that was their way of putting lipstick on a pig, kind of like a blind date that was described as having a “great personality.” This wasn’t a bad company or a bad job, it was just weird to Max, like that one uncle – who wasn’t actually his uncle – who worked for his family on the farm, lived alone, and called him skipper. Max hadn’t been in many elevators but soon learned that they were a good way to judge corporate culture, and at this job, when you were in the elevator, it wasn’t fast, fun and friendly, it was slow and you stood quietly with a bunch of people you don’t know and stared nervously at your feet or straight ahead. It wasn’t like there was a sign in the elevator or an elevator policy in the 90-page employee handbook. He knew because one of the requirements of his job was to study the employee handbook, which was presented to him like a gift but was actually just the most boring 3-ring binder in the history of the world. It was apparently just a cultural norm that there would be no talking and no looking at other people so that’s how it happened pretty much every day. But this Monday morning was different. Max followed the herd into the elevator and settled in by the buttons but then his boss, who was one of the few people that he knew and liked – stuck one of her many bags in the way of the closing doors and begged rather urgently “hold the door!” He’d never seen anyone do that before and was sure it broke a policy somewhere but the door wasn’t going anywhere with that big bag in the way, so Max stepped forward – the only person who did – to help her organize her other eleven bags and get into the elevator. Her name was Barbara but most people called her Babs. Everyone but Max that is. She said that she had that nickname since she was a child and that it was totally fine to call her that but she was his boss and he didn’t know her very well so he stuck with Barbara. She thanked him for helping her and they started chatting about the weekend, shattering the rules of elevator decorum, and even though it was Monday morning, it brightened both of their days. Just when the elevator was finally closing again, someone else managed to weasel his way in. The SVP of Human Resources was the definition of a suit, he had that “smart useless look” like how Julia Roberts described Richard Gere in Pretty Woman. It wasn’t enough that he was lacking human personality, he also had to be the leader of human resources – he was a living oxymoron – he didn’t seem human at all. Of course he knew Babs and she may have been the only person he knew that had a nickname so he proudly said “good morning Babs.” Then he made a big mistake. He took a look at all her bags and started with seemingly endless probing clueless questions. “What on earth do you have in all those bags?” was his opener. Babs just smiled and reluctantly started rattling off work stuff, a laptop, her lunch, etc. Being the nosy goofball that he was, he kept going. “Well that accounts for about half of the bags, I can’t imagine why anyone would need all of those bags.” Babs kept looking at the buttons and praying for an end to the elevator ride but it stopped on every floor so other white guys in suits could get out – and they were going to 21. “What’s that big one right there with the hoses sticking out of it?” There weren’t many other poor souls left on the elevator with the three of us and Babs was in the mood to teach our HR friend a lesson so she let him have the truth. “Oh that one is my breast pump. You see, I’m breastfeeding my baby still and every day, I sit in the ladies room down on six in the training department because no one ever uses that bathroom and I hook these suction cups (she took one of them out – the suction cup, not her boob) up to my breasts and this machine extracts milk and puts it into bottles. Two guys reached around me and hit the next button and got off – I recognized them, it wasn’t their floor but they looked even whiter than usual and just wanted to leave. Babs went on, “If I don’t pump during the day, my breasts get engorged and are quite painful and could even dry up. And this works well because after I pump, I store the bottles of milk in this little cooler, bag number six, and then I can feed my baby right after I pick her up at daycare. Time stopped in that elevator – the SVP of Human Resources was visibly sweating and turned from white to green and pushed a button, faced the doors and when they opened on 18, also not his floor, he ran through them. Max had been holding in a laugh and thought he was going to burst but he’d never seen anyone laugh on the corporate elevator before and didn’t know if it was appropriate but then Babs glanced over at him, winked and smiled. When they finally got to 21, Max laughed as he carried several of the bags for his boss – who he liked before and really respected now – and made a point to meet her at the elevators most days from then on. Not only was he part of the best elevator ride in the history of corporate America, he also learned a really valuable lesson about how hard it was to be a working mom in a man’s world.  And from that day forward, he laughed every time he saw the SVP of HR, and he called his boss Babs, they both earned it.  

To The Twin Cities Alone

Thank god for the Big Spunk rest stop on I-94, thought Max. He should have probably stopped in Melrose, Freeport, or Albany but he’d never heard of any of these stupid towns because they weren’t in Clay County where he grew up. All he knew was that he either had to pee in the empty Mountain Dew bottle from the gas station in Alexandria – he had heard of that town – or his bladder was going to explode and he was going to die.

He still couldn’t believe that he was driving himself to the “Twin Cities” as they were called by everyone from his home town who had never been to Melrose, Freeport or Albany either. He had loaded up his Ford Explorer to the point that he couldn’t see out the back window but it didn’t really matter because there wasn’t anyone behind him. Everyone seemed to be in a big god damned hurry – the speed limit sign said 65 but that was obviously just a suggestion as he was being passed by every vehicle on the road – even by minivans driven by someone’s grandparents. He wasn’t totally sure that his truck, loaded down like an Oakie on his way to California, could exceed the posted speed limit anyway. The engine was fighting him to get above 55, which was all the faster it ever went back home – the minimum speed on the sign actually said 45, which sounded pretty good. Max was so nervous about driving on the interstate and potentially missing a turn and being killed and robbed by angry gang members. His dad had told the story at least a hundred times about missing a turn on the interstate in St. Louis on the way to visit relatives in Arkansas. It got more colorful and dire every time. They drove through a rough part of the city filled with gangs for about an hour before they stopped at a gas station and got directions from a clerk with a gun behind bars and plexiglass. Max was pretty sure there weren’t any rough areas in Melrose, Freeport, or Albany but he also didn’t want to take any chances. He just wanted to make it to his apartment in St. Louis Park which he was sure was totally different than St. Louis, more green and less rough. There was a Menards across the highway and a Bennigan’s within walking distance. Menards, of course had everything, “save big money at Menards” is what the jingle said on the radio. So true. He’d never heard of Bennigan’s before but it sort of seemed like it wanted to be a cross between Cheers and an Irish pub and all the waitresses were pretty, they had beer, and a lot of the food was fried so how could you go wrong. The biggest challenge that Max faced now, after finding, pulling over, and not being murdered by gang members or local townies at the Big Spunk rest area, were the directions. He had flown down for his job interview and someone drove him around to find an apartment so he had no idea where he was going. He had the turns written down and memorized but he still wasn’t sure that it sounded right – 94 East to 494 South to 394 East? Why were they all versions of 94? Were all the other numbers taken when these roads were named? He thought that if he got lost and murdered or run off the road by all the cars passing him, everyone at his funeral back home would be murmuring that it’s just not safe down in the Twin Cities. Then he imagined the conversation with his parents in the afterlife, when they would say, “we told you not to move down there, those cities are just too big and dangerous.” Was there passive aggression and guilt in the afterlife? If his mom was there, absolutely. Then a sign flew by above his head, or maybe it passed slowly by, but either way, he missed it, because he was preoccupied by the thought of guilt in heaven. This was it, he thought, he was lost, and then five more signs appeared in the dark over his head. He saw them all but not one of them said “turn here for your new apartment in St. Louis Park you idiot” but all five of them pointed in different directions and had some version of 94 on them. One of them even had a six in there somewhere. He was dead and his mom was going to be so mad at him.