Connie Willis: Bellwether

“Resources and Initiative are worthless unless they’re guided,” Management said, sticking a G in front of the R and I. “Guided Resource Initiative Management,” he said triumphantly, pointing to each letter in turn. “GRIM.”

“Truer words,” Gina muttered.

“The cornerstone of GRIM is Staff Input.” Management wrote SI on the flipchart. “I want you to divide into brainstorming groups and list five objectives.” He wrote a large 5 on the flipchart.

I looked over at Dr. O’Reilly, still standing by the silverware, wondering if I should invite him to join our brainstorming group, but Gina’d already grabbed Sarah from Chemistry and a woman from Personnel named Elaine who was wearing a sweatband and bicycle pants.

“Five objectives,” Management said, and Elaine immediately got out a notebook and numbered a page from one to five, “for enhancing the work environment at HiTek.”

“Fire Flip,” I said.

“Do you know what she did to me the other day?” Sarah said. “She filed all my lab charts under L for lab.”

“Should I write that down?” Elaine said.

“No,” Gina said, “but I want you all to write this down. Brittany’s birthday is on the eighteenth and you’re all invited. Two o’clock. Presents, cake, and no Power Rangers. I put my foot down. You can have any kind of party you want, I told Brittany, but not Power Rangers.”

Dr. O’Reilly had finally sat down at a table in the middle of the room and had taken off his jacket. It wasn’t an improvement. All it meant was that you could see his tie, which was seriously out of style.

“Have you ever seen the Power Rangers?” Gina was saying.

“I can’t come,” Sarah said. “I’m running in a ten-K race with Paul Ottermeyer.”

“In Safety? I thought you were going with Ted,” Gina said.

“Ted has intimacy issues,” Sarah said. “And until he learns to deal with them, there’s no point in our trying to have a committed relationship.”

“So you’re settling for a ten-K race?” Gina said.

“You should try stair-walking,” Elaine from Personnel said. “It gives you a much better full-body workout than running.”

I leaned my chin on my hand and considered Dr. O’Reilly’s tie. Ties are a lot like the rest of men’s clothes. Almost everything’s in. That wasn’t true until recently. Each era had its own fashion in ties. Striped cravats were in in the 1860s and lavender ties in the 1890s. Bow ties were big in the twenties, hand-painted hula dancers in the forties, neon daisies in the sixties, and anything that wasn’t in was out. But now all of the above are in, along with bolos, bandannas, and the ever-popular no tie at all. Bennett’s tie wasn’t any of those—it was just ugly.

“What are you looking at?” Gina asked.

“Dr. O’Reilly,” I said, wondering if he was old enough to have bought the tie new.

“The geek down in Bio?” Elaine said, craning her neck.

“Bad tie,” Gina said.

“And those glasses,” Sarah said. “They’re so thick you can’t even tell what color his eyes are!”

“Gray,” I said, but Elaine and Sarah had gone back to discussing stair-walking.

“The best stairs are up on campus,” Elaine said. “The engineering building. Sixty-eight steps, but it’s gotten pretty crowded. So I usually do the ones over on Clover.”

“Ted lives on Iris,” Sarah said. “He’s got to acknowledge his male warrior spirit, or he’ll never be able to embrace his female side.”

“All right, fellow workers,” Management said. “Do you have your five objectives? Flip, would you collect them?”

Elaine looked stricken. Gina snatched the list from her and wrote rapidly:

1. Optimize potential.

2. Facilitate empowerment.

3. Implement visioning.

4. Strategize priorities.

5. Augment core structures.

“How did you do that?” I said admiringly.

“Those are the five things I always write down,” she said and handed the list to Flip as she slouched past.

“Before we go any further,” Management said, “I want you all to stand up.”

“Bathroom break,” Gina murmured.

“We’re going to do a sensitivity exercise,” Management said. “Everybody find a partner.”

I turned. Sarah and Elaine had already claimed each other, and Gina was nowhere to be seen. I hesitated, wondering if I could make it all the way over to Dr. O’Reilly in time, and saw a woman in a chic haircut and a red power suit moving purposefully through the crowd to me.

“I’m Dr. Alicia Turnbull,” she said.

“Oh, right,” I said, smiling. “Did you get your box okay?”

“Everybody got a partner?” Management boomed. “Now, face each other and raise both hands, palms outward.”

We did. “You’re all under arrest,” I joked.

Dr. Turnbull raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, fellow workers,” Management said, “now place your palms flat against the palms of your partner’s hands.”

Silliness has always been a dominant trend in America, but it has only recently invaded the workplace, although it has its origins in the efficiency experts of the twenties. Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, the founders of the Cheaper by the Dozen clan, who clearly did not spend all their time in the factory (twelve children, count ’em, twelve), popularized the ideas of motion study, psychology in the workplace, and the outside expert, and American business has been in decline ever since.

“Now, look deep in your partner’s eyes,” Management said, “and tell him or her three things you like about him or her. Okay. One.”

“Where do they come up with this stuff?” I said, looking deep in Dr. Turnbull’s eyes.

“Studies have shown sensitivity training significantly improves corporate workplace relations,” she said frostily.

“Fine,” I said. “You go first.”

“That package clearly said ‘perishable’ on it,” she said, pressing her palms against mine. “You should have delivered it to me immediately.”

“You weren’t there.”

“Then you should have found out where I was.”

“Two,” Management said.

“That package contained valuable cultures. They could have spoiled.”

She seemed to have lost sight of an important point here. “ Flip was the one who was supposed to have delivered it to you.”

“Then what was it doing in your office?”

“Three,” Management said.

“Next time I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a message on my e-mail,” she said. “Well? Aren’t you going to tell me three things you like about me? It’s your turn.”

I like it that you work in Bio and that it’s clear on the other end of the complex, I thought. “I like your suit,” I said, “even though shoulder pads are terribly passé. And so is red. Too threatening. Feminine is what’s in.”

“Don’t you feel better about yourself?” Management said, beaming. “Don’t you feel closer to your fellow worker?”

Too close, in fact. I beat a hasty retreat back to my table and Gina. “Where did you go?” I demanded.

“To the bathroom,” she said. “Meeting Survival Rule Number One. Always be out going to the bathroom during sensitivity exercises.”

“Before we go any further,” Management said, and I braced myself to make a break for the bathroom in case of another sensitivity exercise, but Management was moving right along to the increased paperwork portion of our program, which turned out to be procurement forms.

“We’ve had some complaints about Supply,” Management said, “so we’ve instituted a new policy that will increase efficiency in that department. Instead of the old departmental supply forms, you’ll use a new interdepartmental form. We’ve also restructured the funding allocation procedure. One of the most revolutionary aspects of GRIM is the way it streamlines funding. All applications for project funding will be handled by a central Allocations Review Committee, including projects which were previously approved. All forms are due Monday the twenty-third. All applications must be filed on the new simplified funding allocation application forms.”