Bentley Little: The Ignored

There were three old women seated around the closest table, dressed in too-bright floral blouses, and pantsuits that had been stylish several decades back. One woman, hair dyed years younger than was flattering, sat nibbling on a bear claw, staring into space. The other two drank cups of coffee, idly flipping through well-thumbed copies of Redbook. None of the women spoke. They barely looked up at the sound of my footsteps as I entered the room.

What the hell had I gotten myself into here? I suddenly found myself wishing that I’d kept my part-time job at Sears as a backup. I could’ve quit this job then. We’d been poor with both of us working part-time, but we’d gotten by, and if I’d known it was going to be like this, I would’ve turned down this position and waited for another.

But I was screwed now, trapped here until I could find something else.

I vowed to start applying elsewhere as soon as possible.

Cokes were fifty cents. I had three quarters in my pocket, and I dropped two of them into the machine, pressed the button. A can of Shasta Cola rolled out. Shasta? The machine sported a Coca-Cola logo.

I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Stewart was sitting in my seat when I returned to the office. He swiveled to face me as I entered the room. “Where have you been?” he asked.

I looked at the clock above the filing cabinets. I’d been gone less than ten minutes. “Break,” I said.

He shook his head. “You’re not one of those, are you?”

I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“You’re entitled to a break by law,” he said. “But don’t abuse the privilege.”

I wanted to respond, wanted to remind him that he had called me and told me to take a fifteen-minute break and that I had been gone only seven or eight minutes, but I didn’t dare. I nodded. “Okay.”

“All right, then.”

I waited. He did not get out of my chair but sat there, leaning back, as he looked at a stapled sheaf of papers in his hand. I stood awkwardly in front of my desk. “On January first,” he said, “Automated Interface will be coming out with a new software package called PayPer. PayPer is an integrated payroll and personnel information system that will allow users to maintain personal data files on employees as well as process payrolls, calculate state and federal withholding deductions, and incorporate pretax and posttax flexible benefit programs. I want you to write a description of the product for a press release I’m preparing.”

Already I felt hopelessly out of my depth, but I nodded in what I hoped was a confident, competent manner.

“I’ll leave this overview with you to look at.” He leaned forward, placed the sheaf of papers on top of my desk, and stood. “I don’t think you’ll have any problems, but if you do, just give me a ring. You can turn in the description before you leave today, or even tomorrow morning if you want. That should give you more than enough time to finish the assignment.”

I nodded again, flattened against the wall to let him pass as he walked around the side of the desk.

I sat down, looked at the paper he’d left me. I wasn’t sure what he wanted. A description? What did that mean? No stylistic guidelines had been laid out for me, I’d been given no examples of the company’s previous press releases; I had not been told “this is what we want” or “this is what we don’t want”; I had not been given a length or line limit. I was on my own, and I realized that this was my first test in the new job and that I’d damn well better pass it.

I glanced over at Derek, and this time there was a real smile on his face.

I did not like the way it looked.

I gathered that Stewart was writing a press release, and that I had to write a short description of this PayPer system for him to incorporate into the release. I read the information he gave me, which was basically a detailed description of PayPer written from a technical standpoint, and figured all I had to do was paraphrase and simplify what I’d been given.

Before I knew it, it was twelve, and Derek was putting away his papers and getting ready to go to lunch. In the hallway outside our office, I saw other men and women carrying sack lunches or jingling keys as they walked toward the elevator. I did not want to be stuck eating lunch with Derek, so I let him leave, then gave him a few extra minutes before walking over to the elevator myself.

I hadn’t brought a lunch, and I didn’t especially feel like hanging around the building for an hour, so I took the elevator to the first floor and walked out to my car. I’d seen a Taco Bell near the freeway on my way in that day, and I figured I’d eat there.

Apparently, a lot of other people from Automated Interface or the other corporations in the area had the same idea as me, because Taco Bell was packed. It was a half hour before I ordered and got my food, and because all of the tables were taken, I was forced to eat in my car. By the time I finished eating, drove back to work, and found a parking place, I knew my hour would be over.

From now on, I decided, I would bring my lunch.

I saw Lisa walking out to her car when I returned, and I waved to her and smiled as I made my way through the parking lot. She stared at me blankly, then looked away. I realized, too late, that her show up there in Personnel had been just that — a show. She had not been flirting with me after all. She had been doing her job. Obviously, she smiled at everyone the way she’d smiled at me, touched everyone the way she’d touched me.

I returned to my office, feeling chastened and humiliated.

I was finished with my description by two, but I still had three hours to kill, so I spent the time going over my copy, trying to make it perfect. I typed the description on the typewriter next to my desk and brought it to Stewart’s office around four-thirty. He said nothing as he read it, and no expression crossed his face. He didn’t say it was brilliant, didn’t say it was a piece of shit, so I assumed it was acceptable.

He placed the page in a drawer. “Next time,” he said, “I want you to write on the PC so we can revise your work if necessary. I’m going to have the typewriter taken out of your office.”

I was not that familiar with word processors, but I had used one in a communications course in college and was pretty sure I’d be able to pick it up easily, so I nodded. “I would’ve used it for this,” I said, “but no one told me where it was.”

He glanced at me. “Sometimes you have to take your own initiative,” he said.

I nodded, said nothing.

Jane was making dinner when I came home — spaghetti — and I took off my jacket and tie, threw them on the back of the couch, and walked into the kitchen. It felt weird to me, coming home like this. The apartment was warm and filled with the smell of cooking food, the local news was on TV, and though these were things that happened every day, I felt out of it and slightly disoriented because they were already in progress when I arrived. I hadn’t been home when Jane had closed the windows against the late afternoon chill, I hadn’t been home when she’d turned on the TV for Donahue , I hadn’t been home when she’d started dinner, and all of this made me feel like a stranger, an outsider. I guess I’d gotten used to the way things were, to working part-time and hanging around the apartment for a good portion of the day, and this readjustment of my daily life threw me more than I would have expected.

I walked into the kitchen, and Jane turned to me, smiling, still stirring the spaghetti sauce. “How was it?” she asked.

She didn’t say, “How was your day, dear?”, but the intent was the same and for some reason it rubbed me the wrong way. It was… too Ozzie and Harriet. I shrugged, sitting down. “Okay.” I wanted to say more. I wanted to tell her about Lisa and Banks and Stewart and Derek, about my horrible office and the horrible break room and my horrible job, but her question put me off somehow and I sat silently, staring through the kitchen doorway at the TV in the living room.