Things have been a little off kilter around the office the last few weeks. You could see it in the way the whispering groups were coming together more and more often, their conversations becoming more hushed and urgent, and in the desperate attempts of loners to find entry into one of these groups. The groups formed at the doors of various cubicles. There were usually three to five people in a group. They huddled close together, looked out around the office at the other groups, and then went back to their own conversations. In better times they went out to lunch together, or played silly little jokes on each other. They were dynamic, easily adding or subtracting members based on personalities and petty conflicts. Not now, not when a humid, oppressive insecurity filled the office air. People were sweating and it was difficult to breathe. The groups guarded their whispers jealously. "Secrets" which could only be traded for information from other groups. Body language told all who approached they were not welcome unless they were willing to offer payment of some new information.
Arnold belonged to a small, mostly inconsequential whispering group. He had not planned well for this moment and he was paying the price. Still, his two colleagues Yusef and Imelda were better than nothing. And Yusef had been through these types of reorganizations three times before he had some value as a historicist.
They stood together at the entrance of Imelda's cubicle trying hard to look like they had something to talk about so that somebody from another whispering group would approach them with something to talk about. This was the third time they had come together today. They felt the need to do this because the other whispering groups were coming together so often. Imelda craned her neck to observe the office. "Some of them know something. Something is happening," she said.
"There's going to be a big reorganization," Yusef said. He kept a constant vigil in anticipation of company reorganizations. He was firmly convinced that if you knew what was coming far enough in advance you could do the political spade work to protect yourself. This didn't explain why Yusef had been downsized in each of his three reorganizations. "They're all talking about it but they don't know about it yet. But they don't want us to know they don't know about it so that maybe we'll tell them something about it."
"We need to do more to make them think we know about it," Arnold said. "That's the only way we'll find out what they know."
"As long as they don't find out what we know," Yusef warned.
"But we don't know anything," Imelda said. Imelda was young and innocent; this was the reason she was not an optimum whispering group member in this situation.
Imelda looked around again. "Jim is coming in this direction." Jim belonged to a rare species, able to move between the groups, picking up tidbits of information without ever actually becoming attached to one. It was a skill that Arnold envied. Jim was the ultimate politician who always got invited to everybody's birthday lunch, but always left early so he wouldn't have to share in the guest of honor's bill. The different groups thought he was valuable because he might have information. He was especially valuable to a lower caste group such as Arnold's. But you always had to be on guard of giving away your information.
"Things are pretty tense around here," Jim said when he reached them, as if he was offering them some new take on the situation.
"You have any idea what's going on?" Arnold asked, trying to set the tone of the conversation. The whispering group was in charge and Jim was an outsider.
"I hear there is going to be a reorganization," Yusef said. Arnold sighed in frustration. Yusef hadn't heard anything of the sort. He would be the last person anybody would tell about reorganization. Jim seemed to recognize this as pseudo-gossip and didn't bother to acknowledge it.
Jim clapped his hands once and rubbed them together. This was the universal signal that he had some real juicy information. Any person who did not walk away from the whispering group at this moment was tacitly acknowledging they would be in Jim's debt. Nobody moved. "Marge up in accounting just wrote out a big invoice to a publisher," he said. The whispering group went quiet.
"Maybe they're buying us manuals," Imelda said. "I heard they might be changing their operating system."
Arnold shook his head. "When was the last time they bought us anything?"
"It's the book," Yusef said with a shudder. "They're buying the book to hand out."
"That's what I think," Jim said with a smirk.
"What book?" Imelda asked warily. Arnold felt pity for her. She was young. This was her first real job. She really believed bringing doughnuts and bagels would help her. She didn't understand and she would be the first one to go. At the same time he was appreciative that there was somebody who would certainly go before him, and he was appreciative of the doughnuts. Arnold took a quick look around the room and tried to calculate his odds of surviving.
"Who Moved My Cheese," Yusef told her, as if this should be obvious.
"That's supposed to be a good book right?" Imelda asked, confused. "I saw something on the Today Show about it."
Yusef laughed, breaking one of the key rules of a whispering group. Knowing smirks were allowed, even valuable. But laughing drew too much attention and represented a loss of control. You wanted others to think the members of your whispering group were in control. A loss of control meant you were afraid, and being afraid meant you didn't have any inside information. And if your whispering group didn't have any inside information it was because you were marginal, barely visible. Yusef seemed to recognize his mistake and took a more modest pose, trying desperately to contort his face into a smirk. Arnold cursed himself for not having found a stronger whispering group when he had a chance. This was no time to be surrounded by innocents and hotheads. But it was too late. People saw change coming and they were closing ranks.
"It's like the Kool-Aid," Arnold said softly. "They want you to think everything is fine so they give you this stupid little book about these two stupid little mice and cheese."
"I hate those mice," Yusef spluttered. "They are stupid little rodents who don't care anything about me, anything about anybody."
"They're fictional characters," Jim said, preparing his exit, probably feeling sorry he wasted his information on such a lowly group.
"They want you to think that change is good," Arnold said, still in explaining mode.
"All three reorganizations we went through I got the damned book," Yusef said. "One time they even took us to lunch at this cut-rate Indian buffet where you had to buy your own iced teas from your own pocket just to talk about this stupid book. How can we be more like the good mouse?' they asked us. There were some who raised their hands and said, yes, yes, we must learn to adapt, to embrace the new.' Oh, how I hate those types of people." He took a sideways glance at Imelda. "They were the first ones to go."
"So if we get the book, it's all over?" Imelda asked, starting to look frightened.
"Not necessarily over," Aaron said, still trying to play the pedagogue.
"Some move slowly, some move quickly," Yusef said, taking on some of the characteristics of an Old Testament prophet, "but you must understand they have already decided. Change means changing you."
"Well I've got to continue my rounds." Jim was acting the jolly reaper, which annoyed Arnold no end. "But let me know if you hear anything." A thinly veiled demand of payment for services received.
Arnold used Jim's exit as a chance to make his escape. He had to think. If the book was coming he had to make good decisions the better the decisions the longer he might survive. If things deteriorated he would have to cut Imelda and Yusef loose. Imelda was sweet, smart and probably loyal. But she was overweight and a good girl, two qualities that worked against women in offices. It was probably better to treat her as if she was already dead. Yusef presented more of a dilemma. He was paranoid and often erratic. If he thought Arnold was trying to abandon him in a time of trouble he could cause problems. Arnold would have to be delicate but move quickly. It would be best to keep Yusef off guard. He wrote in his calendar, "Lunch with Yusef no Indian."
He heard the "Bing", the computer telling him there was an e-mail message. It was from management. That was what they called themselves in the "From" line of the e-mail messages. He double clicked on the message and saw a well laid out invitation to a breakfast meeting tomorrow morning to "talk about future directions for our company." There would be bagels and spreads and Starbucks coffee. This wasn't good more Kool-Aid. Within seconds the whispering groups reformed around the office. Yusef was standing at the entry to Imelda's cubicle with a look of panic. Arnold knew he was expected to join them. They were supposed to dissect the implications of the message immediately. What did they mean by "our company", and why "Starbucks" instead of just coffee. And spreads, that was a term for baby showers, the type of thing management actively discouraged.
Arnold thought it all meant that the books would be distributed tomorrow morning. They were being set up to talk about new opportunities and the mice. It would be the beginning of the end. He looked over and saw that Yusef and Imelda were staring at him, wondering why he wasn't joining them. Arnold tried to avoid direct eye contact. He had to make the break now if he was going to survive. He couldn't lose his job. Friends had been out of work for over a year.
Arnold thought about the book. He had only one chance he had to stay away from the book. If they couldn't get the book in his hands maybe they couldn't start the process. It didn't really make sense, but these things rarely did. When he was in middle school he tried out for the football team with his friend Steven. They both went to the first day of weeklong try-outs but then Steven got sick and missed the rest of the week while Arnold sweated through the brutal drills. Arnold was cut from the team but Steven made it. He was convinced it was because the coaches had no idea who Steven was. That was the way these things worked sometimes.
Arnold needed an excuse to miss the breakfast meeting. He could blame his children. Arnold didn't actually have any children, but he was sure management didn't know that. But he was also convinced that management didn't really approve of children as anything more than an abstract concept they represented a possible dilution of resources. A doctor's appointment was probably better, but it couldn't be for anything that might actually cause him to use a sick day. Sick days, like the guest towels in his mother's bathroom, were for show and not for blow. He decided on using the excuse of his annual physical. He would write that he hated to miss the meeting, especially the free food - management loved self-deprecating humor from its underlings, as long as it didn't show excessive initiative by being funny but he had been waiting for this appointment for months. He waited until late in the day to send the message and then left quickly, so he wouldn't have to respond to a response.
Arnold was almost in his car when Yusef came running up to him. Another break in protocol, you never let somebody know you wanted to talk to them no matter how much you actually did want to talk to them unless you were going to tell them something they didn't want to know.
"Spreads, they're going to give us spreads," Yusef said in disgust.
Arnold wanted to get away. He was alone now, he had a plan, and he didn't want any Yusef baggage dragging him down. "I can't make it; I have a doctor's appointment."
"No, you're abandoning me," Yusef said, taking a step backwards.
Arnold should have realized Yusef's antennae would be up. He cursed himself for his clumsiness. "I really don't think anything big is going to happen tomorrow. It's too quick. And I've had this appointment for months."
"Tomorrow they will give us the books. They will feed us bagels and their ugly, ugly spreads and they will tell us about their fucking mice and how we have to find new cheese, while all the time they are plotting in their executive saunas how to send my cheese to India."
Yusef was losing control. Arnold looked around the parking lot to see who might be watching. He couldn't afford to be seen with an out of control member of his own whispering group. He would be tarred through association. "No, no, Jim told me the bagels are to celebrate the new president's birthday." It was all he could think of on the spur of the moment.
"Do not lie to me, Arnold Jacoby." Yusef was back to the Old Testament. "I know the truth. Do not think you can escape it by running away to some phony doctor's appointment."
"I have to go. I have to go Yusef. I have to pick up my kid."
"What kid? You have a kid?"
Arnold got in his car and pulled away before Yusef could recover from his confusion. That night Arnold set his alarm to wake up late, so he wouldn't forget and go in to work early. He barely slept at all. When he did drift off into twilight sleep his mind produced wild, vivid dreams only once removed from reality. In one dream he was a mouse and Yusef was a mouse and they were locked in a death struggle while the cheese they were standing on slowly crumbled into nothing. In another dream he was a mouse and Imelda was a piece of cheese and Arnold was slowly eating her while she screamed, "They are buying the books to help us; they want us to be better workers."
Arnold went into the office bleary eyed late the next morning. He shifted his eyes in an effort to spy people's desks as he made his way to his cubicle. He saw that at least one person was thumbing through a book. It was the Who Moved My Cheese book, Arnold was sure. His gambit had paid off. He did not carry the curse of the book on his back. He stopped by Yusef's cubicle hoping he could pick up some information about the morning meeting, but he left quickly when he saw the rage mixed with despair twisted into Yuself's face.
Arnold opened up his e-mail as soon as he sat down at his desk. There was what looked like a general message from management reading, "Of course I want to assure you that nobody's job is the least bit in danger. The changes we are planning will make our company that much more strong. It is in everybody's best interests to have the strongest possible company." Things must have gone worse at the morning bagels meeting than management expected. Someone must have asked what was going to happen to them perhaps Imelda through innocence or Yusef through anger.
There was also a message in response to his note about missing the meeting. Arnold was invited to stop by the executive offices when he had a few moments for some "catch up." The message was worded so positively that Arnold's initial thought was management recognized how clever he was in missing the morning meeting and wanted to offer him some type of executive position. He quickly shook that idea from his head. He had to remember that there was no good for him in this type of visit. Management probably wanted to give him the book personally. He had to avoid actual contact with them if he was going to make it through the day without the mice. The longer he stretched this out the greater his chances of escaping the book.
Arnold waited until 12:30, when he was sure everybody would be out to lunch, to go up to the executive offices. He went to the door of the offices but no further, feeling protected by that secret force field that separated management from workers. A young receptionist in a very bright red dress was sitting at a desk carefully spooning strawberry yogurt into her mouth.
"Management said they wanted to see me," Arnold said.
"Nobody here right now," the receptionist mumbled through a mouthful of cultured milk. Some of it dribbled down her lips and onto her adorable red dress. "Oh damn."
"Well, tell them I was here," Arnold said, wanting to get away before any of them got back.
"What?"
"Can you tell them Arnold Jacoby was here?"
Visibly annoyed, she took time away from wiping the yogurt off her clothes to jot down his name. Arnold left quickly. Everything was working today. They really should give him a position in management. He got something to eat at a hot dog cart outside and took fifteen minutes to enjoy the day.
When Arnold got back to his desk he saw that a small, brown paper package was waiting for him. It was about the size of a book the book. This was tricky. Management was trying to get the book to him on the sly. He quickly decided that if he did not open the package, better if he did not even touch it, the magic would hold and he would be safe from the coming reorganization. He had to think fast, the book couldn't stay there like that.
Arnold tried to think who he could manipulate to take the book. Imelda was the first person to come to mind. He walked over to her cubicle. "Imelda, I have something for you."
"For me?" Her face lit up, just like he knew it would. He could tell her it was some type of mistake after she opened it, that he grabbed the wrong package on the way out of his apartment. Or he could say it was a bad joke and apologize profusely.
"It's on my desk, why don't you go get it?" Then, worrying that she might open it there and leave it behind in disappointment, he added, "Why don't you bring it back here so I can watch you open it up?"
Imelda looked at Arnold like he was crazy, but she went to get her gift anyway. Arnold was a little worried about her reaction, but he could make it up to her with flowers or chocolates. She brought the package back to her cubicle, almost giggling as she ripped off the brown paper. She held up the glossy magazine with a stunned look in her eyes. It was an old, but very well preserved copy of Hustler magazine, with one of its most famous and disgusting covers.
"What the hell is this supposed to mean?" Imelda said in a harsh whisper. It was the first time Arnold had ever seen her mad.
A month ago Sam up in accounting had told Arnold he could get him this particular issue for two hundred dollars. Arnold, being a collector of sorts of famous magazine covers, jumped at the chance. He paid the money up front and had heard nothing more from Sam. He was worried that he had been scammed, but he couldn't exactly go screaming up to accounting for his missing Hustler. "I'm not sure," he stammered.
"Get away from me," Imelda said in such sorrow that Arnold started to melt into the floor. He had really hurt her and had no idea how to apologize. He wanted to scream that it wasn't his fault - it was the god damned mice. She threw the magazine into the wastebasket. He didn't have the nerve to reach in and pluck out his two hundred dollars.
Arnold now had what he wanted - he was completely alone. He had alienated himself from Yusef and Imelda. It was fine. Survival was a loner's sport. And he consoled himself that the others with their whispering groups had the weight of the book, and he did not. He went back to his cubicle and checked his e-mail. No messages from management about how sorry they were to have missed him. He wondered whether the receptionist had gotten his name right in her yogurt mess haze.
Near the end of the day, Jim stopped by Arnold's cubicle. "Hey fellah, you were late today." It was a question presented as a statement. Do something different and people think you're crazy or you know something they don't. Jim was the type of person who had to find out which, not because he cared but because it was a relatively good piece of information.
"I had a doctor's appointment." Arnold was saying it so much he was beginning to believe he actually had gone to the doctor.
"You missed a very interesting meeting," Jim said slowly pulling out the words. "They told us that they were going to start using a company in India to perform some basic functions for the company. They were telling us because they didn't want anybody to worry."
"Then why did they tell us?"
"Well, you know, they felt it really wasn't a bad thing they were telling us."
"Because in the end it is going to make us a stronger company," Arnold said with a sigh.
"Exactly."
"How did everybody react when they handed out the books?" Arnold worked hard to keep the giddiness about how he massaged the whole situation out of his voice.
Jim scrunched up his face. "Books?"
Arnold stared at him. Jim was playing with his head. "You know, the books."
"What books are you talking about?"
"About the mice." Arnold was becoming frustrated.
"You mean the cheese books?" Jim asked, cocking his head.
Could he have imagined it? Was it possible he made such a miscalculation? "I'm sure I saw people reading the book when I came in."
"No book, Arnie. But maybe it's coming."
Arnold hated that patronizing tone of voice, and he hated to be called Arnie. He was starting to hate Jim, which really wasn't that big a leap of emotions. He stood up even though he knew it was a mistake. "Don't you remember when we were talking about it yesterday? You told us about the invoice from the publisher."
Jim looked at him like he was acting dangerously outside the boundaries of decent behavior. "I've got to be going. I'll let you know if I get the book."
Arnold recognized what was happening. It was the same thing he had done to Yusef yesterday. He was being dismissed as unnecessary and dangerous luggage. There was nothing he could do but try and rescue a sliver of his self-respect by waving Jim away.
Arnold fell back into his chair. His great strategic success was devolving into ashes. He had no way of getting information about what really happened at the morning meeting. His whispering group was gone and he was probably already the subject of gossip in the other groups. He tried desperately to recover, to come up with a new and better strategy for the coming reorganization. He stayed late because he didn't want to run in to Yusef, or Imelda, or anybody on the way out. He decided to leave at 6:30 when the office was mostly cleared out. He walked with heavy steps. It was painful to even look in the empty cubicles.
"Jacoby." Arnold heard his name called out as he entered the hallway. He turned to see a small, youngish man, dressed immaculately even at 6:30. He was a member of the management team, a real go-getter. At this moment Arnold despised him as much as any person on earth. "I'm sorry we missed you earlier."
"I had a doctor's appointment."
"Hope everything's all right."
"Just a physical."
The management man considered this for a while. "I was wondering if you wouldn't mind coming to my office for a few minutes."
Arnold wanted to come up with an excuse, but he couldn't because the "few minutes" was probably about his previous excuse. And he might need to use another excuse soon. Arnold followed the go-getter to his office. "I'll be honest with you Jacoby," he said when they reached his office, "people I won't say who have suggested you've been acting a little erratically since the morning meeting."
"I wasn't at the meeting."
"I know how you're feeling. It seems like a state of flux," he said, as if Arnold had not spoken. "Now people have told me that this erratic behavior of yours is very," he scratched his head.
"Erratic?" Arnold asked softly.
"Yes, good. I know change is harder for some people than others, but you really need to embrace it. These changes are going to make your life so much easier if you learn to look at them as new opportunities."
"The changes are going to make the company stronger." Arnold knew the value in parroting back management's words to management. It showed clear and decisive thinking.
"You see, we think you're a real asset to this company Jacoby. We want you to be one of our rocks in the change over. I want to give you something that I think will help you put this change in perspective."
Arnold gulped. He knew exactly what the go-getter was going to offer him. "No thank you."
"What did you say Jacoby?" he asked, stunned.
"I don't want the book." Arnold got up from his chair before management could respond. He walked out of the office and went directly home. He needed to work on his resume.
