Someone who can't

I am in trouble at work because I work too hard. I get things done too fast, they say. Everything I do has to be checked out by the person above me before it can be sent along, and I go too fast--I get the work done faster than it can be checked, and so it piles up. My supervisor has other work to do too, besides just check me, which is the problem, or part of it at least.

My job is very easy, is the problem. I check the information from one spreadsheet against the information from another spreadsheet and change it accordingly, if necessary. It is a part of our company's efforts to combine three of our two nearly-identical databases into one. They all log the same information--all three--with some slight differences, I am told, though I am not sure what they are, and I don't really feel like asking. I did ask once--the young woman in the cubicle across from mine. It was just an excuse to strike up a conversation about anything. She has a weird face--looks like it's been eaten away at with acid. Not that she has acid scars all over her face or anything--just a weird shape, and when I see it, I think acid. Just a feeling. Anyway, she said she didn't know what the databases were for, or what the differences were. She seemed to be working on a different database than I was. She had a banana. She threw the fruit into the wastebasket and sucked on the peel. I asked if she had any plans for Saturday night--she said she was busy.

I try to waste time, I really do. I tell this to my boss but he frowns and shakes his head and accuses me of not putting in a good-faith effort to slow down, but I have. I take long walks around the office, up and through the cubicles. I just circle the entire room a few times then sit down and get back to work. I read the paper, do the crossword. I've even brought magazine and books. I go to the breakroom and drink cup after cup of water (I don't drink coffee). Sometimes I add sugar to the water and drink sugarwater, but I don't do that too often, because that only gets my energy up and I end up working even faster than before, which is the problem, of course. I've gone entire days without lifting a finger, practically. But it is not enough. I don't know anyone in the office, so I don't talk to anyone; maybe that is part of the problem. I need to make some friends.

My predecessor worked here for about nine months before he found a better job elsewhere. That was my plan--to work here for a bit, build up the ol' resume, then move on. I don't want to stay here. I haven't even bothered learning what the databases do, and--as if sensing my lack of loyalty to this place--no one has bothered to teach me. There are three databases: Phase I, Phase II and Phase IV. We are combining Phases I and II, I think. I do not know what the phases mean, nor do I know what happened to Phase III. I don't even know if there ever was a Phase III. But my boss says such advancement is impossible for me if I don't learn to stop messing around and work less hard. He has even implied that my job may be in jeopardy--he said "don't work as hard or we'll bring in someone who can't." He said this as he was vacuuming the carpet in his office--his child had spilled pretzels all over. The child sat in a chair with its head down, frowning, looking embarrassed and yelled at.

I know I need to slow down, and I am afraid of losing my job. Last week, I went into the bathroom and slammed the toilet seat on the back of my head until I passed out. When I came to (about 8:15 or so that night), there were papers scattered all across the floor. I picked them up and examined them closely. My databases! Someone else had done the work! But they had done them all wrong, and I would have to redo them the next day, which would take me even longer than if I had simply done nothing but ensure the work wasn't done by anyone else. It was a victory.

There is a woman in my row of cubicles who brings a cat into work in her purse. She thinks we don't know, but everyone does, or I do, at least. She spends the whole day tearing scrap paper into little bits of confetti and sprinkling them into her purse, onto the cat. I haven't seen the cat--occasionally I catch a glimpse of the paw, and the woman will regard me with suspicion. Does the cat eat the paper? Play with it? I don't know. I do know what's on the paper--the woman prints pictures of cats--hundreds of pictures--and uses those pictures as her scrap paper. I wanted to ask her what she was doing once, but I was afraid, and I'm not sure she speaks English. It is not a large purse.

Once, killing time, I decided to explore our building's boiler room. It was not on the basement, as one might expect--that's what I expected, anyway--but on the top floor. The top floor of our building has no walls, only windows from floor to ceiling. It is a beautiful view, or it might be, were it not obstructed by the large brick buildings that box us in on all sides. I was admiring the large brick building on the west side of the room when I heard a thumping noise coming from the other side of the room. I ducked and weaved through boilers and radiators and whatnot, trying to get a glimpse of whatever was making the noise without letting it see me. I saw what I thought was a demon--a demon!--beating at a pair of steel drums, but saw that it was only a man in a demon costume. He was beating at the drums, but was unable to make the kind of sounds one associates with steel drums--only a kind of atonal thumping. This frustrated him, you could tell. I suddenly jumped up and overturned the drums, grabbed the demon's fake horns and ran off. The demon chased after me, shouting. He followed me to the front door, then stopped, refusing to follow me out into the street. I turned around to look at him standing underneath the door. Neither of us could have reached the other alone, but had we both reached out our arms, we could have grabbed each other's elbows, or thereabouts. I backed away slowly, into the street, looking only at the demon. The cars stopped in the street to let me to the other side.

Halfway across, my whole body shivered, like a convulsion, like I had just been thrown into an icy pool. It threw me to my knees, the shivering. As soon as I could, physically, I ran back across the street and into the thick, warm, welcoming arms of the demon, who had been waiting.