in to further explain my task. The first document I have to look at is an original. The second document is a version they got by scanning in the first one and printing it out. But sometimes, when they scan documents in, the new copies that they print out accidentally have extra commas or extra letters in them, due to dirt on the scanner, marks on the original document, or something else.
So my job is to compare the original and the printout word for word, making sure they’re exactly the same. I am supposed to do this for 210 pages.
It seems like there must be a faster way to do this sort of labor in this era of technological advances. No wonder lawyers charge $400 an hour. They’re paying proofreaders to sit and play Concentration.
I lean back in the hard chair and close my eyes. Within a minute, I have my answer. But I can’t use my easier system until Oldie behind me goes to get coffee. Which, I soon find out, he does every ten minutes. And it takes him ten minutes to do it. My father thinks I don’t want to work, but the truth is, no one else is really working. It’s all a big sham. No one says anything about it because they’re doing it, too. If all of the BS-ing was automatically extracted from the American workday, the American workday would last three hours. There are still tons of secrets in the world to which I am only just becoming privy.
While Oldie is gone, I take the top page of my original, put it in front of the top page of the new copy, and hold them both up to the light. They match exactly: not a line, word or dot out of place. So these pages are fine. I put them both down and move on to the next pair. I hold them up to the light, and there’s not a stray line, streak or speck. This probably takes two percent of the time it would take to read the whole thing.
When I finish, I leave the document a third of the way open on my desk so it looks like I’m in the process.
I use my extra time to think about a lot of things.
I think about why, if the highest speed limit anywhere in the U.S. is seventy-five, they sell cars that can go up to one hundred fifty.
I think about whether the liquid inside a coconut should be called “milk” or “juice.”
I think about why there are Penn Stations in New York and Maryland but not in Pennsylvania.
I think about Michel Foucault’s views of the panoptic modality of power, and whether they’re comprehensive enough and ever could be.
Behind me, Oldie picks up the phone and taps at the buttons. He asks for someone named Edna. On the one percent chance this won’t be completely boring, I eavesdrop.
“Oh, I know what I wanted to tell you,” he says. “I called Jackie this morning, but she wasn’t there, but Raymond was. So Raymond tells me he’s home because he has all this sick leave saved up, you know, because teachers are allowed to accumulate their sick days, and so this is the third Friday in a row he’s taken off from school, and he was getting ready to go over to the Poconos to ski. He was practically bragging about it. And I say to him, ‘Raymond, that’s lying. Sick days are if you’re sick.’ Yeah, he’s cheating the kids. I know. I know. So he backs off and says, ‘Well, I only do it once in a while.’ And I say, ‘Raymond, excuse me, but you just said you did it three Fridays in a row, so don’t back off now.’ Do you know why our daughter married someone like that? He’s amazing, bragging like that. Amazing. I know. I said to him, ‘Work ethics like yours are why America’s going to pot. Because everyone tries to get away with everything.’”
Eventually, the guy hangs up.
I have to turn around.
“Excuse me,” I say. “I couldn’t help overhearing. You’re annoyed because your son-in-law was goofing off. But you were just having a personal conversation on the phone for twenty minutes when you were supposed to be doing your proofreading. Isn’t this a little hypocritical?”
There is nothing more fulfilling than watching people get caught in the thick, coarse gossamer of their own hypocrisy.
Oldie is stunned. “We’re entitled to breaks,” he says, but his voice is quavering.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Oldie sniffs, “I don’t see why it’s any of your business,” and returns to his assignment.
There are no new assignments, so I rest my eyes and sit back in my chair. I hear a fax machine whirr behind me, and the choppy sounds of someone’s discordant clock radio. Soon a young guy with dark, tufty hair pokes his head into the room. He looks around but apparently doesn’t see whom he had hoped to. He’s ready to retreat, but then he notices me. “Oh,” he says. “Hi. You a student?”
“No,” I say. “I graduated. I’m a temp.” I’m barely able to hide my elation at the diversion. Oldie gives us both a sneer.
“You just in for tonight?”
“Far as I know.”
He extends his hand. “Douglas P. Winters. Front desk dude.” He sniffs and wipes his nose with his arm. There’s something appealing about ending your sentences with a snort. I also get the feeling he’s smart and slumming. I can spot an underemployed lazy intellectual anywhere.
“Carrie Pilby,” I say.
“You here till morning?”
“I guess so.”
“So you said you graduated. Where’d you go to school?”
This is always a dilemma. Everyone who went to Harvard has it. The problem is, if you say Harvard, it either sounds like you’re bragging, or conversely, people think you’re making a joke. A lot of Harvard graduates say “Boston,” and then when the other person asks where specifically, they say, “Cambridge,” and finally, if pressed again, they admit where they went.
I decide to get it over with. “Harvard.”
“For real?”
I nod.
“Say something smart.”
This is another disincentive. It’s like finding out someone’s part Puerto Rican and saying, “Say something in Spanish.” Just because I went to a top college doesn’t mean I have a complex mathematical axiom on the tip of my tongue. I mean, I do, but it’s not because of where I went to college.
But I decide to play along. “I think that the influence of Kierkegaard on Camus is underestimated. I believe Hobbes is just Rousseau in a dark mirror. I believe, with Hegel, that transcendence is absorption.”
Doug stands there for a second. “Wow.”
I don’t tell him that I stole the whole thing from David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, which I read one day when I had three hours to kill.
Oldie looks back at both of us. “You two gonna do any work tonight?”
“Why don’t you call 60 Minutes and rat out your son-in-law?” I ask. He sniffs and goes back to his work.
“Come outside,” Doug says. “I’m out front.”
I assume this means that if I get in trouble, I can blame him. I follow him through the glass doors into the waiting room, which has plush chairs and golden letters on the walls bearing the name of the firm. Fancy-schmancy. Doug motions to an armchair next to the security desk, and I sit by his side. “Are you looking for a regular job?”
“Someday.” This conversation has gone on long enough without my knowing what’s important. “Where did you go to school?”
“Hempstead State,” he says. Oh well. I guess he’s not so smart after all. Then again, maybe I’m judging too quickly. At least, Petrov thinks I do. “I didn’t feel like going to Harvard,” he adds, opening a bag of pistachios and pouring a few onto the table.
“Right.”
“You got a boyfriend?”
I wonder if he’s asking because he likes me, or he’s just making