A Year Off in Chicago

or

A Year Bouncing from Cube to Cube

or

How I Became Evil

By: Christopher Morrison

I know where the Wicked Witch comes from. I know why Frankenstien was so pissed off. I have felt Dracula’s need to drink blood. I have been the megalomaniac super-villain bent on world domination. All of these monsters are my kin.

I have worked in a cubicle.

This is not a rare phenomenon, working in a cube. But it did something drastically different to me than it did (or does) to you… Yes it did!

Now shut up and read! (If you want to complain about YOUR cube life… get your own damn column.)

I clearly have a genetic defect where fluorescent tube lighting triggers some deep down dormant, recessive gene that releases some here-to-for unknown chemical in my brain that makes me do

…certain

…things.

These, um, "things" are not good.

In fact most of them are, in the strictest sense, illegal.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not some never-drive-over-the-speed-limit, never five-finger-shopped-before, law-abiding corporate-slave type citizen.

No.

But these "instincts" that this chemical induces in me are not my usual Modus Operandi. And when mixed with a gray, fuzzy pushpin environment, it’s, um, bad.

Allow me to paint a picture of myself as seen by me.

A non-flaky artistic type. Handsome, athletic, confident, sure, a little geeky, but a comfy grin that allows himself to slide into most social settings without making too much of an ass out of himself… most of the time. In short a good guy.

Better than you… but a good guy… I’m kidding… I’m not THAT much better than you.

But this light, this chemical.

All of a sudden I’m late… on purpose.

I learn to hate, that’s HATE people that are near me.

For the love of Pete! How can you NOT hate them? Listen to them!

They sound like geeba-monkies!

What are they talking about now?!?

Chrome frying pans.

BMW bumpers.

Their rat-bastard child is on the honor roll again.

AND they hung up a photo-copy of the report card to their cube wall just to show you how good a job Jimmy’s going to get when he’s an all grown up corporate slave just like Mommy and Daddy!

I’ve also taken to lying.

Just because I can.

"Yes, I’m studying for my pilot’s license. Yes my family has a history of rare genetic diseases, and I’m just waiting my turn. Yes, you heard right, I got this limp by getting my leg caught in a revolving door" (Okay THAT actually happened, but that is another column… bastard security guards…)

And here’s the kicker.

I’m cheating on my timecard.

Not just "working through lunch" type cheating.

But totally falsifying days that I’m "there," adding hours onto the sheet… and, of course, forging my sup’s name because she not in town enough to even remember to ask.

And all the while I saying to myself,

"It’s not really stealing. They are a huge company (sixth largest ad firm in the world). They won’t miss it.

And besides its time someone screwed them.

Its justice really."

And if, today, you held a gun to my head and asked me?

I’d say that it was justice.

But what I really felt was separate from myself.

It would have been one thing to CHOOSE to rip-off this corporation.

You know, made some plans, scoped out the area, practiced her fucking signature at the very least!

But I didn’t.

It all just welled up inside me, and I vomited out this late, bitter, thieving bastard that I would’ve had a hard time liking if I met him on the street.

The sad thing is I didn’t even realize I was this guy until the bitch caught me.

Red-handed nailed my ass to the wall.

Oh, I felt indignant and all uppity when she called me into her office with all my timecards spread out on the table.

Her looking stern and displeased… She wasn’t a mother yet so she hadn’t perfected the "I’m so disappointed with you" look yet (thank GOD), but she tried it out on me anyway.

She then went on to tell me that she thought I was smart and she couldn’t understand why I had done this.

I was so pissed. I’d been caught by someone who was clearly my inferior… So what some gigantic corporation paid her six figures to handle some Global Human Resource issues… She was a small, vacuous, cog of the machine; barley human.

So I screamed in her face,

"It’s the fucking lights!

You VP pigs have the only place in this fucking building with any natural light.

I have this chemical thing in my brain.

And you make too much money!

I get paid 17 dollars an hour to sit on my ass and PRINT OUT YOUR GOD-DAMN EMAILS! That’s not what they are for… You read them on your screen… That’s the whole fucking point of emails!

Don’t you get it?!?

I’M AN ARTIST, YOU MISERABLE PIG-DOG! I DON’T DESERVE THIS! ANY OF THIS! I DESERVE YOUR UNDYING ADORATION AND AWE! YOU SHOULD BE ASKING ME TO TAKE YOUR FILTHY MONEY BECAUSE I TAKE THIS MEANINGLESS WORLD AND TURN IT INTO ART!

BOW BEFORE MY GENIUS!!!!"

But, actually, like every other painful situation where I get called on my shit, I just tried to play it off:

"I don’t know why. Are we done here?"

So I grabbed my stuff… a good sign I needed to go anyway… I had ‘stuff’ there, and left.

I stole some shit on the way out.