First Day: Stay Away from the Water

Well, not really my first day. I've worked for this same company for almost ten years now. First I worked in the office, which wasn't this office. Then, I moved away and worked from home for six years. And now . . . well, now I'm back in the office, the new office, in a building that looks like a spaceship.

I'm not kidding.

In my time away, the company has grown. Back when I worked in the office, there were seven of us, plus the cranky old co-owner who lives off in some far, far away land and only a few of us have ever met him. Seriously, in ten years of working here, only a very select few of us have ever met the man who co-owns the business. We know him only through phone conversations. And every time he makes a good faith effort to come to the office to meet all of us, he mysteriously crashes his car on the way to the city.

At any rate, some folks have left and some new folks have been added. Returning to the office Tuesday, I met five people I've never seen before in my life. A couple of them met me with complete kindness and enthusiasm . . . others with a sort of cold (calculating?) distance. But that's the way it's become with this office. Always a rift somewhere. Always people on opposite sides of growing chasms.

So, I'm getting the tour of the office from a good-hearted lad who answers our phones and does some sales presentations named John Willingham. We enter the break room/conference room, and he says, "Oooh, check this out!"

He spins, flings open the freezer door to reveal an absolute mess of freezer-burned items in the freezer. He fingers through the miscellany, asking himself if someone has recently cleaned it out. Then, he finds what he's been looking for and pulls it out for me to see.

It's a package of chicken breasts. Frozen. Purchased on July 10, 2008. The chicken is nearing its two year anniversary as a member of our team. The chicken has over a year's seniority on two of the new employees. But here's the real kicker . . . there's not a stovetop or an oven or even a firepit anywhere in the vicinity. Why would anyone store their frozen chicken in the work freezer for over two years? Why would they bring it to the office in the first place? These are all questions, I'm sure, that lead us to the greater mysteries of our esteemed workplace.

So, with a nervous chuckle, John tosses the chicken back into that rat's nest of a freezer and turns, pointing seriously to the water cooler. "Whatever you do," he warns, "DO NOT drink the water in this."

I eyeball it. Everything seems fine. "Why?" I ask. You'll find there are more why questions at Associated Industries Incorporated (AII from here on out) than a full season of Lost.

"Sometimes," John says in a low, almost disconcerting whisper, like a campfire storyteller reeling you in for the big scare, "we find algae growing in the tank."

"Ugh," I say, exasperated.

"And you know what gets done about it?" he asks further.

I shrug my shoulders, searching the murky depths of that water reservoir for signs of life.

"Thurston (that being Thurston Wallace Cornelius Edgewood the Third, a bumbling older gentleman co-worker of ours) dumps the water and then wipes it clean with that," he says pointing to a disgusting yellow towel hanging from a hook on the wall next to the water cooler.

"With that?"

"With that," John says. "And you know, I've been here almost two years and that towel has never been moved from that hook except to wipe out the tank."

"You mean it never gets washed?"

"That's exactly what I mean." He squints his eyes at me in a knowing way, and we both laugh. "So . . . unless you're looking for a case of botulism, I'd stay away from the water."