On ROCKET SCIENTIST

March 5th

On ROCKET SCIENTIST

“What are you, some kind of fucking rocket scientist?”
Peter jerked his head up suddenly. “What?”
“What are you trying to do here?” asked John Fromme, the employee who had been assigned to teach him his job.
Peter looked up at the computer screen, bright white and blue. He had forgotten where he was for a moment. The memory of what he was trying to do squeezed past the headache that was lodged in his brain. He was…. helping… John… email. Even though John was teaching him how to do the job, Peter was helping him figure out his email.
“Oh I get it,” said John, eyes lighting up in recognition. Peter had fixed his problem without even thinking about it. Peter had just started to use John’s email naturally, like he would have his own email, and whatever John was too dumb to figure out had become apparent.
“No problem,” said Peter, before John could say thank you. Peter had been doing this job for three days, and he still had no idea what the purpose of this department was. It was called “lending”, and he knew how to make the numbers all work so that the people he called upstairs when he was done were happy, but he didn’t understand what it meant. Peter wondered how weird it would look if he went to the bathroom again. He had gone twenty minutes ago, and been chugging on his water bottle ever since.
“Thanks!” said John, “You’re a real tech wiz!”
Peter wasn’t a tech wiz. He was just surrounded by morons.
Just then Steve, their boss, stopped by. Steve was having a hard time figuring out what to do with Peter. Steve didn’t need anyone extra, but this boss’s kid or whoever he was had to go somewhere. He had rotated him, shadowing him with all the employees that weren’t sociopaths. After today, he was going to have to repeat shadow a job, or sit with Tim, who did his job well, but didn’t relate well with others.
“So, how are you two getting along?” asked Steve.
“Good,” said Peter.
“Good,” said John Fromme.
Suddenly Steve saw the entire next year, maybe two, of having this bright but uninspired kid lugging himself around the office, excusing himself to go to the bathroom every twenty minutes, fixing everyone’s email, playing video games and taking naps at his cubicle. Steve wondered why he was doing the job that he was, an acceptable job. Poor choice.
John Fromme was excited, because now he could use his email to email that girl he met last night at that meeting for timeshares! Who knows, a few dates, maybe they could get their own timeshare together!
“YOU’RE DOING A FANTASTIC JOB!” yelled John. Half the people in the office turned around and looked at John for a minute, and then turned back. Whoops, too loud. Another slipup like that and everyone would figure out that John was a total weirdo, who only liked girls with red hair! He felt so guilty! So many hours logged on red head websites! He didn’t want anyone to know!
“Whoa! Sounds like you’re fitting in well here, Pete,” said Steve.
“Sorry, I’m just really glad to have email back,” said John.