Don't Name The Lambs

We grew up next to a farm, a few farms, really, and always looked forward to the Easter lambs--so named because they were born in the spring just in time to be a succulent feast to celebrate the big day. They knew it, too. I'd go to pet their fuzzy little heads and they'd look up at me with a hushed desperation that said "I heard them talking. They're going to eat me." Little did it know I was part of the treacherous They. By the time I was about 7 I'd learned not to name the baby animals on the farm, especially the lambs. Recipe for tears and teeth gnashing, that.

It was a lesson I'd carry into my adult life when I took a stab at the corporate world. I'd worked in restaurants from the time I could spell h-a-s-h s-l-i-n-g-i-n-g sleepily at 5:30 in the morning and had seen some mad staff turnover, but never could I have possibly predicted the revolving door of haggard, spent souls that make up this living compost heap of our industrial society. Every six months or so, they'd spritz us with poo water and turn us over for a whole new perspective on how we'd managed to take the path of the damned and had given the pretty path that was covered in flower petals and butterfly whispers the big throbbing finger when we accepted our position where the only benefit was that they weren't legally allowed to poke us with real pitchforks.

The jewel in this crown of thorns was a small company whose main (READ: only) client was a hulking bitch of the corporate master race. They had to have seven people sign off to decide what size the font would be on something the size of a cigarette box. Guess how many times all seven folks concurred on the first go. Go ahead. Guess. I'll wait. How did you know? Were you listening to the seventeen conference calls where you're huddled around one of those weird Trekkie reject tri-sided speaker phones next to the boss who makes you wish you were sliding down a banister made of buzz saws and ice cream headaches instead of sitting shoulder to shoulder with Screwella De Shrill and her Fawning Band of Seven Eejits?

We weren't allowed to talk to each other about anything other than the utterly meaningless task at hand. I sat next to a guy for four months before I knew he had a kid. The only way I found out his last name was from an errant e-mail he accidentally sent me. We weren't allowed to have any decorations at our desk, lest they distract us from our miserable sluggery. All of the desks faced the wall. They blocked the windows for "confidentiality" reasons so that no lurkers at our rat maze of an industrial park would get a glimpse of the newest box. Yes, box. We made boxes. BOXES. Not pacemakers or canes for small children who lost a limb sifting through candy shaped bombs, or even the little carts dogs scoot around on when their hind quarters give out. Nope. We made boxes for completely useless unnecessary shit that people lived millenia without ever having near them.

And to these owners, those boxes were where they kept our self respect and estimated worth. That is, until the day the employee would remember that boxes are wildly lame and that (s)he has an actual life to forge, unencumbered by unrealistic expectations and cheapened earthly dealings. On that day, without exception, the employee would have a "fuck this, fuck you, and fuck boxes" moment and make their future their present. It was a good day. It usually didn't take long either. In the nine months I worked there, seven different people in an office of nine total employees had that special moment. In the interim two weeks (if the departing employee hadn't just simply thrown their keys on the boss' desk and bolted), they'd bring in some poor unsuspecting bastard for an interview and short of the walls bleeding and a voice in the distance screeching "GEEEETTTTT OOOUUUUTTTT", the present employees would try to deter the fresh meat from taking the job for their own and their family's sake. But they needed the money just like we thought we needed it at the time of our acceptance of the offer and they would come to work. After about the third time of watching this cycle play out, I just stopped trying to learning anything about the newbies. I didn't want to get attached. Easter dinner was coming and I didn't want to call it by name.

In the ninth month of my frustration gestation, I had that moment. And it was delicious. I could feel the earth righting itself under my feet the second I said "I quit. I'm done. And now I'm even more done than I was a second ago. You have two weeks to find someone for me to train." I didn't have a job lined up. I hadn't even sent out one resume on the search. I just knew it was over. Done. Done. Done. So then I sent out about thirty resumes a night. The day before the two weeks was up I got the call from where I work now offering me more money, job security, peace of mind, and a benefits package straight out of the 1950s (100% health, dental, optical coverage). Things work out.

My heart still stops for a second when I hear a door slam, or if I see one of the boxes we built on a shelf in the store, but then I take a deep breath and revel in the knowledge that it's over for me. They're now down to five full time employees. Two originals from when I quit two years ago are still there. They must be going for some kind of record. But the giant corporate client has dropped the company like a dribble glass of syphilis. For the people who chose to stay there, I say a little prayer every night and wait for the echoes of the lambs to stop screaming...