Day 128 - Review Story

Review Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

“Do you consider yourself a good employee?”

Tom sat in his chair, silent, and honestly thought long and hard about the question. He knew what he was supposed to say. He knew what was expected in moments such as these. And it wasn’t as if Tom was beyond lying. Tom lied all the time, but he also told the truth all the time. They could both be annoying habits. He had trouble keeping his mouth shut. He liked hearing his own voice. He thought he was clever. And even when he wasn’t clever he liked to present himself as if he was. He thought there was something clever in ironically saying less than clever things in order to annoy people. He was usually after the biggest reaction he could get, and so told whatever he told, based on what was probably the wrong choice for the given situation.

But he did know better. He knew enough to know what he should do now was lie. He also knew he had an overwhelming desire to just admit everything and be done with it.

Tom was a believer in a universe based on dualities and dual natures. His life was led based on this assumption. He enjoyed the good and the bad, the right and the wrong. He explored both sides of an issue, lived in more ways that one and enjoyed sarcasm and playing devil’s advocate for the sake of it, not because he properly believed in something. Tom could argue one side one day and the other the next. He had no allegiance to any given truth. He thought most of it was just opinion and vanity and both of those were highly subjective. Other people confused their thoughts for universal truth so why shouldn’t he challenge them on it? It was an impish side that was endearing and annoying at the same time depending on your mood and whether or not you were the target of his outlandishness.

“I consider myself a fine employee.”

Almost no one had ever called Tom a fine employee. Adequate. Punctual. On time. He had been called many things that basically put him in the middle of the road and prevented promotions, but didn’t deter annual raises of some sort. ‘Fine’ was not something supervisors associated with him as a person, or the efforts he put forth as an employee.

Tom was in fact both a good and a bad employee. He showed up on time, but took too many breaks. He filed and photocopied with speed and efficiency, but talked too long to co-workers at their cubicles. He made fresh pots of coffee in the break room, but didn’t donate to co-worker’s birthday gifts. Whatever he did that was positive, he balanced out perfectly with something negative. He created his own office yin and yang.

Tom knew why he was being detained by May from Human Resources. It was because he stayed late and didn’t report or collect any overtime pay for his efforts. They wouldn’t see it that way. They wouldn’t understand that because of this positive, there had to be a negative to balance it out. All they would understand would be that Tom was stealing lunches from the break room refrigerator.

Tom preferred the term ‘liberating.’ He figured if the company freezer was full and frosting over, then the contents were not being well respected or desired. He doubted the original owners were even aware of what was happening. Some of them might not even work there anymore. He was doing the Office Manager a favor by clearing out the clutter. It was his office civic duty to take those lunches and eat them as if they were his own. And a lot of them were past their expiration date. He was probably a hero, risking his own life eating expired food. Nobody would give him a medal for it, but they sure would complain when they couldn’t fine their Salisbury Steak or Chicken Pot Pie.

H.R. was talking to everyone. There had been a memo, but the lunches continued to disappear. Tom knew this because he was the one (or one of the ones) that made them disappear.

“How about we discuss this over lunch?”

Tom also liked to inappropriately ask the women at work to have lunch with him. Usually right after he had stolen someone’s lunch.

“Just tell me yes or no.”

“You tell me yes and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

“I can’t have lunch with you, Tom.”

“Why not? It will be my treat.”

“I already brought my lunch.”

“Did you now. And what did you bring?”

“Stir Fry.”

“Now that sounds delicious.”

“I was going to have it right after we finished this discussion.”

Tom thought to himself, ‘it might be too late for that.’ But what he said was, “You have nothing to worry about – I am not the person stealing other people’s lunches.”