“I’d be a social insect if I could manage it,” I muttered as Tom left my office. “But I’ve never known what to say to people in bars.”
For lunch I met Greg and our friend David Detlor at a health-food restaurant that advertises fifty different kinds of fruit nectar. We’d never eaten there before, but Greg knew he’d love the place. It was already a favorite of David’s, and he still has all his teeth, so I figured it would be OK with me.
David was there when I arrived, but not Greg. David works for the company too, in a different department. He, however, has proved remarkably resistant to corporate blandishment. Not only has he never undertaken B-E, he hasn’t even bought a three-piece suit. Today he was wearing chewed-up blue jeans and a flashy Hawaiian shirt, of a type that was cool about ten years ago.
“Your boss lets you dress like that?” I asked.
“We have this agreement. I don’t tell her she has to give me a job, and she doesn’t tell me what to wear.”
David’s perspective on life is very different from mine. I don’t think it’s just that he’s in R&D and I’m in Advertising — it’s more basic than that. Where he sees the world as a bunch of really neat but optional puzzles put there for his enjoyment, I see it as…well, as a series of SATs.
“So what’s new with you guys?” he asked, while we stood around waiting for a table.
“Greg’s turning into a goddamn butterfly. He went out last week and bought a dozen Italian silk sweaters. It’s not a corporate look.”
“He’s not a corporate guy, Margaret.”
“Then why is he having all this B-E done if he’s not even going to use it?”
“He’s dressing up a little. He just wants to look nice. Like Michael Jackson, you know?”
I couldn’t tell whether David was kidding me or not. Then he started telling me about his music, this barbershop quartet that he sings in. They were going to dress in black leather for the next competition and sing Shel Silverstein’s “Come to Me, My Masochistic Baby.”
“It’ll knock them on their tails,” he said gleefully. “We’ve already got a great arrangement.”
“Do you think it will win, David?” It seemed too weird to please the judges in that sort of a show.
“Who cares?” said David. He didn’t look worried.
Just then Greg showed up. He was wearing a cobalt blue silk sweater with a copper green design on it. Italian. He was also wearing a pair of dangly earrings shaped like bright blue airplanes. We were shown to a table near a display of carved vegetables.
“This is great,” said David. “Everybody wants to sit near the vegetables. It’s where you sit to be seen in this place.” He nodded to Greg. “I think it’s your sweater.”
“It’s the butterfly in my personality,” said Greg. “Waiters never used to do stuff like this for me. I always got the table next to the espresso machine.”
If Greg was going to go on about the perks that come with being a butterfly, I was going to change the subject.
“David, how come you still haven’t signed up for B-E?” I asked. “The company pays half the cost, and they don’t ask questions.”
David screwed up his mouth, raised his hands to his face, and made small, twitching, insect gestures, as if grooming his nose and eyes. “I’m doing OK the way I am.”
Greg chuckled at this, but I was serious. “You’ll get ahead faster with a little adjustment. Plus you’re showing a good attitude, you know, if you do it.”
“I’m getting ahead faster than I want to right now — it looks like I won’t be able to take the three months off that I wanted this summer.”
“Three months?” I was astonished. “Aren’t you afraid you won’t have a job to come back to?”
“I could live with that,” said David calmly, opening his menu.
The waiter took our orders. We sat for a moment in a companionable silence, the self-congratulation that follows ordering high-fiber foodstuffs. Then I told them the story of my encounter with Harry Winthrop.
“There’s something wrong with me,” I said. “Why suck his blood? What good is that supposed to do me?”
“Well,” said David, “you chose this schedule of treatments. Where did you want it to go?”
“According to the catalog,” I said, “the No.2 Insect Option is supposed to make me into a successful competitor for a middle-management niche, with triggerable responses that can be useful in gaining entry to upper hierarchical levels. Unquote.” Of course, that was just ad talk — I didn’t really expect it to do all that. “That’s what I want. I want to be in charge. I want to be the boss.”
“Maybe you should go back to BioEngineering and try again,” said Greg. “Sometimes the hormones don’t do what you expect. Look at my tongue, for instance.” He unfurled it gently and rolled it back into his mouth. “Though I’m sort of getting to like it.” He sucked at his drink, making disgusting slurping sounds. He didn’t need a straw.
“Don’t bother with it, Margaret,” said David firmly, taking a cup of rosehip tea from the waiter. “Bioengineering is a waste of time and money and millions of years of evolution. If human beings were intended to be managers, we’d have evolved pin-striped body covering.”
“That’s cleverly put,” I said, “but it’s dead wrong.”
The waiter brought our lunches, and we stopped talking as he put them in front of us. It seemed like the anticipatory silence of three very hungry people, but was in fact the polite silence of three people who have been brought up not to argue in front of disinterested bystanders. As soon as he left, we resumed the discussion.
“I mean it,” David said. “The dubious survival benefits of management aside, bioengineering is a waste of effort. Harry Winthrop, for instance, doesn’t really need B-E at all. Here he is, fresh out of business school, audibly buzzing with lust for a high-level management position. Basically he’s just marking time until a presidency opens up somewhere. And what gives him the edge over you is his youth and inexperience, not some specialized primate adaptation.”
“Well,” I said with some asperity, “he’s not constrained by a knowledge of what’s failed in the past, that’s for sure. But saying that doesn’t solve my problem, David. Harry’s signed up. I’ve signed up. The changes are under way and I don’t have any choice.”
I squeezed a huge glob of honey into my tea from a plastic bottle shaped like a teddy bear. I took a sip of the tea; it was minty and very sweet. “And now I’m turning into the wrong kind of insect. It’s ruined my ability to deal with Product Marketing.”
“Oh, give it a rest!” said Greg suddenly. “This is so boring. I don’t want to hear any more talk about corporate hugger-mugger. Let’s talk about something that’s fun.”
I had had enough of Greg’s lepidopterate lack of concentration. “Something that’s fun? I’ve invested all my time and most of my genetic material in this job. This is all the goddamn fun there is.”
The honeyed tea made me feel hot. My stomach itched — I wondered if I was having an allergic reaction. I scratched, and not discreetly. My hand came out from under my shirt full of little waxy scales. What the hell was going on under there? I tasted one of the scales; it was wax all right. Worker bee changes? I couldn’t help myself — I stuffed the wax into my mouth.
David was busying himself with his alfalfa sprouts, but Greg looked disgusted. “That’s gross, Margaret.” He made a face, sticking his tongue part way out. Talk about gross. “Can’t you wait until after lunch?”