AbsurdMurmurs.com

This is where my new morning temp job is. The building is brick and nondescript. The interior is wood panelling and copper letters on each door, spelling out each vague office (ex: C&C Regional). People walking in the hallway are mostly drones in misfitting suits, marking their day with smoke breaks. My actual duties involves calling businesses in St.Louis and Portland, giving away free tickets to home and garden expos. I mostly “hold the line” to talk to another voicemail, all the while doodling MC Escher imitations on my legal pad.
For those who like coincidences: I started this job on March 14th (3/14). The area code in St. Louis is 314. The code for me to make long distances calls is 314. The suite is 215. It all adds up to 8. Uncanny.

This is where I work. It’s the selection studio for a construction company in the McMansion business. I perform faxing and filing duties. I also tidy the formica samples, the carpet carousel, and the pressed board “wood” floor display. Mostly I listen to the radio and read, or chat with people. The building is an old warehouse with the suites surrounding an atrium. Occasionally, fancy parties and weddings are held in the atrium so the tinkling of a piano and the aroma of cocktails floats up to the fifth floor. On those evenings I might lean over the railing, tempted to drop something into the glut of fake blondes and real fur. I wouldn’t drop something heavy like a stapler but rather something more resistant to gravity, like a poem.

Milo had to take a piss test for his new temp job in plastics. I went along. The waiting room of this tiny lab was packed. The chairs were either wood or plastic, either way, uncomfortable. There were people, with a lot of gel in their hair, who seemed like they might not pass the test. There was also an elderly woman. I wondered what her vice was. The lab technicians insisted that everyone signing in “help themselves” to the water cooler. Then the technicians made everyone and their full bladders wait. And wait. Damn sadists. I spent a good part of the forty minutes counting the pharmacutical ads in the many issues of Ladies Homes Journals (57).