Work it out

One of the best-kept secrets that society keeps from people is the fact that finishing schools means no more long vacations — forever. Once gotten your diploma, taking a three-month vacation is a euphemism for having no job, retiring, or being a struggling writer who needs ideas to fodder his column. There has not been much written about the clock-in/clock-out world of cubicles in the realm of literature because we already have too much of it every day. Yet, once in a while, there are pieces of corporate fiction that attract us, the memo masses, such as Dilbert and The Office, because of the need to find characters who we can empathize with rather than just escape to an offbeat world with.

 If you need more of that watercooler fix, though, I found two recent books that tap into the world of work. Their professional perspectives and settings come from different hallways but eventually they meet in assessing that our jobs critically define who we are, our peers, and generally the bubbled environment we choose to inhabit. If neither of the choices meet your expectations, there are better things you can do — such as go back to work.

Did you get the memo?

 Then We Came To An End by Joshua Ferris is an intimate look into the cynical “Why am I in this meeting again?” world of corporate life, in the same vein as TV’s The Office. The author heightens the drama — the setting is an advertising firm that is downsizing after the ‘90s Internet crash. Thus, the story becomes an office version of Survivor as told by an anonymous employee who likes using “we” to recount his daily events. Ferris explains in an interview that the use of “we” refers to “a collection of messy human beings — stripped of their glossy finish and eternal corporate optimism. It returns the ‘we’ to the individuals who embody it, people with anger-management issues and bills to pay.”

I couldn’t agree more after my experience as a brand guy for a candy company whose bosses weren’t as sweet. The memo life of cc’s isn’t glamorous but can be filled with juvenile pranks, deadlines in which everyone shines like firefighters or athletes, and of course, gossip. Ferris’ mastery of the subject and experience are shown in the type of gossip that floats around his novel. There are murmurs about the old guy who has been staying there for 15 years, whispers about forbidden couples and particular attention is paid to mundane habits or actions like the weird laugh or the bad haircut.

Hence, creating a tale that is authentic and bags New York Times and Time magazine “Books of 2007” praise because it points out how stale office room air can bring out the worst in us. The air creates a bubble to make us feel self-important even if we were just folding paper clips, faxing memos, or ordering pizza for the fifth surprise party of the month. Even worse, it makes us believe that it is the only world that exists. For that reason, if there is a message that you should derive from reading the novel and should cc to all, it is that you are not your job and there are better things to be doing at 8 p.m. than making Excel sheets.

Check Your Head

On the other hand, Brain Matters: Adventures of a Brain Surgeon by Katrina S. Firlik is an autobiography about finding humility and vigor in one of the toughest professions: being a neurosurgeon. The author wears her medical nerdiness on her surgical sleeve as she recounts juicy details of brain surgery matter of factly. Aside from the usual E.R. jargon such as AVM (arteriovenous malformation), Dr. Firlik cites cases of wonders such as hydrancephaly, a condition in which a baby is born with a reptilian brain, to the practice of giving medical instruments cute pet names like “bunnies.”

However, as you continue reading, you might discover, as I did, that we have much in common with a neurosurgeon who, on average, can be found among every 66,000 people. It is because at the end of the day neurosurgery is still a profession and a daily job, just like that of the lowly mechanic, except for the fact that she tunes up brains. Also, working on cerebral fluid means going through the fire to prove yourself to your peers and accepting losses even if it means the end of your patients. Dr. Firlik furthers adds these incidents have helped her appreciate life and feel lucky about it.

Nevertheless, the best prescription from the neurosurgeon is: “Don’t go into neurosurgery unless there’s absolutely nothing else you could ever see yourself doing.” I believe the same can be said for any profession. And if you do achieve that vocation, you get to enter into an even tighter and smaller circle as compared to neurosurgeons — technicians who actually love their job and can’t distinguish work from play. As for Dr. Firlik, her descriptions are so incisive and descriptive that she has stumbled onto another job, accidentally, as a writer.

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Then We Came To An End by Joshua Ferris is available at National Book Store. Find out more about it at: http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/features/twctte/twctte_022307/

http://www.myspace.com/thenwecametotheend 

http://www.thenwecametotheend.co.uk/

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Brain Matters: Adventures of a Brain Surgeon, available at Powerbooks.

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