A Dilbert kind of world

Over a decade ago, Nicholson Baker wrote his science-fiction novel about office drones and sexual politics called The Fermata. The book is back now, in a British Vintage edition (available at National Book Stores) that goes out of its way to look cheap and tacky – even the cover is a bit tawdry-looking, with a damsel lifting her crochet skirt to reveal a thrilling naked navel, messily encircled with a blue ballpoint pen. It’s the kind of book jacket that makes you embarrassed to tote the thing around, especially in an office environment.

The Fermata concerns a shy office temp named Arno Strine who has the ability to stop time – the whole world grinds to a halt, in fact, whenever he moves his glasses up his nose or snaps his fingers. People freeze in their poses like statues, as does the rest of the universe, including time. He calls this practiced ability "entering the Fold" or "the Fermata" (the term for a musical pause).

It’s what Arno does when the world stops that tells us much of what life must be like for the average office drone: he fixates on attractive women and carefully removes their clothing. Gifted with such extraordinary powers, this is the sum total of his ambitions: to undress women when they aren’t (capable of) looking.

Granted, Arno seems to have a deeper appreciation for the beauty of women than the average on-the-make Joe. He studies their shapes, with their clothes on, and imagines the infinite varieties of nakedness that lie beneath. He claims his greatest unhappiness is to see a woman crying, for whatever reason.

Arno may be sensitive, in some areas, but he is also deeply cut off from the real commerce of life, and not a little creepy in the way he manipulates his environment. There’s a predictably onanistic goal to most of his finagling of time and motion (much of the book is devoted to pornographic scenarios). It’s a selfish power move, and even Arno acknowledges that to actually go through the trouble of sweet-talking these women, then persuading them into bed – just for the sake of seeing them naked – is way too much trouble.

Like J.G. Ballard’s Crash, Baker’s The Fermata concerns itself with the sometimes-erotic results when man and technology intertwine. Arno’s job mainly consists of transcribing office tapes of conversations and meetings – a hideous job, and I know this from personal experience as a former part-time transcriber. But the tools of his trade – the distancing headset, the "stop" and "start" foot pedals – clue him in to his need to slice reality, pause time and stir things up a bit. It’s a way of controlling a linear, forward-motion environment. The scenarios he comes up with during his time in the Fold – scrawling lewd phrases in books being read by women in bookstores while time is paused, or stringing a couple of would-be muggers to a lamppost by their balls – are just the sort of idle power fantasies you would expect of somebody trapped behind a desk eight hours a day.

Arno Strine (an anagram of "no restrain") is not unlike the power-seeking drones prowling the office cubicles in Dilbert, Scott Adams’ comic strip that rips into the corporate world. He’s also akin to the Bill Gates-worshipping serfs in Doug Coupland’s Microserfs (though The Fermata predated that novel by a few years). Underlying all this office tomfoolery, perhaps, is a deep sense of powerlessness – the real reason office blokes peruse car and motorcycle magazines, load up on electronic gadgets and fantasize about trysting with this officemate or that.

Can one deal creatively with the constraints of the office environment? Is there a way to break free from the madding crowd without putting yourself out of a job? This is the eternal question of the office drone, from Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener ("I prefer not to") to Dilbert’s gallery of Hell habitués.

Another visit to the corporate cubicle comes from The Office, BBC’s pseudo-documentary view of the inner workings at Wernham Hogg, a paper company in dreary Slough, England. Now shown locally on Star World (Sunday nights, 10 p.m.), the short-lived British comedy follows office manager David Brent (played with unctuous brilliance by Ricky Gervais, who also writes the show) as he tries to convince everyone around him – especially himself – that he’s a team-building, morale-boosting, well-loved type of manager. His office is filled with people who silently despise him and know all too well they’re stuck in Dilbert Hell. There’s a weird-looking ex-military "team leader" named Gareth who tries mightily to suck up to David; a sad but self-aware 30-year-old named Tim who endures life at Wernham Hogg by devising practical jokes –like encasing Gareth’s stapler in lime Jell-O. There’s an attractive receptionist named Dawn who flirts with Tim but has a muscle-bound and jealous boyfriend. So there’s a bit of Sartre’s No Exit to this carefully constructed view of Hell. No one ever gets what he or she wants, yet all are willing to drive themselves (and others) insane to get it.

The Office lasted two seasons and racked up mega awards for its wit and insight into the corporate jungle. Even a tiny paper company in Slough, England, is a microcosm of the prevailing human condition, where commerce is king and everyone is a part of the food chain to a greater or lesser extent. Yes, one could live outside the corporate Matrix, as Arno Strine manages to do; but this escape is merely an escape of the imagination, and while time and schedules can be halted temporarily, they always manage to sweep even the most dedicated office anarchist along, eventually.