6/4/03

It is poor joke, from my perspective, that runs, when a businessman sees a problem he asks, “how can I profit from this?” When a scientist sees a problem he asks, “what methods may I employ to evaluate this?” When a psychologist sees a problem he asks “what about my past or fear of the future led me to see this as a problem?” When a liberal arts major sees a problem he asks, “Do you want fries with that?” The joke of the liberal arts majors is that they are practically useless to society with the exception of doing the most demeaning work available to humanity. The assumption is that the skills acquired by this degree, such as writing, critical thinking, and an off color sense of humor, will gain one no advancement in “the real world.” Let us, now, put this notion to the test.

It was over a year ago when the Logbook Auditor came. An audit at my lab means that some client pays a consultant to come to your lab a poke around, asking you questions about how your work is done and whether you follow all the methods correctly. At the time the lab was in a state of dismal disarray both physically and in terms of morale. The hoods were rusted and non-functional, the countertops were warped, and every tile on the ceiling was stained with watermarks. Regarding morale there were a series of repressive and slightly psychologically off balance people who had managed to worm their way into positions of power, thereby demoralizing the larger body of workers.

When the Logbook Auditor came to my section of the lab he asked many questions that were par for the course. He strolled around nonchalantly making jokes of this or that discrepancy as My Absentee Manager laughed and promised reform. “What about the ICP instrument maintenance logs?” he asked. At this My Absentee Manager’s face turned to the shelf next to our main instrument with expectation, only to be disappointed. The green leather bound Laboratory Notebook he expected to see there was absent, much as he usually is when he is expected to be seen. It was in fact siting on my desk at home being used as my poetry logbook at the moment. Our lab is filled with notebooks that someone started and wrote one entry in and then forgot about. It’s my job to take care of these wayward children and fill them with my genius ideas. When I commandeered this particular notebook, months before, it had a date three years past on it and nothing else. It had been sitting on that shelf for as long as I could remember and I needed a fancy notebook to give my writings an air of officialdom. Instead of stashing it in the lab, as I often do, I took it home. That logbook would not have availed him anyway. If it had been there the same thing would have happened that did when the Logbook Auditor asked for the FIMS instrument logbook. My Absentee Manager grabbed it off the self and opened it revealing a blank first page despite the outer date of 1998. When that happened the Logbook Auditor’s face fell. To his eyes this could only mean that we did no maintenance on the machine in five years, not a pleasing prospect. Not pleasing but not as displeasing as not following The Laboratory Golden Rule, “do what you say, say what you do, and document it.” It was the latter dictate the we seemed to be shy on.

We were told when the audit was over that it was a point to be worked on. A new notebook was purchased for the ICP, though only a regular school composition notebook of black and white camouflage design, (I was glad I scored the fancy one) and I was charged with the task of keeping up the log. Normally this would mean nothing much, but when put in my hands the possibilities seemed endless. For the most part all that is recorded on a given day is the date and the line “Standard daily maintenance.” However form time to time I have problems with the instruments and it is at this point that my liberal arts degree shines through. Any drab scientist would make short pert statements not even filling out a sentence, taking a new line for each and marking each one with a preceding dash. I, on the other hand, saw this charge as an opportunity to practice my prose. My entries on those days often took up pages. I set the mood of the lab that day, discuss the weather, my person problems and how they may relate to the Flow Injection Mercury System on that day, or even write some small advertisement for a product I may enjoy, endorsing it with all my authority. Form is also to be practiced, like the time I wrote a whole entry using alliteration just to see if I could pull it off. It ran thus:

Due to stubborn blockage, the probe and probe-line were both back-flushed. This valiant attempt to troubleshoot the terrible trip-up of trash truncating the tubing turned us to less tepid tactics. Obviously, as observed by such overuse of alliteration, . . . the valve needed an overhaul. Finding the screwdriver we unsealed the valve and unseated it, with secure hand careful not to strip it. The blockage had built up haphazardly in the holes between the two halves of the valve. With wit, wire and water were applied, not recklessly, to remove the refuse, but the reconnoiter was rejected. Seeking stronger methods, solvents were brought in to stagger and sedate the sand that seemed to stuff the passage. The failure of this futile attempt only followed what was foreshadowed by the former folly. Finally! By precision use of a pipette, pressure was applied to the pernicious plug to purge it and the appliance was put back together.

Since the first go round of the Logbook Auditor there have been vast and far-reaching improvements in the physical quality of the lab, and the office politics went a very good way too. Without getting into the sticky details it’s enough to say that Our Fearless General Manager cleaned house in a way that sent a message and pleased those who actually earn their bread. Anyone who has ever worked in any environment can see what a relief this would be. The biggest tumult came on the day Our Fearless General Manager sent out an unannounced email to all employees under his charge containing a new organizational chart for the hierarchy. It was filled with pleasing rearrangements, one of which was the lifting of My Absentee Manager into a high place over our department and Water Quality, leaving me the only member of my department. Another was a newly hired supervisor in the Water Quality department. I eyed this with some interest. The manager in that department is at deaths door with a debilitating disease, and this person was obviously brought in to fill the void. But the level of supervisor was not one that was used before. It was obvious by the flow chart that Our Fearless General Manager had added about five new levels of bureaucracy between him and the common workers. When this new supervisor started I walked over to the old building to check her out. “What made her so special as to be a supervisor” I thought. As I walked through she regarded me not at all, seeming to be absorbed I her work, as if, even on the first day, she was in complete control. I was smitten with a lust, not for her, but for her power.

The cycle had spun through and it was time that the infamous Logbook Auditor to return. He took his tour accompanied by all the top dogs from the lab and upon reaching our area was quite impressed with the improvements. The time came, he asked for the logbooks. I assumed that he would pan through seeing that they were properly kept and move on, but he took my book and sat down laying it on the table in front of him. While speaking he flipped past a few pages of “Standard daily maintenance” and then stopped abruptly. He had reached my first real entry, it was about two pages long. As he read there was an uncomfortable silence in the room. Sweat glistened on the foreheads of all the labs big wigs, who were not sure what it was that he had seen that made him pause so. He read deeply and longly. The duration of the total lack of conversation seemed interminable. Then through that absolute stillness the thunderous burst of an undercurrent of a chuckle broke through. Eventually he turned to me and all that he said was “rubberbands are wonderful things aren’t they?” I nodded my agreement and he continued to flip through stopping to drink in all my past wisdom silently and grunting out his chuckles until it had become far too uncomfortable a space of time for everyone else, especially those who didn’t know what exactly was written in that book. Seeing that his schedule was now far delayed he tore himself away from the book congratulated me on a fine log and continued on. I am sure that that afternoon upon my retirement, my lab was raided by aid de camps of Our Fearless General Manager and my logbook pillaged for perusing by the man himself.

The next day a branch wide email was sent from the QA office congratulating everyone on a good audit. Only one person was mentioned by name in that email, the one who’s competence do to a liberal arts degree had wowed the Logbook Auditor. The next week My Absentee Manager came in for his customary two-hour workday and upon coming back from a meeting with Our Fearless General Manager informed me that they were going to promote me to supervisor within the next few weeks. “Something about that last auditor and your log books.” Shortly there after he left. My eyes brightened as I realized that soon enough I would be able to sit at my computer and justifiably ignore all those who walk through my domain, and they could say nothing because I, I was the supervisor.

Later that afternoon, I was at the front desk trying to clear up some problems I was having with the State of Alabama’s Office of the Attorney General when Our Fearless General Manager walked by. “Hey Phillip is Keith here?” He asked concerning My Absentee Manager. “No he had a doctor’s appointment,” I said, covering for my guardian. Every time I had seen Our Fearless General Manager over the past few weeks he has asked me if Keith was around, and every time I was forced to answer in the negative. It made me wonder if perhaps Our Fearless General Manager was doing a little more investigating to better put his house in order. He continued, “MaryAnn I’d like to talk with you, . . . Phillip I need to talk to you too, come on to my office for a minute if you would.” I walked in to his newly renovated fortress of solitude, and sat confidently in his chair. He proceeded to heap praise on me asserting that the last auditor claimed I had “all my ducks in a row” when he came by and was very impressed. He offered me the Supervisor Job on his own accord with one disclaimer. “I know you like to keep an eye on your overtime so I just wanted you to know that this job is salaried, and wondering if you have a problem with that?”

“Well,” I said, “is the job going to involve a lot more overtime?”

“No. Not at all, if anything the volume will decrease when some of the larger present projects end. I mean if you were working five hours a week overtime you might come out behind, and I can understand that, but I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

This last line threw me. What did he mean come out behind. I recollected having a conversation with Hogan about not liking to work overtime, and realized that Our Fearless General Manager probably probed his knowledge on the subject, but made the fatal misinterpretation that the reason I was ill impressed with salary was because overtime made better pay. Nothing could be farther forming the truth. The reason I don’t like salary is because overtime is assumed. Hogan probably told him I don’t want to work a lot of overtime, but left it at that not adding that the reason is that I like to live a life apart work. I do not want to be devoured by it like so many I see, and was not disdainful of salary because I was afraid I would some how be jipped out of my overtime pay. The truth of the matter is that I haven’t worked an hour of overtime in three years. With that track record the fact that the volume of overtime might be decreasing could only work in my favor. Given that Our Fearless General Manager didn’t seem to be aware of my overall abandonment of the responsibility of overtime, I kept the fact to myself. He seemed to think that I was all about working over for the money, and he can think that. It gives him the idea that he has to bump up my salary to make up for that fictional after hours work, and keep me happy as I avoid it anyway.

As I returned to my lab I was very happy with how things seemed to be playing out. A greater title is always to be coveted and better pay for fewer hours can’t be beat. So my liberal arts degree was used to great effect in the real world gaining me advancement and better wages. There was only one oddity, that is that despite the fact that I’m now soon to be supervisor, I’m still the only member of my department. Oh well, I guess as long as it makes sense to someone . . .

Phillip G.

Literature