Cube Land Nightmare - Back in Secret Agent Land

I didn't think I had to take out my Secret Agent hat again, but I did. I dusted it off, punched it into shape, came out of retirement, and stepped into Cube Land, working as an undercover student in need of an hourly wage. The undercover student thing was for the job (nobody would employ me if I told them I had a doctorate degree. Yes, not even Trader Joe's) and the hourly wage was so I can support my two senile dogs, my one-eyed cat, and the generic cat whose generic, swaying belly sweeps the floor and is sucking me dry. I also have two NYC parking tickets I had chosen to ignore, acquired, by deception, back in December, of 2006. Makes me hate the city even more.

My task was to spy on employees. They gave me a cubicle at headquarters and a computer and I watched videos all day, hoping to catch someone doing the naughty or stealing company goods. To date, I had apprehended a hot dog thief, a peanut thief and a slim jim thief and a juvenile non employee in over-sized jeans stealing a can of beer in one of the many convenient stores owned by the company.

I settle into the all familiar Cube Land. This company's sound proof barrier was also malfunctioning. Cube Land is evil. With its inception, you now can pick your nose in private. But you get to listen in on and smell your co-workers' every move.

Oh, too loud Lucy across from you is eating onions today.
Sally I'm-about-to-breakup-with-my-man is peeling oranges.
Tom dying-to-get-a-promotion is having curry for lunch.

Thank god for ipods. Wish now they'd invent a smell diffuser. You can't fart into your seat anymore because the walls of Cube Land is designed to concentrate all aromas and odors upwards such that if you gather enough momentum, everyone would know that someone needs to go check his pants. Besides, conspiring against the cubicle owner, they now make cushion-less, ergonomic office chairs made of a plastic material that has a million unseen holes in it, allowing for easier diffusion of body smells.

So day in and day out, I silently trudge to my stall, turn on the computer and begin my spying, blasting my ipod until my eardrums visibly vibrate. In essence, I mind my own business and try to get my job done as quickly as possible.

Then it came time to train newbies, all essentially ten years younger and not pretending to be a college student. I am delighted to be talking to someone other than myself. I hadn't been in Cube Land that long to necessitate the invention of an imaginary friend. But given a couple of more weeks, I'd have made his acquaintance.

The first newby was a little on the shy side and probably petrified on the first day and didn't want to screw up the chance of earning $12/hr. The second newby I would call cocky. He already knew everything I was going to teach him before I even opened my mouth but probably only retained like 0.01% of what I said. However, he made for an interesting conversation and seriously, spying on other people is not rocket science. Apparently, the newbies were going to school for a degree in network security and probably google searched security jobs in the area and landed in Cube Land with me.

We got to talking about network security and how actually secure is a wireless network like the one millions of people have at home. Not actually, was his answer. And then we got to talking about how easy it is for some hacker to sit in front of your house for a couple of days and just "throw" your network these "packets" until it coughs up your password. From there, they can intercept every transaction, every password in your system. Holy cow! Then he got to talking about how he wanted to hack into his school's system just for the hell of it. I was told that this was ok for the school. As long as he disclosed his method, he wouldn't go to jail. That's not teaching responsibility, I said. Hacking into something for unlawful gain is unlawful. He said that it actually is responsible because the student learns that he mustn't hack stealthily, whatever the heck that means. He also said that it helps to improve the school's network security. I guess that is a novel way to think about it. He may even get extra credit.

Our interesting conversation is abruptly interrupted by the boss who storms by the cubicle looking nonplussed and reminds us that Cube Land exists. Like a nazi camp SS, he unshields his pistol and says that we are to only have conversations to do with slim jim and hot dog thieves or else we would loose our heads. Some one who does not have working ipods marched up to boss man and demanded that he discipline his troupes because we were merely watching videos and our lives were too unimportant to warrant some conversation other than slim jims and hot dogs.

Meanwhile, I hear conversations about "my daughter isn't talking to me anymore" and "that was the greatest movie" and "we should try this place for lunch". I guess the polite thing was to come over and say "hey, maybe you could pipe it down because none of us are interested in knowing about how you want to hack into your school's system" like normal adults. Instead, it had to be the sneaky, under handed way of telling the teacher by leaving an anonymous note. Like Osama sending out suicide bombers to die on his behalf. Pretty cowardly.

It had to be too loud Lucy in the corner who had commented on my onions the other day.
"Someone's eating onions," she said as she walked past my cubicle.
I apologized and chomped on.
"You might want to check the cubicle next to mine. They had two chairs there yesterday," she said to someone missing an office chair. She looks into my cubicle and is surprised to find the only chair there was was the one I was sitting on.
"Oh, it's not there anymore."

Again, instead of having a nice, human conversation, she assumes I am part of the furniture and moves on.

She probably is frustrated and hadn't had good sex in a while and wants to blame it on everyone but herself. And she probably is the type that just cannot mind her own business, which makes Cube Land perfectly suited for her.

So we talk about slim jim and hot dog thieves, except in a decibel louder than normal human conversation.

How I envy people who can go to work in their pajamas and play with poodles all day, can fart, eat onions and talk about whatever the hell it is they want without some pathetic people who have probably been in a cubicle in Cube Land for the majority of their working careers listening to and smelling the every move of their co workers.