MANHATTAN, NY. – Despite talks of economic recession, the Tristis corporate headquarters on Whitehall Street is very proud to display 35 stories of boring and lackluster architectural design populated by a depressed, overworked, and underpaid staff.
The building itself, a prime example of un-ornamented, Modern architecture, is often overlooked by passersby who cannot differentiate its color from that of the ambient smog. The windows are painstakingly designed to let only the most cost-effective amount of daylight into the building while still creating a bleak and joyless environment for hard-working Tristis employees.
“Forget Google and their namby-pamby health care incentives. Here at Tristis we proudly offer only the most cold and uncaring corporate environment that the disillusioned drone has come to expect,” said Tristis human resources manager Geoff Cavum, pouring himself a glass of cheap Scotch. “At Tristis, our people are happy to be sad, and so am I.”
The typical day at Tristis starts promptly at 6:00 AM with no breakfast of coffee or donuts, which is quickly followed by an employee gathering where they are willfully forced to watch demotivational slideshow presentations displayed by a half-broken projector that heats up the room and hums hypnotically.
At 12:00 noon, workers are given 5 minutes for lunch during which they are allowed to eat bread. Following the meal, employees return to their cubicles where they do repetitive, mind-numbing tasks while being monitored by old cameras cased in yellowing plastic that are mounted atop their outdated CRT monitors. Pictures of cats hanging from trees, with the accompanying text blacked out, are displayed in every cubicle.
“This is all about promoting efficiency and reducing costs by sucking the life out of everybody,” added Cavum, pouring himself another glass of scotch. “We’re all committed to sacrificing as many comforts and benefits as we can so the man upstairs doesn’t have to. In these uncertain times, we’re eager to compromise our integrity to see that red line go down just a little slower.”
Robert Johnson, a recent hire at Tristis, is in charge of completing seemingly arbitrary and meaningless tasks in stark isolation. Like other employees, he is repeatedly assured over the building’s intercom that his time is extremely valuable to the company, and no one else. According to Johnson, “This is more than enough to get him through the day.”
“I came out of college filled with hopes, dreams, and aspirations,” said Johnson, popping a colorful array of pills from unmarked bottles. “These are all very valuable resources to Tristis, and I am just so happy to forfeit them all in pursuit of the almighty buck for roughly 65 hours a week.”
“Besides,” added Johnson, “if I don’t work unpaid overtime, how am I supposed to afford the gas I need to get to work every day?”
While any dissent at Tristis is quickly squelched by office security, one prominent issue is that of over 30 shattered windows, all but one of which are on or above the 10th floor.
“A few days before I signed my life away to American capitalism, the guy who worked in the corner office—I don’t think anyone knew his name— just sort of disappeared without giving two weeks notice,” remarked Johnson with yellowing, bloodshot eyes. “That’s when we found the broken window, and we all figured he left because he didn’t like having a draft that reminded him of the outside world.”
The window problem is one of the few issues that the management is willing to formally address. “It’s a problem we’re aware of… man… like, we know it’s a problem that some of our windows have holes in them as big as a fully-grown, horribly depressed man,” said a slurring Cavum, downing yet another glass of Scotch while pouring himself another glass of Scotch. “But it’s a cmall problem, we’re not gonna pay to fix it, and it doesn’t matter ’cause we’re all so happy here!”
“So happy! So happy!” repeated Cavum, raising his glass while collapsing into his desk under the weight of suppressed tears.
The one broken window below the 10th floor appears on the 3rd floor, which just overlooks a dying bed of shrubbery. The accompanying office is occupied by Hubert Muffler, an unpromoted employee of Tristis since 1955. Employees recall that though he was very vocal and ornery the day the window broke, he returned to the office the next day without incident, and doesn’t really talk to anyone anymore.
“Muffler is a model worker because he doesn’t burden people with the kind of distracting, resource-wasting human interaction that Tristis frowns heavily upon,” said Dan Carls, a recent hire whose face only shows subtle lines of sullen hopelessness. “Because of the restrictions on internet and cell phone use, I can’t write e-mails or check in with my family. But that’s ok because the company assures me that really, they’re just fine without me.”
“I’m just proud to be a mindlessly dedicated automaton for a model company that eats my soul because that’s the best way to maximize profit,” continued Carls. “I really don’t care for one of those fluff jobs I hear about in Japan, where ‘salarymen’ are actually suing their employers for bad treatment. If my economics classes taught me anything it’s that no matter what, if it’s good for the company, it’s good for me.”
Sounds like Dilbert’s office.