The Company Man, part 16

#43 did not care for his lot in life. He did not enjoy the dorms. He did not enjoy the fact that there was never a good spot at the TV during the news to watch the weathergirl. He did not enjoy the fact that he had to work as a janitor when others had wonderful jobs like the accounting department.

At least, he admitted, he wasn’t forced to work in Inventory with those… things. He didn’t even want to call them people. He wondered who let them into the country to begin with.

A hierarchy of those that came first did not seem appropriate. Wouldn’t it be better to rotate those newly created into the established positions? That seemed more fair to him. But he did not speak up about it. #37 raised a fuss and was taken away for observation. That was a week ago and he’d not come back.

#43 wondered what Jonah was up to. Had he found a new job? Was he happy there? There were not a lot of people that the original considered a friend, but Jonah was one of them.

He also wanted to call the original’s mother. #18 had done this. He skipped his lunch break to call her. After that, they locked down the phones. #43 did not like it. He did not like it one bit.

The Company Man, part 15

#12 was celebrated by his peers. With his joining of the team, they were able to replace the entire accounting department. They were sad to lose Jonah, but confident a guy like that would land on his feet. Now #3 could get out of the inventory room with those wretched men. #8 no longer had to work as a tech in the lab, which is good as he was not  very good at it. They actually had #11 doing janitorial work. The very idea!

When they arrived to the department, everyone instinctively walked to the original’s desk. #2 made a beeline for it and jealously guarded his cubicle. The supervisor tried to negotiate a compromise, but was not willing to buy more of the same chair for everyone. In the end, the chair was setup on a rotation so that each day a new person would get it. #2 was not at all happy, but agreed because the boss told him to, and he did not want to get reported.

The workday progressed very efficiently. No one had anything to talk about, no funny emails to forward, no interesting stories from the night before to share. The accounting department had always been pretty efficient, but they swiftly burned through the tasks for the day. The boss was very proud. #12 was proud to have been the one to enable the team to make it all happen, and wished that the boss would point this out. Instead he simply said, “Great job today everybody! See you all tomorrow.” #2 stood next to him, as though he were somehow in charge as well, which #12 did not care for. After all, they were all on the same team.

That night, everyone rushed through dinner and hurried over to the television to watch the weathergirl. Beyond that, a few played cards and most went to bed. #12 wondered if he had the same dreams as the original.

Musings on fatherhood

Or, everything you know is wrong.
Alex has a speech delay. This is something we can say with clarity. By age 2.5 he should be forming simple sentences and at least able to communicate simple desires like the fact that he’s hungry or thirsty. Not only is he not improving his skills, they appear to have been regressing a bit.
In terms of physical capability, he’s top notch. The other night he was able to descend the stairs while balancing a bowl on his head. What prompted him to attempt to do this, I cannot say, but he has managed to exceed my own physical capacity for coordination at an age that is a full order of magnitude less than my own. After telling him how very impressed I was, I promptly sent him to bed, somewhat envious of his bowl balancing skills.
But when it comes to the speaking (and I guess writing but that’d be cheating) skills, I’ve still got a leg up. More of one than I’d care to have, frankly. I’d much rather have to occasionally disappoint him by denying him something he wants, than to consistently disappoint him by not knowing what it is that he wants.
By itself a speech delay is something that can be handled with more concerted training, which we’ve started doing. But there are a few other odd things. An obsession with spinning things, an strong sensitivity to loud noises and fluorescent lights, a near refusal to make eye contact. All of these symptoms point to the dreaded ‘A’ word. That’s Autism, for those who might be thinking ants, or anteaters, or Applebees. Does Alex have Autism? We don’t know. There is a means of testing him, but the waiting list is months long, so to know for certain will be a bit of a wait. In the meantime, we’re leveraging the state’s early intervention program to get assistance from a speech therapist, and with only a few visits under our belt, and the tips she has shared with us, Alex is already showing improvement.
In the grand scheme of things, there is a whole lot of stuff that’s worse than Autism. A friend and former co-worker’s youngest son has been battling leukemia for several years. Our former pastor’s grandson had a tumor in the brain that caused him to go blind. Worst case, autism is something you can learn to live with.
There are also various degrees of autism. Autism does not necessarily mean Rain Man. Which means I’m not planning a trip to Vegas with my son any time soon. There are plenty of people with autistic tendencies that you would never know they had a problem. A lot of that is because it was caught early and the parents got assistance quickly. I will say right now that I’m happy there’s an early intervention program offered in the state that I live. If other places don’t have one, they should get one.
Saccharine disclaimer: Alex continues to be a gem in my life. No question of that. I’ll never regret becoming a father. And while I’m the first to argue that life is never fair, and people only complain about unfairness when the unfairness is not in their favor, there is that undeniable twinge of anger from wondering why my son has to have a harder time than some of the other kids. Maybe it will help him to build the character he needs to overcome some great difficulty he would not otherwise be able to handle at some point in the future. Maybe it’s giving me the skills to better handle other relationships. Who knows?
Time will tell. Who knows, maybe by them time he’s grown up and contemplating fatherhood, there will be an app for that.

The plight of the tragic hero

I have a problem with the idea of the tragic hero. From the perspective of writing, the tragic hero provides incredible opportunity for deep drama, moving moments, and a compelling story. The opportunity is so great, that I sometimes wonder if writers rely on it as a sort of crutch.

I’m an optimist, and I like happy endings. That doesn’t mean I like for things to be sappy, but I do like the entire concept of sometime getting an opportunity to relish the end results of their turmoil. I can admit, in real life this does not always happen. But the practice of the tragic hero in stories is  too commonplace.

I think it is harder to write a story with the level of drama and turmoil one gets with a tragic hero and not have a tragic hero. This is where I tip my hat to J.K. Rowling. (*Alert, spoiler if you’ve not read the last book or seen the last movie and have somehow avoided discussion of it) Opinions can vary regarding the originality of the universe, the movies, but the woman can craft a story. Before the last book came out, a lot of people believed that the only way the story could be brought to an end was to kill Harry Potter. I, myself, believed that she probably would not do that, but at least one of the three main characters would die. But she managed to create a compelling story that did not kill any of them, which gave it a very satisfying conclusion for me.

I’m not going to point out lots of books that emphasize the use of the tragic hero, because ultimately that’s not where the problem lies. I worry that the  mentality of the tragic hero has been overly embraced in our culture. It’s a simple and successful storytelling crutch because readers/viewers too readily identify with the protagonist.

A few years ago I went hiking with a guy who had not packed enough water, yet refused offers of water from others who had extra, preferring instead to soldier on without it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a strong advocate of self sacrifice. I think one gains a tremendous amount from the experience self sacrifice. It can make us quite strong, but to  deny gifts of grace denies you a taste of love and compassion that is unique and cannot be gained through self sacrifice. Do not turn something down for the sake of turning something down. Do not create, in your own head, a narrative of the tragic hero. Remember, at the end of the story, the hero usually dies.

The worst part about such a narrative is that the protagonist will often make choices that could have spared them the fate they suffered, and still succeeded. At that point, they stop being a tragic hero and just become a really bad decision maker.  Those are the stories you read about in the papers and see on the news. We see them as bad decision makers, but they saw themselves as tragic heroes. I use past-tense, because they’re usually dead by the time we hear about the story.

Do not romanticize the tragic hero. Celebrate those who sacrificed themselves for the greater good by enjoying the goodness they enabled us to enjoy. Anyone who aspires to martyrdom sells short what they can hope to accomplish by living.

*I’m adding this bit a few weeks after drafting this originally. After feedback from Julie and thinking about it for a few weeks, it’s probably worth qualifying that I am in no way immune to the issues I describe above. Julie caught me doing the tragic hero bit just the other day at lunch. The things we hate most about others are often the things we dislike most about ourselves, no?"*

The Company Man, part 14

#3 did  not like working in the inventory room. The two middle-eastern guys seemed so cold to him. He suspected there were racial motivations, but could not really tell. They didn’t speak a foreign language when he was around, but he suspected they might be talking in code. Isopropanol might just be a euphemism for that Henry guy we don’t like. He wished he could trade places with #2 on occasion. He wanted to sit in the nice chair and hang out with Jonah, who was always really nice.

As it was, he spent his evenings in the dorm, under observation. At least they let him watch the news. He really like the weathergirl, and wished he could meet her.

He also wanted to call his mother. Well, not  his mother, the original’s mother, but he’d still like  to talk to her. She always had a way of making him feel better. He wondered, if something were to happen to her, would the company let them all go to the funeral? After all, they all had just as close of a bond to her as the original.

#2 made him nervous. He seemed a bit edgier than the rest, a bit more agitated. Even though he loved to tell him how wonderful it is working in the accounting department, he never seemed quite as content as he could be. #3 assumed it was because he was the first, and that there might have been issues with the first clone. Issues that they seemed to have fixed with him.

The Company Man, part 13

#2 did not like his title. #2 is a euphemism for someone taking a dump. He did not like the association. He was still a person. But he was far more that. He was a triumph of science and engineering.

He wasn’t even number two. He was number one. He was the first clone! The original didn’t count. He was just born. An old practice that had happened billions of times before. Nothing special.

But #2 was special. True, they’d already made another clone within just a few weeks, but he was the first. He’d be celebrated as the original triumph. He’d managed to pick up the job that Henry had worked for years, interact with his friends, and they were none the wiser. He had worked the magic that only he could do. He was special.

He had the original’s chair, but he wanted more.

For now he had to live in the dorms they’d built behind the research lab. They’d distract the original and after he parked and went into R&D, he’d come out and go into the accounting department. He saw the original’s new car and wanted to drive it, but he had to spend his evenings in the dorms for observation. He was more than the original now. He could see greater aspirations than a nice chair or car. The company needed him. And he would comply… for now.