Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 15:37:11 -0800 (PST)
From: Lakshmi Gopinathan Nair <lnair-AT-uclink2.berkeley.edu>
Subject: a day in corporate america



I stare up up up
at the huge
monolith
of corporate america.

He stares back
with his
black glassy
inhuman
eyes

My stomach fills
with acid at
the thought of 
entering
the bowels
of that monster

of becoming
a part of 
the machine

even if it's
only a temp job.

Inside
it's as remote
as it looked
>from the outside.

Everyone looks
the same.
Same professional clothes
Same professional hair
Same professional walk
Same professional talk

Same  
phony,
condescending,
but oh-so professional
half-smile
flashed in my 
direction 
in robotic
welcome to 
their world.

I feel so small,
 brown, alien,
so wrong...

ah, well.
I'm used to that.
No big deal...
Haven't had quite
such a large
and bitter swig 
of it lately,
but I'll swallow
it down
for those
precious 6 bucks
an hour.

They seat me at
the "phone"
It looked
so ordinary,
so deceptively simple.

They left me alone
with it.
And then,
it showed me 
it's true face...

I've never seen
anything so horrible,
I tell you...

So many lights
and buttons,
evil little
blinking eyes
everywhere.

Hello, (what's the name of this place again!?)
May I help you?
(Why is my American-born
voice slipping,
Saladin Chamcha-like
into the up and down
side to side roll of my mother's?)
Hold Please.
(which button, which button?!)
Good morning,
please hold,
hello, hello, hello?
Oh shit!
I've just hung up on the 
Vice President.

Come on!
I've read Gayatri Spivak
and have even
understood her (sort of),
why can't I make 
this fucking phone work?

So I turn to my only
refuge,
"Oh, Krishna, Saraswati, Ganesha,
someone, anyone, please
help me!"

Do our gods and goddesses
even hover over this part
of the world? 
I wonder frantically.

I sense that 
they would feel 
as alien as I do
in this environment.

Even fearless Kali's
face blanches
at the prospect
of waging war
with corporate
America.

Probably they are declaring the
place inauspicious as we speak.

As the hours
trudge slowly past
6 dollars, 12 dollars, 18 dollars (minus taxes)...
The rules of the game
begin to seep in.

I learn
to assimilate.