He saw Danita, the black secretary--administrative assistant as they were now called here in government service--through the corner of his eye drop his pay statement envelope on the far end of his desk. This reminded him today was Tuesday. Payday. He pretended not to notice her and continued with what he was doing on the PC.
"Hey," she said, faking reproach. "Puchinsky, you gettin' good pretendin' to be workin' whenever somebody shows up at your office."
"Go away," he said for his opener to another one of their quick morning banter, now removing her completely from his range of vision by giving her the back of his head.
"Dontcha wanna see how much money you made for sittin' around here for two weeks doin' nuthin'?" She cracked up in the last two words of that. So did he.
He finally turned to her and countered with a smile: "I already know what it is. It's the same as the last two weeks."
"Well, maybe," she began to say as she started to move on, "maybe if you did some real work once a while, you might see a change in it."
If I want to do some real work, he thought once left to himself with his forty-nine-thousand-three-hundred-some-dollar-a-year government job in his twelve-by-fourteen feet cubicle, I'd go out get a job operating an earth-mover or laying out sewer pipes under city streets or some backbreaker like that instead of sitting here cooped up, turning out reports and mountains of papers for these high-grade bureaucrats I work for who never even look at them, much less understand what's in them.
Yeah, he thought further, what the fuck do these asshole SES and political appointees know about what's really happening in the world down here, five or ten levels below their job and income level? And what the hell do they care?
The appointees, today they're here the next administration they're gone. And these so-called Senior Executives, they're so busy kissing asses and thinking about how much pension they're going to get when they retire in the next few years.
What the fuck do they know? What do they care about what I, Daniel Puchinsky--computer specialist, statistician, and a dumbshit for working here--do and how I do it, as long as they look good with what they get from me and a bunch of other dumbshits like me?
He cranked all that out in his head so fast and so clearly for a moment he thought he was actually mouthing them and held his fingers on the keyboard from keying in the next line of coding in a computer program he had been constructing for a couple of weeks now.
In spite of the cynicism, the cold indifference which had built up in him through eleven years of service in the government, he enjoyed what he did. Lucky for him he happened to be in a line of work he liked, making that high-tech machine work the way he wanted to.
Brainpower. Intellectual force. Creativity. Innovation. The kind of work that challenges one's self-respect and mental discipline. Keeps one busy, makes the day go fast, so fast it makes him forget about all the politics and the bureaucratic shows that go on in the office daily.
The agency head or even the agency head's boss, the President of the United States of America, could drop in the office for a visit any day and he couldn't care less. He's busy working. If it didn't matter to him that today was payday, what would it matter who the hell showed up in the office.
Occasionally, he imagined that scene if and when it happened:
The entourage led by his top boss, the agency Director alongside the President accompanied by several other top officials of the agency, those appointees and SES's--deputy directors or assistant directors (there were so many of those second-string top bosses in these government agencies people didn't know what the hell some of them were for)--and the ever-present Secret Service, shows up at his office around ten o'clock in the morning on a drop-in inspection tour of the Information Management Division which he was a part of.
The Director, reading the nameplate outside his office:
'...and here, Mr. President, is Daniel Puchinsky.'
He turns around from the PC just as one of those second-strings, the one who manages the Division, his immediate top-boss and who knows him personally and what he does, takes over.
His top-boss, stepping up:
'Dan is one of our most essential personnel in the Division, Mr. President. He's responsible for the timely release of the regular statistical reports that go to the Vice-President and several committees in Congress. Dan, we have a visitor this morning, from the White House. I believe you recognize who the man is.'
He advances a couple of steps toward the President to greet him with a normal smile, the same smile he would give any GS-5 clerk who came to pick up one of those reports he's responsible for.
Him, putting out a hand to shake the White House man:
'Yes, I sure do. Seen him a lot on TV and the newspapers. I'm glad to meet you, Mr. President. How are you this morning, sir?'
The President, joining the others around him in an amused cackle at Daniel Puchinsky's coolness.
'I'm fine, Dan. Thank you. And you?'
Him, same as talking to a fellow government worker:
'Keeping busy. Everyday. Trying to keep up with customer demand. You guys in the White House and them on the Hill, both.'
The President, turning sideways to those around him:
'I'm certainly glad to know we got somebody keeping close guard on the fort everyday.'
Him, noticing the agency bosses starting to feel uneasy:
'A man's gotta do his job. Doesn't matter what it is, if that's what he chose to do, he's gotta to do it.'
The President, a surprised but approving grin on:
'Absolutely. We all have a job to do. Running a government, trying to make it work. Same as running a machine, trying to make it work. Same thing.'
Him, now getting some killer looks from his agency bosses:
'You said it, Mr. President. We all have a job to do. That's what it comes down to. Doesn't matter what it is, or who you are.'
Now, his phone rings and he excuses himself to the President as he took the call, his bosses now totally rattled and looking murderously at him as he talks on the phone and keeps America's President waiting.
'No problem at all (pause and listen). Everything's fine. I got everything you asked for (pause and listen, now reaching out with his other hand to touch the President on the elbow, an act to say hold on, stay a moment, I'll be with you in a sec).
'Send your pickup in a coupla hours. I'll have everything ready then (pause). No problem. Glad you called. 'Bye now.'
Him, turning back to the President after replacing the phone: 'As we're saying, sir, we all have a job to do. We gotta do it when we gotta do it.'
The President, looking very friendly, and impressed: 'I couldn't agree with you more. And that reminds me, I got a job to do myself...'
Him, ignoring his bosses, not giving a shit:
'I can imagine.'
The President:
'...and I think I might be running a little behind (pause, check with an aide beside him). How're we doing, Bobby?'
Bobby:
'Not bad, Mr. President. We have some slack left.'
The President:
'I'm very glad to have met you, Dan. I like the sound of you, the way you handle things.'
Him:
'Thank you, Mr. President. Glad you stopped by.'
The President:
'Hey, listen, you do the same, would you? C'mon over my office sometime. It's only a couple of blocks from here. I'd like to talk to you some more. Here, take this card. That'll let you in anytime. The phone number is direct to my desk and the bedroom, if you wanna call first.'
Melvin Kaplan, a co-worker who sat in the office five feet away, the width of the hallway between them, wandered idly to Dan's office doorway and stood there puzzling over his pay statement.
"What the hell are you looking so festive about?" asked Dan on detecting the man's presence through the corner of his eyes, the presidential entourage still fresh on his mind.
"The COLA this year," Melvin replied with a snicker. "It finally showed up. But hardly."
"I haven't even looked at my pay stub. What are we talking about--two-and-a-half, three percent increase?"
"Three percent. Three damn cents more they give you out of every dollar you earn," Melvin, a 25-year civil servant at 51 years of age, said vehemently. "It's totally inane. They probably spend twice as much the actual money increase in the federal payroll going through the process of fighting over it--the White House and Congress, the unions and everybody else who has anything to say about it--to get it to us. Today's dollar is worth only twenty-five cents in 1968 dollar, did you know that?"
"Melvin..."
"So what the hell difference do they think three cents more is going to make to anybody? It's an insult! It's stup..."
"Melvin," Dan finally succeeded in interrupting by raising a stiff voice. "If you don't know that the federal government has the most fucked up personnel management system in America, you must have been sleeping all your twenty years in government service. Like I said, I haven't even looked at my pay stub. I hardly ever do, COLA or no COLA. I don't give a shit anymore."
He was happy when Melvin Kaplan turned around and went back into his own office. The man never had anything to say that interested him. Most of what he talked about was his retirement plan, his family--kids in high school and college, wife, dog, in-laws, his twenty-five foot boat at the Washington marina, not one of which Daniel Puchinsky, thirty-seven, single never married, ever had in his whole life. He did not, could not, relate to the man in any meaningful way.
Around eleven o'clock, the building fire-drill alarm went off and everybody headed to the exit stairways as instructed by the drill marshals.
Good timing, thought Daniel Puchinsky as did most everybody else, no doubt. This thing usually lasted a half hour, forty-five minutes, which meant that much extra time away from the office on top of the lunchtime.
He waited a while before he moved, expecting most of the twelve hundred occupants of the building to have made it at least out of the stairwells when he got to the one nearest him. The last time this happened, he remembered, it got rough going through the stairwell door, going down the stairs and getting out of it. People were packed nose-to-nape and had to move uniformly but didn't, so when someone missed a step and fell, it was like domino. He ended up with a skin-cut on his shin when some obese woman fell on him and, getting up, stepped on him too.