Gossip

Boredom at work, is there anything it can't do? Except for anything, of course. Boredom at work is an industrial-size incubator for gossip, a way to pass the time while artificially propping up one's adrenal system so that, for one moment in the day, you feel motivated. The velocity that gossip will spread (VG) is inversely proportional to the meaningfulness of a person's job title on the employee ranking scale (T). You can calculate the time it will take for News (N) to spread based on the time it takes to have a gossip-related exchange, as in the following typical workplace example:

"Did you hear about Honus, the hilarious foreigner with a heart of gold?"
"No! What happened?"
"I can't really talk about it, but it looks like he's in trouble"
"For what?!?"
"I shouldn't tell anybody but it's bad, really bad, like Denise Richards-in-The World Is Not Enough-bad."
"Come on, I won't tell anyone!"
"Okay, but you absolutely positively ultrasupersisivity CANNOT tell anyone else. Honus committed a ritual virgin sacrifice in the shipping room using old cardboard, lighter fluid, a forklift and orange safety cones."
"So what?"
"It was DURING his shift and he used company materials!"
"OH NO!!!!!!"
"Yeah, it look like he's going to get a WRITTEN WARNING!!!!"
"OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Given that this is a typical workplace gossip exchange, the word length, and thus the time it takes to replicate itself, becomes a Word Number Constant (WNC) in our formula. That'll do for now, and once a certain physics friend of mine bothers to read this he can help me articulate the formula properly. I realize that is this merely 11th grade math but I turned from that path long ago. I have chosen exile.

Gossip, of course, creates paranoia. In my own case, I like my job enough to get through the day but not enough to care very much about the surrounding work atmosphere. I'm aware of the news, I can't help but ask follow-up questions as my curiosity gets the better of me, but once the conversation is over any feelings of sympathy or bitterness disappear. The latest rumour, probably founded in some degree of truth, was that our department was being watched for possible internal theft. This was due to some discrepancies in the cashouts and some recent "employee activity." Since I've been at work the last six days and it's been during this time that suspicions have increased, I "naturally" assumed that I was being watched. Because no stock is missing, no cashout issues came back to my employee number and I haven't actually done anything, it's no big deal. Of course, this is a boring job, so any excuse to run the imagination for a few minutes is a welcome relief for an increasingly atrophied brain. For my own amusement I've played out noirlike scenarios where I've been pulled into the back room, with no windows, two chairs separated by a long table, while a mustached, chain-smoking Dennis Franz-lookalike tries to "break me down."

After a while of envisioning all the different shades of grey these walls will be and the different types of mustaches Dennis would have, I realized that the idea of being outright accused of stealing from the store did not bother me at all. I had no real problem with having my moral compass challenged and my professional integrity called into question. That struck me as amusing and frankly, a much more interesting way of passing the time than helping Ernie the Geriatric understand that no, technology isn't cyclical and the VCR isn't coming back. No, the part that bothered me about being accused of theft is that they thought I'd get caught. What? You think I'm stupid enough to just yank things off the shelf like some 15 year old, or simply not ring things through on a purchase? A little respect please. You can challenge my values, accuse me of ethical impropriety and threaten my people with slavery and death but you do NOT question my ability to pull of a heist! How DARE you lump me in with common smash-and-grabbers!? You think you could CATCH me??? Quit wasting my time and go check on Honus, I think we're coming up on another full moon.

I've never stolen anything from a job in my life, except for several thousand tons of sweet and sour pork, steamed rice, spring rolls, dry pork, spicy prawns and office supplies, so I really don't know if I'd be a good thief or not. Well okay, I'd be better than most of the idiots who steal from stores because most thieves are poor and all poor people are dumb, therefore most thieves are dumb. It's an entire genre of Hollywood movies, the Dignified Criminal Wearing Expensive Suits genre, that's warped one's way of looking at thievery in our society. Because those films (and Futurama) have established that stealing is cool, the only possible character flaw that can be derived from someone who's stolen something is incompetence. Did they get caught? Then they're sloppy and stupid and a Bad Person. Did they get away with it? Then they applied themselves, worked hard and went from the Bottom to the Top and, in doing so, achieved the American Dream and became an American Hero. So don't accuse me of theft, and by extension that I might do such a poor job as to get caught, because what you're really calling me is un-American. If you do that, the terrorists win and all of Toby Keith's work has been in vain. This isn't making much sense anymore.