It was just another day in the workplace.
Like so many others, the cubicle farm occupied one corner of one floor in the city’s high-rise building. In cubicle 4, a junior technical writer had just completed a piece of work. Across the section, in cubicle 9, a woman was secretly eating a Twix, against company rules, of course. The piece of work he’d finished was an improved, yet still complex, step by step description of a process for loading specific items onto the company’s website. The aim of it was to update the job of performing a series of actions, in a particular sequence, making the whole process quicker and the instruction easier to follow. His friend, an older man from finance, two floors below, was passing by the section and stopped to say hello.
Finance: Said, “What’s new?”
Twix: Stopped eating, momentarily.
Junior: Pointed to his screen, “This.”
Finance: Peered at the screen of text and said, “OK.”
Junior: Smiled and said, “It’s an improved loading process that I had to produce a description for.”
Finance: “Improved?”
Junior: “Yes. Better and quicker.”
Finance: “Really?”
Junior: “Yep. I proved it by doing it myself, while timing it. He looked around and dropped his voice. “I hate timing things.”
Twix: Stopped typing to listen,
Finance: “You do?”
Junior: “Yes. Especially myself.” He sat back, looking out of the window at the city, he whispered, “The metropolis.”
Finance: “What about it?”
Junior: “Oh! I don’t know… I sometimes think we are too obsessed with timing things.”
Finance: “Oh really, why’s that?”
Junior: Lets out a long sigh. “Well, it kind of goes against the whole point of being alive!”
Twix: Goes quiet again.
Finance: Eyebrows go up. “Really! Does it?”
Junior: “Oh yes, no doubt.”
Finance: “Are you sure about that?”
Junior: Looks out of the window again. “Yes, I am. I’m not sure anybody else understands that.”
Finance: “What is this, then, some kind of transcendentalism?”
Junior: “You know, to be honest I have no idea. All I know is timing things just seems to take the edge off it somehow. Like I said, I think too many of us are obsessed with time. I mean, at the end of the day you’ve either got time to do something or you haven’t. You really have to ask yourself, what’s more important, how long did it take or how right it is.”
Finance: “Wow!”
Twix: Smiles.
Junior: “I often wish I had the time to stop and think about it.” He looked up and grinned.
Finance: Shook his head. He looked around and said, “You guys have all the fun.” On his way out, he said, “See ya.”
Junior: Looking back at his screen, said, “See ya.”
Twix: Opened the drawer quietly and took out another Twix.