the inmate's journal : the corporation xvii : marketing vi

I lived in this professional limbo for eight months, gradually losing identity, beginning to assume that my spectral existence would continue and I’d wander as a wraith among the skyscrapers until humanity had annihilated itself and only machines were left to tell the tale.  During this time, Mae left the Division and I found out she was actually a doctoral student at Colombia writing her thesis on sexual politics and the culture of cool in the banking industry.  She wasn’t an MBA turnover reduction specialist at all … just another sneaky academic doing undercover research.  I got this email from her—

 

Oct 30 10:21am

to             Jude Peer, Senior Consultant, Communication, Marketing Division, New Bank

from         mumori@gmail.com

subject     New Bank Research

 

Jude,

 

You’ve probably heard why I was at New Bank and I wanted to write you to let you know I hope you’re not mad at me.  I hope you know I didn’t go to bed with you just for research purposes, but I really liked it and I got quite fond of you.  Anyway, I got lots of useful data so I wanted to thank you because you were particularly useful.  I’ll send you a copy of my thesis when I’m done.

 

Cheers,

 

Mae

 

Who to trust, why, and when … are questions central to modern angst.  They add fireworks to our imaginative life, generate endless lunches, and fuel the economy.  We develop unlikely formulas to figure out how much to divulge, how much to believe, and who to go to bed with.  The strange thing is, though, that untrustworthy people can help us as much as trustworthy people can harm us.  Ferdinand lies to me and tries to stab me in the back, but his lie and stabbing backfire and he gets demoted instead; Mariana goes out of her way to make me look good in the eyes of the powerful … instead … bloodshed, mayhem, incest, murder, genocide, apocalypse, night.

 

When I drop a rock on my foot and can’t walk properly for a week, I know it’s because I dropped the rock on my foot.  Causation in purely physical things is often easy.  But to transfer this easy causation into the psychological realm is impossible, though we try to do it all the time.  Francis is honest, noble, generous … he’ll stagnate.  Julianna is conniving, stingy, and deceitful … she’ll get promoted.  Arthur’s honest, noble, generous … he’ll get promoted.  Audrey’s conniving, stingy, and deceitful … she’ll get shafted.  But … come on! … where’s the person who knows this?  We tell ourselves stories that A leads to B to make life seem orderly … but A leads to C and A leads to W and A leads to 48 and A leads to A and A leads to death and A leads to Santiago and A leads to alcoholism and who knows where A leads and who really knows?

 

Nard had decided not to fire me because he thought it would be greater torture to ostracize me, assuming that depriving me of blab and status would be akin to starvation, not being capable of imagining that the world wasn’t comprised entirely of MBAs.  Eventually he forgot about me—each day, after all, there are more distractions, more breasts, more numbers, more greed and envy—and I became just a drop in the ocean of his budget.  Maybe I could have sat there till I died; lots of people do … collecting their pay, sitting in ennui, four limbs in a tomb.  But I was getting bored … and a woman called … and I was seeing visions … and the same old carousel and you’ve probably heard it all before but maybe not and I’m going to tell you anyway or I’m going to tell you something because I’ve learned how to blab and I’ve learned how to lie and I’ve learned that you don’t care as long as you’re entertained.