Class Warfare by D. M. Fraser Page B

the memo was duly returned to me, from what I suspected was one of the middle echelons, with the following annotation: “It may indeed be true that no one has yet seen anyone in the act of replacing the toilet paper, but how do you explain the fact that the light fixture in that same executive washroom has been functionally inoperative for the past seven (7) weeks, and no one has undertaken to replace
it?
”
    The letters continued to accumulate, unanswered. I read them all slowly, attentively, cherishing each word, the occasional felicitous phrase, the whimsical vagaries of punctuation, spelling, stance. Often I could not restrain a chuckle. “Life,” I thought at such times. “Ah yes, life.” One day at lunch hour I bought a paperweight in the shape of a stuffed Pekingese, and thereafter kept the choicest of the letters under it. This somewhat enhanced my prestige, within my own echelon: it was recognized that I was becoming, at last, a “personality.”
    Some pertinent facts, empirical observations, may be called for here. It must be said, for example, that the language of the letters was in all instances entirely congruous with the subject matter. That is: ire was conveyed in irate language, enthusiasm in enthusiastic language, and so on. I noticed, too, that correct postage had been applied to the envelopes (in the customary place) in all but a negligible percentage of cases; the exceptions could be presumed to be the work of children, recent immigrants from underdeveloped nations (those, perhaps, without a postal system of their own), or wilful eccentrics. In that period the official mailing code was still in its infancy, and I made no attempt to compute how often it was used, or how accurately. That will be the task, if it becomes necessary, for the lower echelons.
    I will not deny that, at the outset, my decision worried me slightly, chiefly on ethical grounds: to decline to act, where action is normatively demanded, is to invite ambiguity, the disruptive element, into the familiar dispensation of things. I was aware of that. I understood that I was, as a consequence, leaving myself open to a number of allegations: that I was, in fact, a “dissident influence,” that I lacked “team spirit,” that I was imperfectly “oriented” toward my “role-expectations.” It was apparent that my colleagues would have to rethink their original evaluation of my “profile.” In those weeks, early in the rainy season, I spent a great deal of time (admittedly at company expense) in front of the washroom mirror, repeating helpful homilies. “Stick to your guns, Kid,” I exhorted myself. “Fight the good fight, Lad,” I said. “History will absolve you, Buster.” It was very reassuring, to consider that History would, after all, absolve me. I discovered, as well, that certain “pet” names, applied to myself, had an immediate and regenerative effect on my morale. When I called myself Kid, or Lad, or Buster (or, for variety, Chum, Buddyboy, Old Son, or Ralph), I felt at once infused with competence. I had only to utter these names, and competence shone round about me.
    I let it be known, to all who enquired, that I was willing to “face the music” in the matter of the letters. The music played and played. The principal instruments seemed to be harpsichord, clavichord, oboe, cello, saxophone, and electric bass. I affected a courtly, upright posture, in the manner of David Niven in
My Man Godfrey,
and let my hair grow past the regulation length. Cognizance, I may say, was taken of this. I began to compose poems, in a primitive mode, on the subject of rain. Late in the rainy season, I took a mistress.
    I rehearsed the following statements, with which to articulate my position (if it came to that):
    1. “Life is real, life is earnest, and its end is not the grave.”
    2. “Strike while the iron is hot.”
    3.