Acess Denied

Gregory was a man quite like any one. 

He is a managing consultant in charge of office. What does that mean? It meant that every day Gregory would sit on his desk and fill out spreadsheets, do some calculations, and respond to emails sent by other employees. Every day, he sat at his desk, everything exactly as he left them. His keyboard, a blank set of buttons, label-less due to years of clicking, but so accustomed was he that he didn’t even notice the lack of ink. 

On the occasional “pizza party”, he would tumble his way through the mumbling lot, grab himself a slice and make his exit, fake interest stamped in his face as he overheard the tales of the office. “The printer won’t work?! What a shocker!”, ” Sandra, did you use my oat milk?”, ”did you see Carl’s numbers? Yikes”. He grew bored of it in his first year there, he’s worked there much, much more than a year. 

It didn’t matter, in his cube time did not exist. There was only sit; type password; spead the sheets and reply; reply; carry the one; enter; annex; spread & reply. Every day, be it winter, be it raining, when he’s sick, everyday, every, single, day. 

But today is not quite the regular day for this regular man. He sat down in his chair, the familiar groove hugging his buttocks, stared blankly at the screen as he’d done a million times. Sipped the burnt morning coffee and typed his password. Denied. Strange, he thought sipping once again his stale black coffee. He typed, and was again wrong. The strangest feeling creeping unto him. He stared at the blank keyboard. What is my password? He thought for a while and nothing came up. I’ve used the same password for years. Why don’t I remember?

He was stuck, he simply could not remember his password. The idea terrified him. Not only because he had to send the spreadsheet to accounting, and reply to Carl. Because he’d done it every single day for years without fail, and now, his hands betrayed him. It had been so long since he actually thought about what he typed that muscle memory simply took over, from winter to winter, without fail. 

He grew nervous as the sounds of the office started to pick up. The clicking of the keys could be heard all around his little cube. Phones rang and were answered, people sharpened their pencils. He sat motionless. Staring at the locked screen saver. He stared for so long his coffee became cold. He tried a couple more times, but he simply did not have the faintest idea what word he used. A noun, it must be, perhaps the name of a childhood pet? No? Ah, it must be a verb then, an action such as… typing! No… an adjective of course, blue? No. Pretty? Darn. Broken? Denied. 

He thought back to when he started this job, a bright eyed kid with aspirations of rising above it all. Maybe there was something there, but try as he might Gregory did not get it right, he barely recognized that version of himself. He closed his eyes, put his hands gently on the keyboard and took a breath, like a concert pianist beginning his movement, hoping muscle memory could guide him, the tip of his fingers clicked and clacked on the surface below and he felt as if he had done it, he could continue his life undisturbed. Alas, this feeling lasted only until his eyes were greeted by the entry denied screen. 

Gregory felt resigned. He slumped back on his chair, arms loose on his sides. This was a flavor of frustration he had never expected. He flared his nostrils in great big gasps of exasperation, the sway of the office chair rocking him was his comfort. He looked around his cube in the hope of a clue, he found none. All there was was his cold coffee, his office phone, a pencil case with 2 pens, an old stack of spreadsheets and some out of date memos decorating the walls of the cube. He couldn’t even remember what was so important about them that he felt the need to hang them. 

At this point he had been trying for an hour. Any man might have gone to the IT guy, but Gregory was feeling tremendous shame, and more, he was now scared. He looked at his desk. Empty, filled with the bare minimum, full of memories that meant very little to him, and an insurmountable obstacle taunting him, daring him to try again. He felt paralyzed. 

Around him the sound of calls and movement, he caught himself looking at his phone with huge apprehension, staring at it as if it was the barrel of a gun. A sudden ringing came, almost as if he had summoned it. He stared horrified, maybe he shouldn’t answer it, but that could make someone go to his cube to see him and his locked screen. Maybe it's nothing, he thought, maybe it's a wrong number. Realizing he was taking too long, on impulse grabbed the device and said “hm.. hello”. 

It was Denise. “Hi Greg, I need that weekly report. I need to punch in the numbers”. He had no idea what to reply, “hum.. sure”. “Great, thanks”. She hung up. Hearing the tone sound made him very anxious, what should he do now? Everything is on his computer, it is the powersource of his cube, the god of this square microcosm. A panic overcame him, he started typing madly, trying everything he could think of, surely this will work. From his first grade teacher’s name to the model of his current car, nothing cleared this hurdle. 

Half an hour passed, then an hour, every moment would build up his anxiety. Any moment now she will come and unmask this shameful secret. He stood up, looking around at the other cubes around him, as if they would spell his password. The others barely recognized he was looking at them, he saw no escape. Sitting back down he was prepared for the public humiliation. Time passed, and no one came. This troubled him more than anything. 

At first he was scared that people would go after him looking for information, documents or anything, but more than half the day had gone by, his computer was still locked, and no one had looked for him. What was he doing there? He knew his job didn’t hold the biggest significance, but he always believed that he produced valuable information, that it had a true effect in the day-to-day, maybe even on a slightly bigger scale. Gregory bargained with himself, creating excuses for other people’s indifference, they are all busy, but when something big comes up they will come. 

Just as Gregory thought of that, he heard steps. Rolling his chair back to see who it was. His stomach sank. Denise was walking towards him in his cube’s corridor. “She is coming to demand my report, of course she is! What will I do?” the man typed madly, praying to somehow get it right. No luck. He was much more nervous then he should be, each step sounded like thunder, growing ever closer. He braced his nerves. The steps were heard right behind him, but they didn’t stop. Relieved, he rolled back out of his cube to see Denise walking to the end of the corridor and out of sight. He took a deep breath of relief and outrage. 

Of course he didn’t want her to demand the file, but how dare she not even acknowledge him. A mixture of feelings bubbled up inside him. He was happy because she didn’t draw attention to his situation, but sad because he thought about how his work wasn’t appreciated. He was thinking he wasted his life on something with no value, grabbing the pile of old spreadsheets, a bunch of numbers stamped that meant something, but now he saw it only as information for the sake of information, no real consequence. Like an astronomer who discovers a very distant star, “Cool, who cares? What does it affect me?”. Bitterness grew inside him. 

For the rest of the day he stopped trying to get access to the computer. “What is the point?” He thought. Instead he read the memos on the walls, there were behavioral guidelines, polite passive-aggressive notes, a list of employees' birthdays, many of whom had long left the company. He took them down, and pushed them to the bin, some reservation on the back of his mind. Sitting there, not doing anything in particular, he decided he wanted to move around. 

The corridor was full of different worlds, some had barren wastelands with nothing but the computer on their desks. Others had pictures, windows to their world outside that place. A few had drawings and toys, quick escapes. Greg recognized the faces, but looking at their spaces he realized he knew nothing about them. He also realized he didn’t really know the office. Gregory had walked two routes for so long, from his box to the coffee pot and the bathroom. Much has changed over the years. The mostly open floor plan became crowded for new spaces for more people. The billboard where people hanged funny comics was replaced with some motel art. Where once a printer ran quietly was now an entire printing station with the apparatus’s noises that never stopped. A few dying plants were scattered around seemingly at random. Even vending machines now existed on the other side of the giant warehouse-like office. 

He approached the machine, a line of people silently waiting. Going slowly forward he caught himself not looking at the items for sale, but instead at his own reflection in the glass,  a man much older than him looked back at him with a puzzled look on his face. He took a moment, moving his head to see the different angles of his face. No one complained as to not draw attention. He moved out of the way not to frustrate anyone. Looked at the line of young men as if he was still staring at himself, some looked back. “This line is not worth it”, he said, giving some a confused face. 

He walked looking down at his moving toes. A sudden bump stopped him in his tracks. It was Denise, she had dropped some papers. He picked them up. “Greg, just who I wanted to see. Have you done your report?”. For a moment he had completely forgotten about this. He stared at her. “Well?” she demanded. He thought for a second before realizing that the answer was simple. “I didn’t”. She seemed taken aback with such a curt and direct answer. “Can I ask why you didn’t do it?” a tone of criticism marked her voice. “Well, at first it was because I didn't remember my computer’s password, I tried many times and then I realized that it was pointless anyway. So I stopped trying.” His voice was clear, he didn’t try to hide it from curious ears on neighboring cubes. “Well. Then go to IT, they will sort you out.” She tried to regain dominance. Just as she was starting to move Gregory spoke. “No. I don’t think they can. I think that it's something I must sort out for myself.” he was looking down now reflecting, Denise opened her mouth to say something but he interjected. “I spent so many years here, seen the people change time and time again” he looks up “I look at you and I can barely recognize you, as so many have come before you.” Her face struggled to understand. “I submitted countless reports, spreadsheets and memos, straight into the ether, never to be seen again. Day after day, enough paper to make a forest, punching numbers that are never looked at, writing statements that are never pronounced.” He grew frustrated at himself, “So I’m sorry if I don’t rush to IT, but they can do JACK-SHIT FOR ME!” He yelled the last bit. 

Denise was looking a little scared and had her body leaning slightly away from him. People's heads could be seen popping up above their cubicles to get a look at the commotion, some looking disapprovingly, others in with smirking admiration. The scene was frozen, no one could see how to proceed from there. Denise knew she should say something, but as she searched for the words in her mind Gregory started walking, steady, decisive pace. She said something from behind him, but he wasn’t interested.

 He was done. The man navigated the maze of boxes with savage steps, loud and unapologetic. He slowed to a stop at the intersection leading to his cubicle, some heads still following his movements. He considered going back to it, maybe picking up some stuff, but as he thought he found that nothing in that desk held any value to him. Walking briskly towards the door he felt a sense of liberation and discovery. He wanted out. He wanted everything that he was too blind to see. He wanted to go home. 

The door opened with a creek as it always did, but it felt triumphant in his mind. The blinding light flooded the large space. He never noticed the darkness. For a second he hesitated, thinking of all the reasons why one would continue to do something joyless. He thought of money and expectations, phrases like ‘cooling job market’ floated in his mind. They went away as soon as they came. He felt proud of himself. He straightened himself off, and with a smile, Gregory was gone.