Maxed Out

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Contents

1
.
3

2
.
6

3
.
10

4
.
13

5
.
15

6
.
17

7
.
24

8
.
26

9
.
27

10
.
30

11
.
34

12
.
35

13
.
43

14
.
47

EPILOGUE
.
51

We snagged Jeremy from some big magazine
in LA, or so my boss tells me. He’s got enough credentials to sink a small ship
and he comes so highly recommended that I need supplemental oxygen whenever
anyone brings him up. Based on the level of hype he’s generated, he’s been
writing since he was conceived and every single living organism on Earth reads
his articles, constantly, generating a stream of ad revenue rivaling the
combined economies of Europe.

Or so you’d think. When I sneak into Phil’s office on his lunch
break and look up his resume I’m honestly not impressed – sure, his last
employer was pretty big, but he doesn’t cite any specific work he did there as
exemplary, and the fact that he isn’t employed there any longer speaks to the
quality of product he’s been putting out. His references are okay, sure, but his
employment record before he started working in LA two years ago was little
local rags, hardly worth mentioning. There’s some samples of articles he’s done
attached. They don’t seem amazing. To be fair, I can’t really do more than skim
right now, since Phil’s my boss and I have no idea how long he’ll be out, but
nothing jumps at me in the first few paragraphs as ‘amazing writing’ or
‘outstanding journalism’ or anything.

I don’t even know why we’re hiring him. Journalism is a
dying profession and we’ve got too many cooks sinking the Bugle as it is. When
I mentioned this to Renee last Thursday she gave some technical speech about
man-months that I tried to repeat to Phil to no avail. We’re stuck with the new
hire whether I like it or not, and it’s going to be up to me to train him and
integrate him into the team. While being responsible for my normal workload, of
course. Why would I get time to perform my extra duties? Jeremy’s going to
contribute, after all.

He arrives on Tuesday. It’s easy to miss comings and goings
in the chaos of the newsroom but I’ve been dreading this for long enough that my
body is attuned to the faint rumble of the elevator crank, my teeth on edge
every time the doors open with that soft chime, so easily picked out against
the din of a thousand keyboards and conversations and the constant hum of the
press from downstairs, at least when you’re Jeanine and your desk is right next
to the elevator. I generally enjoy the kind of forced interaction this
provides, injecting an often needed outside influence to whatever I’m working
on, but not now. I can’t even be nice when Jon or Susan or Anthony says hello
when they come in, the same way they do every day. It doesn’t matter that those
doors will open probably a hundred times today and that ninety nine of those
times people that I like will come out. That one time is spoiling it for
everyone.

I almost expect his arrival to feel like a weight off my
back, like I’m a deep sea diver coming up after a long expedition or something.
The wait is over. I can breathe normally; get all that nitrogen back in my
system. This doesn’t happen, of course. Seeing him walk out onto the floor with
Phil instead triggers a sinking feeling, closing in and locking around me with
its inevitability. I’m going to be stuck doing this guy’s work in addition to
my own for a month, and there’s no way of getting out of it.

Phil gives him a quick tour, giving me time to scope him
out. He’s more Clark Kent than Superman, 6’3 or so with a thin, wiry build,
thick framed hipster glasses and mousy brown hair moussed into a part that
wouldn’t have looked out of place in
It’s a Wonderful Life
. Actually,
scratch that. Kent was still played by Chris Reeve and most modern artists have
been sure to portray Kent with arms the size of tree trunks. Jeremy’s dressed
professionally in a shirt and slacks so there
could
be muscles hiding
somewhere, but from what I can gather he’d have a hard time pulling off the
lean build of Peter Parker.

Something about him defies any such comparison. Maybe it’s
the innocent expression of curiosity and wonder on his face as he’s lead around
by Phil, like he’s a Kansas farmboy that’s never seen a newsroom before. Maybe
it’s his face, classically proportioned and topped with that ridiculous 1940’s
haircut – if he took off his glasses he could maybe resemble the man of steel
for a picture, but you’d have to photoshop his neck to be about twice as wide. Still,
he’s got the jaw and cheekbones and cold blue eyes for it, and the hair would
add a sort of retro look that you could enhance with a bit of grain and
posterization –

I resist the sudden temptation to find his facebook pic and
perform such a transformation. My life is about to be turned upside down by
this guy. I don’t want to have a shot of his face on my desktop when he arrives
to ruin everything I’ve worked for here.

I’m doing a good enough job of that on my own. Phil asked me
to write an article about some Korean band yesterday in addition to my normal column
and I haven’t even started. He gave me a week, sure, but he said that they’ve
been getting big online and everyone else’s coverage has sucked so it’s up to
me to rectify this situation and promote good ‘ol investigative journalism in
the U S of A. Haven’t even looked up their name (I’ve got it written down
somewhere, I think). Now that new kid’s here to occupy all of my time, I’ll get
even less done.

They finish their tour. I can’t imagine what took them so
long. The newsroom is just a nest of cubicles and computers, arranged in some
haphazard way that must have made sense to someone somewhere but sure as hell
not someone who’s ever worked at a newspaper, ever. The Bugle is pretty big. We’ve
got maybe thirty cubicles (or ‘battle stations’ as Phil calls them) on this
floor and a few offices around the edges for the more senior staff. There’s a
few more upstairs with the copy staff and layout guys but the bulk of content
creation happens here, on this floor, in the noisiest manner possible. I can’t
imagine what people did for phone interviews before they could take their
cellphones into the bathroom or outside or whatever.

I was hoping that Jeremy being assigned to me meant that I
was senior enough to get an office. I even asked Phil point blank about it.
Nope. I get to set an example for new guy from my shitty little cubicle,
acoustic center of the forest of noise. I tried upgrading, calling the newsroom
‘Noisia’ in my head for a while, like it was a country that measured its GDP in
decibels, but when I pitched the idea to Renee she just laughed at me for like
ten minutes and wouldn’t tell me why so I dropped it. Now we’re back to the
baseline ‘forest of noise’ metaphor. Boring but accurate. Kinda like the speech
Phil is giving Jeremy right now.

They reach my desk. Phil introduces us. I’m a senior
entertainment columnist, but you would never believe it from the way he reads
my job title and I’m not about to correct my boss in front of him in an effort
to look less petty in front of the new guy, however manly his jaw might be.

God damn it is manly, though.

“Jeanine?” Phil says.

“Yes?” I say.

“I asked if you had anything that you wanted to know before
I leave the two of you alone.”

“Oh.” I must’ve zoned out for a minute. “What are his duties
going to be?” I ask.

“He’s just going to help you for the next week or so,” Phil
says. “I’m expecting an extra article or two out of the both of you, mind you,
but there’s no specific assignment for him yet. I don’t want to work you too
hard.”

“Oh,” I say again. This almost sounds reasonable.

“I expect him to be mostly self-sufficient by the end of the
week. You’ll be accountable for his ability to contribute after that.”

There it is. Completely unreasonable. I’m fucked if this guy
isn’t everything he’s hyped to be. I’ve got seven days to somehow prove to my
boss that it’s not my fault he’s not superman, he’s just an average reporter
who managed to hold a pretty good job for a couple years. If I don’t, Phil is
going to come to this conclusion on his own shortly after my week with Jeremy,
only it’ll be my fault for not teaching him how we operate well enough.

I can only hope that Phil is less stubborn than usual on
this one.

Phil leaves and I’m alone with Jeremy, or at least as alone
as we’re going to get in this sea of people. I stare resentfully at his
backside, fuming inside that I’ve managed to let myself get saddled with this
burden. I’ll deal with it, I’m sure. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be fun or
easy.

“Tell me about yourself,” Jeremy says.

“What?”

“If we’re going to be working together I should know a
little about you,” he says.

“It’s just a week,” I say. Hopefully less. All I have to do
is find some fatal flaw and bid good riddance to Mr. Kent here.

“Yes, but journalism is the most personal profession,” he
says. “How are you supposed to present an objective viewpoint if you don’t
thoroughly understand yourself? If we’re working together, we’ll have to  compensate
for both of our biases. We can only do this through sharing.”

This is the biggest load of shit I have ever heard. “Objective
journalism is physically impossible,” I start. “The act of observation in and of
itself changes –“

I had a speech prepared about Jane Goodall and quantum
mechanics and certain dead Germans but it falls off of my tongue when I realize
what Jeremy is offering me. He’s suggesting that we try to achieve this
ridiculous ideal by sharing ourselves with each other, by being open and honest
and talking about our lives and experience and our lack of qualifications for
the jobs that we were just hired for.

He’s offering me kryptonite.

“I’m 27,” I say. “I live with my boyfriend in Point Loma. We’ve
been together for a year and a half. I went to –“

“Don’t just give me superficial stuff,” Jeremy says. “Tell
me who you
are
.”

This might be harder than I thought. “I’m not sure what you
mean,” I say. “Maybe you should go first?”

He shakes his head. “No, then you’d just model your answer
after mine and it wouldn’t be honest. People are different. What I think is
important about me might not be very important about you. When you think of
yourself, what’s the first attribute that comes to mind?”

I normally think positively about myself. I’d be hard
pressed to come up with a single word that best describes me. If I had to name
a few, I’d probably go with honesty, loyalty , fun, kindness, and wearing giant
hats. The problem is, I’m not exhibiting any of those values right now. I’m
trying to go behind a co-worker’s back to prove to my boss that that co-worker
doesn’t deserve his job.

This is stupid. I don’t need to be doing this. I’m just
resentful of the extra work that I’m going to have to put in to support a
decision Phil made that I don’t agree with. My real issue is that Phil doesn’t
seem to value my input as much as I think he should. Proving that Jeremy is
unqualified would allow me to say ‘I told you so’ and might make him value my
advice more in the future, but it’s not a very good way of handling the core
conflict here. My problem is with Phil. I shouldn’t need to trash the
reputation of a third party to solve that problem.