Howie and How-He "Works"
By: Oz Green
When describing one's redeeming qualities during an interview, "detail-oriented" seems to be a fairly positive trait to include. However, in the case of Howie "main narrator/character" LastName, this may have been his only negative factor in terms of how he approaches the workspace. It is not simply due to the fact that he does not use excessive detailing when illustrating his supposed day-to-day experiences while working on the Mezzanine floor in his corporate workspace - but rather that he pours all his detailing into everything besides his actual work. It can be assumed that he works in an office cubicle, and has rather straight-laced coworkers (as this is only viewed from his perspective, perhaps what they were discussing did not apply to his process of interpretation). In his defense, is this not the description of the average office worker? The "grueling" and mundane living while the person works in an enclosed space in which they can only interact with the same people each day - and Howie merely allows us to see into his mind as he dissociates through his thoughts as he thinks about his day in the office; where none of his actual working is mentioned. That, and what the man does as a job itself.
Such dissociation within the work place can be exhibited in Howie during his moments where he is describing his day at work (being able to list an assortment of the functions of the common item, but being unable to give the briefest attention to his genuine work). He cannot track a list of important tasks he needs to perform for his day in the office, but he can explain to himself the bodily functions of himself and his coworkers with great insistence.
"Chance found me that day having worked for a living all morning[. . .]"
This is placed within the sentence as if yet another small occurrence in his train of long-lasting events throughout this particular day that he goes back to work after his lunch break. Later in this same paragraph - no less the same sentence, Howie mentions shoelaces - an object that he has shown to able more than capable of talking about at length; spending entire pages explaining the necessary importance of the laces to his development as a now "grown man" and how they provide an air of nostalgia to be thrust upon him (essentially at the same pace as anything else he encounters - besides from work, evidently).
"[. . .] broken a shoelace [. . .] bought a new set of shoelaces[. . .]"
There is an added sense of connection between the differences of importance from his shoelaces and his actual workplace - worrying over the condition of his shoe, the scent of perfume amongst the office corridor, the sound of the footsteps from his coworkers - and yet with no explanation of how he may have buried himself in the potential complexities of his work he had been supposedly assigned to do.
"[. . .] as I had sat at my desk working on a memo, my foot had sensed its potential freedom."
Thus abandoning the memo he was previously working on to once again describe and anthropomorphize his shoe. In a conversation with his own boss, Abelardo, Howie still cannot find it within himself to try and focus on how the detailings of his mind may provide a better chance for him to be able to do his work.
""Abe, I don't know what to think," I said; it was my standard response."
Hey- great post! I think Howie's continuous focus on the 'unimportant' parts of life is great topic, especially because I think it's quite relatable. I know I often find my mind wandering to inconsequential topics when I should be working on an essay for school or when I should be planning an activity for work. Howie is a great example of pushing the tasks you don't really want to do to the back of your mind; this dissociation is something most people do---sometimes it can be harmful but in this case I think it just results in long tangents about god knows what. You make some great points in here and your examples really help to illustrate the distraction in Howie's mind that you talk about.
ReplyDeleteI like to attribute his dissociation from the workplace as a form of escapism. And from what I, and you, drew from the novel as the utter monotony he experiences. It's obvious he'd had the habit, his eidetic observation, since childhood, or at least early teens, and it maybe arose because he found no real interest in the world around him so he entertained himself with the little things. Or maybe he's just an odd ball who knows. Maybe it is a form of escapism, maybe it's not. Maybe he simply has nothing to do, so he just sits at his office, staring all day contemplating the crenellation of the escalator's nose. Who knows. We can only speculate.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I find interesting which is illustrated in the book and this post is how one tends to not think the obvious. We never find out about Howie's job, because Howie knows about his job, and doesn't think about it that often, as it is not the most interesting thing to think about. It's not unlike something that archaeologists have issues with-- if everyone knows what something is, no one writes it down. There's no need to. However, if you're someone 1000 years in the future, you likely have no idea what they're talking about, and therefore end up having a gap that cannot be filled.
ReplyDeleteI especially enjoy Howie's odd interactions with Abelardo, who sounds like a pretty awesome boss, as corporate executive managerial types go. It seems like he couldn't be less interested in taking his job seriously, and every time Howie speaks to him, he gives his "standard" absurdist responses to questions. (I especially enjoy his claim that he has new shoelaces delivered to him daily, custom made by an Indian guy in Texas.) The most "work" we ever see Howie do entails writing and stapling memos--which is so vague as to be meaningless. We get a picture of an office space where stapled piles of paper are being passed from desk to desk for approval before being passed on to other desks, and the whole dance gets paused for an hour while everyone goes out to lunch. The workplace itself starts to seem pretty absurd in this novel, and in this context Abelardo the spontaneous surrealist poet seems like the ideal boss. I can't help but imagine he'd enjoy Howie's book--and he probably wouldn't be too mad about him never doing any work!
ReplyDeleteHey Oz! Great post. I especially love how we never truly learn what exactly it is that Howie does for work, which further emphasizes how unimportant his job is to him in the grand scheme of things. In a way, the insignificance of Howie's work kind of contributes to the theme of him sort of "role-playing" adulthood---a "true adult" would (at least according to Howie) be far more concerned with the actual details of their job than, say, examining the inner workings of the men's bathroom.
ReplyDeleteThis was a really enjoyable post, Oz! One part of the book I find funny is the lack of focus on Howies job despite the whole book taking place within his workplace. I think Howies focus on small unimportant topics shows his boredom with his job. We know he works in an office doing well...something? Maybe this is because he works for hours on end, he gets plenty of time to think about his work. So, on his lunch break he gets a recess from his work thoughts where he can think about anything but his job. From that perspective it makes sense to me. Why think about your job during free thinking time when you already have hours to think about your job?
ReplyDeleteHi Oz! I really like your point that Howie is “detail-oriented” about everything except his actual work. The contrast between how much attention he gives to shoelaces and how little he seems to care about his job is really interesting and maybe concerning (?). It makes his distractions feel less like random tangents and more like a way of escaping the mundanity of his workplace. Great post!
ReplyDeleteHi Oz! When I was reading The Mezzanine, I also wondered what does Howie even do. Maybe his lack of interest in his job, the very reason why he is at the office, is an intentional design by Baker. Most people would describe their day as getting up, going to work, then coming back home. But Baker challenges himself to write a story about going to work while describing EVERYTHING except going to work.
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