I am a Dilbert fan, partly out of sympathy. My husband, Frank, has spent a significant portion of his life in an office cubicle; even now that he is a consultant, I believe he spends most of his time in client’s cubicles. And I played a brief stint as a research clerk in an earlier life, where I shared a small, file-laden office with two other ladies… there was just enough room for three desks and miniscule aisles between. More than enough room for “office life”. Anyway, I definitely get Dilbert. We used to live just a couple of miles from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation; local communities teemed with engineers and scientists of every stripe (with their appellate clerks and secretaries and technicians). Cubicle careers were the norm (and so was unimaginative, efficient architecture). One of Frank’s cubicle co-workers went a little crazy and started a cake decorating business, creating quite a stir at the office– a lot of heel-kicking and potlucks: any excuse for a cake. I saw the cubicles, their uniquely personal and sometimes furtive adornments: coffee mugs, framed photos of loved ones, certificates, euphemisms and comic strips, little gags perched on top of computers. Rarely did the adornments outreach the confines of the partitions, and if they did, they didn’t stray far or make much of an impact on the community at large.
And then, we moved here, to this reluctantly post-farming community in Utah, where it appears that many, many people go to work in a rig, often dragging a trailer. I would fit in nicely, except their rigs are shiny and new and muscle-bound and mine is an oxidized orange gutless (!) crew cab ex railroad truck. During open season, while I was trying to line up contractors for our house building project, I came up against a major obstacle: They were all gone hunting. Meisha’s teacher, apparently assuming that all his student’s families contain at least one hunter, asked the kids to bring a big pheasant feather to school for an art project (they need quills). I told Meisha to tell the teacher that none of us were hunters; a pheasant feather might be hard to come by (ok, what I really said was that we weren’t a bloodthirsty family, jokingly; I am after all my father’s daughter). So anyway, I start to think I understand this community. Which community I like very, very much. I am glad to add my own subtle (and small) flavor to it. The fact that Frank has to drive all the way to Salt Lake to mingle with other Dilberts is just neutral happenstance. (Frank doesn’t need camou and hunting dogs to feel manly; just two years ago, he achieved Platinum Medallion status with Delta– a veritable trophy to men deprived of savannas and hogbacks and service berries, who otherwise might lapse into travel induced catatonia. Plus when Nora turns 18, he has my permission to buy a motorcycle, after a safety course with Uncle Terry, who wears a life vest along with his helmet).
All this is a prelude (of course) to my encounter yesterday; my Far Side moment; a peaceful but inharmonious collision of archetypes from disparate worlds (or what I thought were disparate worlds). In my pursuit of a building permit (not easy, discovering and losing my way in a gutless crew cab ex railroad truck, turning around in tight cul-de-sacs and parking lots), I found myself standing in the midst of cubicles. Beyond the front desk where the nice lady with nice nails was helping me, a world of cubicles decorated with plants. House plants that had reached gargantuan proportions; some bent against the ceiling. And behind me and to my left, encased in a room of glass (Snow White!), a numbing expanse of cubicles, no plants anywhere, nothing, nothing, nothing to be seen over the gray maze of partitions (well, maybe a few fluttering post-its). Nothing but… at the Far, Far Side of that room, mounted as a pair on the white (or gray?) drywall, defying gravity and convention and the houseplants in the next room, two huge, massively antlered elk heads towered over two ordinary cubicles, staring across the sea of gray partitions with wild, glassy eyes. Staged like a real Cabella (sp) event. Or vignette. Quite imposing.
So Dilbert has a rifle (probably one with a scope). And may, or may not, have a manicure and/or drive a rig (possibly even drag a trailer). And is either generous (sharing the decor), or has a hunting buddy (with like taste in decor). At any rate, this Dilbert is social, and (I hope) cheeky. I should have asked for a pheasant feather along with my receipt.
Which goes to show that stereotypes can always (should always) be challenged, and probably can be challenged person by person, across the planet. S’ Wunnerful, s’wunnerful.
