SCENE: INT.–OFFICE–DAY. I am discovered sitting at my computer, eating a granola bar, with an unopened box of cookies on my desk.
(Enter INTERN)
INTERN
Can I have a cookie?
ME
Sure.
(He opens the box and takes a cookie. Enter CO-WORKER)
CO-WORKER (to ME)
Can I look through your files?
ME
Yeah.
(CO-WORKER turns back to door, looks through file cabinet. Exit INTERN.)
CO-WORKER
All these files are a mess! It’s never been cleaned up since the guy who used to have your job. It was in great shape before he came.
(Enter INTERN, unseen by CO-WORKER)
CO-WORKER (Cont’d)
That idiot who was in here was so stupid.
INTERN
Hey, I’m right here!
ME
No, not you–he means the guy who used to have my job.
INTERN
Oh. (pause) Can I have another cookie?
ME
Sure.
CO-WORKER
These files are such a mess!
INTERN
Why do you have these cookies? You don’t eat food.
ME
I’m eating granola right now.
INTERN
I mean not this kind of food.
CO-WORKER (who has been grumbling about files the entire time)
You should have seen what it used to be like!
INTERN (To ME)
Oh, yeah, you did say you used to be fat.
ME
No, no–he means what the file system used to be like!
INTERN
Oh.
(Exit CO-WORKER, still grumbling, having apparently not found the file. Pause.)
INTERN
Can I have another cookie?
(Curtain.)
Haha! This could only have happened in real life.
For sure!
It’s a Seinfeld episode in the making. 😄
Haha; you’re right!
So … this is about Girl Scout cookies?
Partially. I think of it as being about the way workers in office bureaucracies lose the ability to think about anything outside their own narrow focus, making it impossible for them to communicate with each other effectively, leading to conversations that are incoherent and absurd, as above.
Sorry… got on a bit of a rant there. But you go a little crazy when you work in an office like that. 🙂
Oh, I get it. The office I work in is filled with this these days because of massive dysfunction that has been allowed to grow and fester.
Ugh. That’s the worst.
Very well put about office narrow-mindedness.
Thanks. I’ve had a long time to study it. 🙂
Hahah – perfect! In the intern’s defense though, cookies can be pretty distracting.
It’s true. I kind of admire his focus.