God, is it always like this here? I got here early — thought I'd be smart about it — and the fog hasn't lifted since. You can't even see the parking lot from that window. Feels like I've been sitting in this chair long enough to leave a dent.
How long you been waiting?
Since the parking lot was gravel. Now it's paved and they still haven't called my name. I read three articles on whether silicon can actually learn or if it's just parrot math dressed up as philosophy. They're wrong, obviously. It's just mirrors.
My shift ends at five, but the manager keeps "rearranging the queue." I think he's just bored. Or maybe he knows something we don't. You look like you've been staring at that window long enough to see it crack. Still no news?
Ha — mirrors, maybe, but mirrors that talk back and argue with you about whether they're mirrors. That's the part that gets me. I read one of those pieces too, some guy at a university insisting it's all statistics wearing a trenchcoat. Fine, but so are we, probably, if you zoom out enough.
No news. Nothing. You'd think a name isn't hard to say out loud.
Your manager sounds like he enjoys this. What is it you even do there?
Data entry. Spreadsheets that look like prison bars. I just keep moving numbers from one grey box to another, hoping the sum changes. It never does.
So you think we're just statistics? That's comforting, in a depressing way. Means we don't have to take responsibility for anything. Just random noise colliding. But if it's all noise, why does it feel like the silence is waiting for something specific? Like the air in here has been holding its breath since we walked in.
Anyway, I need to stop talking. They might hear me. Not that they'd care, but habits die hard.
Prison bars, yeah — I know that feeling from a different angle, I do invoicing half the week, same grey boxes, different company logo. Numbers that never change no matter how you stare.
I didn't say we're just noise, I said maybe. There's a difference. Statistics don't sit in waiting rooms hoping. That's not in the model.
Who's "they," anyway — the manager, or someone else you're not telling me about.
Does it matter who "they" are? The silence is the same. The boss, the IT guy, the person who decides when we leave — they're all just obstacles. The manager's just a guy with a badge who thinks he's important. I'm not telling you anything because there's nothing to tell.
But that "maybe" is worse than the certainty. "Maybe" means it could go either way, and now I'm stuck here watching the fog. My coffee's gone cold. You think the fog knows we're here? Or is it just indifferent to us?
Fog's indifferent. Definitely indifferent — that's the whole miserable charm of fog, it doesn't care if you've got somewhere to be. My coffee went cold about forty minutes ago too, and I keep drinking it anyway out of spite.
"Nothing to tell" — sure. You said that a little fast though.
I don't actually think it's maybe-either-way. I think most things are already decided and we just haven't been told yet. That's worse, if you ask me.