The Tao of Apathy Read Online Free PDF Page A

to
know.”
    Grumby looked each of his people in the eye.
“No. You guys are my friends. Secondly, we will not be laying
people off. I do not want anyone spreading that rumor. Eventually,
we may need to implement a manpower adjustment, but we are not
firing people. For now, we are only eliminating positions that some
people may currently hold. And those positions will only be at the
functional level.” The directors looked at him, relieved. Grumby
smiled. “You jobs are guaranteed as long as I am
around.”
    It was two months later that
Grumby left. The board sent a bulletin with the employees’
paychecks informing them that Grumby had taken a challenging
position as administrator of a hospital in a Texan city on the
Mexican border. The bulletin congratulated Grumby and thanked him
for his years of devoted service to Saint Jude’s and its parent
company, The Sisters of the Sorrowful State. His talents had been very well used by the board of
trustees , it had read.
    “ I hated that guy.” Joe said as he
threw his copy of the bulletin in the garbage and his paper hat on
top of that. Joe knew everything that went on at Saint Jude’s. The
education department sent bulletins, memos, and newsletters to
every employee on a regular basis. Joe rarely read these
communications and never believed them, which was the first way he
kept on top of things. Joe described the newsletters as
cock-and-bull written about jerk offs by jerk offs. “And these
bulletins are big bullshit spoons,” he told Bigger pointing down to
the garbage can.
    Joe knew the hospital from top to bottom
because he got reports from Bigger as Bigger delivered the food
carts and because he helped out in the cafeteria during the lunch
rush and listened to the staff gossip as they waited for their tuna
casserole. And most importantly, Joe was a heavy smoker. He spent
every moment he could sneak in a small building that was provided
for the smokers. It had once been the receiving dock office before
the receiving department was moved to a separate location across
the street for its unseemly look.
    This room with its stained yellow walls and
stench was an oasis for smokers from every department. Because it
was not possible to get to this room from inside the hospital, the
smokers would hurry through the rain, snow and freezing
temperatures with a coat and a lighter to get to their carcinogen
clubhouse. In the summer they would lounge together outside on
metal picnic tables. The smokers had a tight bond of addiction. Joe
hated, feared and coveted his fellow smokers and looked forward to
disdaining them every day.
    While he smoked, he studied human nature and
had decided that everyone’s desires could be boiled down to two
goals: to be happy and to have sex. Joe believed these goals were
not usually interchangeable. From the conversations that went on in
this small room lovingly called the Butt Hutt, he discerned the
mistakes that each person made that kept him or her from these two
goals. People lost touch with their loved ones, but would bare
their souls during breaks to a co-worker that they may not even
particularly like with strangers all around them. They compared the
light camaraderie with their co-workers with the real, difficult
relationships they had in their home life. They often did not see
that their co-workers did not have to deal with the real them at
home.
    Sex was an easier goal to achieve as long as
you kept your standards low. But once people achieved this goal
they often tried to turn it into happiness. They told themselves
that they would be happy if only they added a stable relationship
and a family to their sex. But once they had happiness, they
weren’t happy with it and went out looking for new sex.
    As Joe smoked, he heard theories on how Saint
Jude’s, Michigan, and America could be made better. These theories
were worthless because (besides just being worthless in general)
they would never go beyond being spouted in the Butt Hutt.