What Did You Do Today

by Jennifer Westmoreland

      I told my officemate she'd done all the work on the quotes. She said her seven-month-old daughter wanted to walk. She said her florist in Ohio was racist. She said her maid of honor was black. She said she was a reactive eater. She said when people were out of the office she went to the vending machine for chocolate. She asked me the spelling of rapport. She said she was using it in a note to the sales rep she works for. She mentioned that she had a census from Las Vegas and I said doesn't Andrew handle those now. She said thanks for reminding me. She took it to Andrew, but I think she might have used me as an excuse when she gave it to him (from something he said later; he came in and referred to "that" census, as if we all knew which one). Because I was afraid she'd made me look bad to Andrew, I sent an e-mail to her and him offering to help them with work on Friday. When I came with some food from the vending machine, she said I was having an attack of the munchies. A broker called from Hawaii and said where is this group's renewal. Another wanted to know if the deletion of one employee from a group would affect the rate. Another asked the status of a death claim. I called another to get some sex data on a group-I couldn't identify genders from first names: some employees had Egyptian-sounding names and some had names like Kelly and Dana. The broker asked me to read each name; after each he asked how much the person earned. If the person earned a lot, he would say, "That's a male," and if a little, "That's a female." I left a voicemail for a broker to leave me the phone number of a group so that I could get their renewal data from them and they wouldn't get another estimated-rate letter. Claire saw a note on my pad when we were waiting for the staff meeting and asked what it was and said my notes were always cute (the note was my two goals: Norborne had said we had to have two goals). I came home and had a brownie and corn chips.

Jennifer Westmoreland lives in Los Angeles.