I was unclear as to whether she was talking about Brittany or the assistant applicant. “Barney is pretty awful,” I said.
“Exactly,” Gina said, as if I’d proved her point, whatever it was. “I’m hiring her,” and she flounced out.
I went back and sat down in front of the computer. Cloche hats, Hupmobiles, and Marydale, Ohio. None of them seemed likely to be the trigger. What was? What had suddenly set the fad in motion?
Flip came in, carrying the stack of clippings and personals I’d just given her. “What did you want me to do with these again?”
Mesmerism [1778–84]
Scientific fad resulting from new discoveries about magnetism, speculation about its medical possibilities, and greed. Paris society flocked to Dr. Mesmer to have “animal magnetism” treatments involving tubs of “magnetized water,” iron rods, and Dr. Mesmer’s lavender-robed assistants, who massaged the patients and looked deep into their eyes. The patients screamed, sobbed, sank into a deep trance, and paid Dr. Mesmer on leaving. Actually hypnotism, animal magnetism claimed to cure everything from tumors to consumption. Died out when a scientific investigation headed by Ben Franklin proved it did no such thing.
Tuesday Management called another meeting. “To explain the simplified funding forms,” I said to Gina, walking down to the cafeteria. “I hope so,” she said, looking even more harassed than she had yesterday. “It would be nice to see somebody else on the defensive for a change.”
I was going to ask her what she meant by that, but just then I spotted Dr. O’Reilly on the far side of the room talking to Dr. Turnbull. She was wearing a po-mo pink suit (sans shoulder pads), and he had on one of those print polyester shirts from the seventies. By the time I’d taken all that in, Gina was at our table with Sarah, Elaine, and a bunch of other people.
I walked over, bracing myself for a discussion of intimacy issues and Power-walking, but they were apparently discussing Flip’s new assistant.
“I didn’t think it was possible to hire somebody worse than Flip,” Elaine was saying. “How could you, Gina?”
“But she’s very competent,” Gina said defensively. “She’s had experience with Windows and SPSS, and she knows how to repair a copy machine.”
“All that’s entirely irrelevant,” a woman from Physics said, though it didn’t sound irrelevant to me.
“Well, I’m not working with her,” a man from Product Development said. “And don’t tell me you didn’t know she was one. You can tell just by looking at her.”
Bigotry is one of the oldest and ugliest of trends, so persistent it only counts as a fad because the target keeps changing: Huguenots, Koreans, homosexuals, Muslims, Tutsis, Jews, Quakers, wolves, Serbs, Salem housewives. Nearly every group, so long as it’s small and different, has had a turn, and the pattern never changes—disapproval, isolation, demonization, persecution. Which was one of the reasons it’d be nice to find the switch that turned fads on. I’d like to turn that one off for good.
“People like that shouldn’t be allowed to work in a big company like HiTek,” Sarah, who was actually a nice person in spite of her psychobabble about Ted, was saying.
And Dr. Applegate, who definitely should know better, added disgustedly, “I suppose if you fired her, she’d sue for discrimination. That’s what’s wrong with all this affirmative action stuff.”
I wondered what small and different group Flip’s new assistant had the misfortune to belong to: Hispanic, lesbian, NRA member?
“She’s not setting foot in my lab,” a woman wearing a turban said. “I’m not exposing myself to unnecessary health risks.”
“But she won’t be smoking on the job,” Gina said. “She can keyboard a hundred words a minute.”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” Elaine said. “Haven’t you read the FDA report on the dangers of secondhand smoke?”
On the other hand, there are moments when rather than reforming the human race I’d like to abandon it altogether and go become, say, one of Dr. O’Reilly’s macaques, which have to have more sense.
I was about to say as much to Elaine when Dr. O’Reilly grabbed my arm. “Come sit with me,” he said, and led me away. “I need you to be my partner in case Management springs another sensitivity thing.” He looked at me uncertainly. “Unless you’d rather sit with your friends.”
“No,” I said, watching them surround Gina. “Not at the moment.”
“Oh, good,” he said. “The last sensitivity exercise, I got stuck with Flip.” We sat down. “So how’s your fads research coming?”
“It’s not,” I said. “I picked hair-bobbing because I wanted a fad that didn’t have an obvious cause. Most fads are caused by a breakthrough in technology—nylons, waterbeds, light-up sneakers.”
“Fallout shelters.”
I nodded. “Or they’re a marketing phenomena, like Trivial Pursuit and teddy bears.”
“And fallout shelters.”
“Right. Hair-bobbing didn’t cost anything except the barber’s fee, and if you didn’t have that, all you needed to whack your hair off was a pair of scissors, which is a technology that’s been around forever.” I started to sigh and then realized I’d sound like Flip.
“So what’s the problem?” Bennett asked.
“The problem is hair-bobbing doesn’t have an obvious cause. Irene Castle looked like a possibility for a while, but it turned out she was following a Dutch bob fad that had been popular in Paris the year before. And none of the other sources has a direct correlation to the critical period. Have you ever heard of a place called Marydale, Ohio?”
“Good morning,” Management said from the podium. He was wearing a polo shirt, Dockers, and a pleased smile. “We’re really excited to see you all here.”
“What’s Management up to?” I whispered to Bennett.
“My guess is a new acronym,” he whispered. “Departmental Unification Management Business.” He wrote down the letters on his legal pad. “D.U.M.B.”
“We have several items of business today,” Management said happily. “First, some of you have been having minor difficulties filling out the simplified funding allocation forms. You’ll be receiving a memo that answers all your questions. The interdepartmental communications liaison is in the process of making copies for each of you right now.”
Bennett put his head down on the table.
“Secondly, I’d like to announce that HiTek is instituting a ‘dress down’ policy beginning this week. This is an innovative idea that all the best corporations are implementing. Casual dress induces a more relaxed workplace and stronger interemployee interfaces. So starting tomorrow I’ll expect to see all of you in casual clothes.”
I tuned him out and studied Bennett. He looked terrible. His polyester print shirt had little daisies on it in an assortment of browns, none of which came close to matching his brown cords. Over it he was wearing a pilled gray cardigan.
But it wasn’t just the clothes. The Brady Bunch Movie had made seventies styles fashionable again. Flip had worn satin disco pants the other day, and platform shoes and gold chains were all over the Boulder mall. But Bennett didn’t look “retro.” He looked “swarb.” I had the feeling that if he were wearing a bomber jacket and Nikes he’d still look that way. As if he were an antifaddist.
No, that wasn’t right either. Any number of fads were started as a rejection of existing fads. The long hair of the sixties was a rejection of the crew cuts of the fifties, the short, flat, figureless flapper dresses a reaction to the exaggeratedly bustled and corseted Victorians.