Vanessa is a dedicated believer of every prominent alt-right conspiracy theory, as well as some lesser-known ones, and she is training me to be an accountant. One doesn’t have to do with the other.
Vanessa often tells me that soon I will understand the full life of an invoice. She is excited about this, eager to pass along the coveted knowledge of the field she loves most.
I don’t consider her my best friend but if I had to call someone my best friend, it would be her by default. Since I haven’t been asked who my best friend is in about two decades, I don’t run into this problem. I also wouldn’t call myself an accountant, but unlike the best friend thing, people often ask me what I do for a living. At first, I say I’m a visual artist and when asked if that’s how I make my money, I find that I’m forced to say the accountant thing.
Vanessa and I have a sort of united front against our male coworkers. They are deeply sexist and it is not insidious as sexism often is these days; it’s blatant and brutal and constant. I tell Vanessa that we need to email HR. She tells me that we aren’t done collecting evidence. And that there is no HR.
We are both grossly underpaid. Vanessa has been promoted three times since working here but somehow makes less money each time. Because we both have substantial caffeine dependences and no money, we steal Starbucks mobile orders most afternoons. A cold foam-topped silver lining, if you ask us.
Work friendships are both more and less fragile than normal friendships. Less, because they are inherently temporary, if we want them to be. And more, because one experiences the entire range of human emotion during an eight-hour day in a windowless box. Friends and family don’t typically have to experience us in such a fraught and lonely and stressed-out state. They see us at happy hour once a month, properly lubricated or stoned, at the mall or on the couch or on vacation. Coworkers see us at our most dejected (and in the worst overhead lighting.)
Vanessa and I ride these waves of coworking and emotion together, in sync. We are comedians, laughing to tears, bouncing off each other’s genius.
And then we are investigators, doing exhaustive research on our male counterparts, in search of something we can use against them.
And then we are dreamers, fantasizing about what we will buy with the money once we receive our settlements. Perhaps a beach house to share. In these moments, I believe that there is nobody with whom I’d rather live a life on the shore.
And then we are enemies. Two people who have spent so much time together, the walls are sweaty with resentment. One of us broke the printer (her) and the other won’t answer the phones (me). I say how sad the wildfires in Maui are, that if we took better care of the planet… She says it’s the government using space lasers, another tactic of Marxist control. She reminds me that we may be next, that we have to be ready, that we have to pack a “go-bag.” “Why haven’t you ordered dry goods yet?” She scolds me. “…and never have less than half a tank of gas!” I usually don’t have more than a quarter. We don’t speak for the rest of the day.
And when I get home, I hate her. I text the guy I’m seeing and complain about how crazy she is, how unfair it is that we share an office. “Just ignore her, babe,” he says. If only it were that simple. He doesn’t understand the boundless bond shared by two women stuck in a 200 square foot space.
I spend some nights seething, making plans to tell her the next day that she is responsible for the printer and that I don’t keep any canned beans in my apartment. But then 9 a.m. comes and I inevitably have work questions or the frenzied need to gossip. And all is well again.
But today. Today, I walk into our office only to find that her half of it is empty. Her computer, shredder, scanner, her photos, her loose cigarettes, even the desk is gone, leaving a rectangle-shaped dent in the carpet.
The cycle of a friendship isn’t so different from that of an invoice. Like other inevitable and predictable things, they both seem to come out of nowhere even though we expect them. They can be annoying and laborious and expensive. But ultimately, they keep us busy, give us purpose in an aimless life. And without proper closure, it all feels pointless.
I sit at my desk. I turn on my computer and monitor and begin to check my email for new invoices, the room silent except for the mechanic clicking of the broken printer.