Aldon checked the remaining time on the clock. He glanced at his surroundings, registered the positions of everyone around him, took a moment to formulate his game plan for the remaining forty-five seconds. He visualized a path accounting for possible obstacles, pitfalls, actions and reactions. He imagined everything falling into place just as the last second ticked off the clock, he imagined hands held in the air, high fives, chest bumps, shoulder grabs and ear to ear smiles; all to the deafening adoration of his peers. Aldon took pride in his consistency. This unwavering effort, from the time the clock started until the second it stopped, kept him energized during lulls and breaks; but he secretly enjoyed moments like this. Everything previous to this rendered meaningless in the face of an expiring clock and one final shot. He could feel the nervous energy pulsing throughout the floor, a mixture of excitement and fear. The anticipation of an ending coupled with the fear of it not being the desired outcome, but cherishing every second of it. Aldon was the maker of that excitement right now. His jersey felt heavy with meaning, a symbol that represented a community of people all rooting and working together for a common goal. He checked the clock again. Aldon was ready. He clicked the print button.
The mouse click reverberated in his head like a gunshot. Aldon realized his error before the printer had even begun printing. He was mid-stride when he heard the spools fire up; the sound had become a Pavlovian reminder to check the printer’s ink levels. He watched the output tray nervously, hoping for the best. The whirring gears suddenly sounded as loud as construction work in a quiet suburban neighborhood. Everyone in the office stood slowly from behind their desks, lifting their heads over the cubicle walls and silently hoping that the printer had enough residual ink to print the weekly calendar for the conference room.
The paper slipped out from between the feed rollers at a faster than normal velocity, something else Aldon would have to look at, slid over the output tray, and flew into mid-air. Aldon, frozen in place, watched as the paper floated to the floor. It weaved back and forth in the air, teasing its contents, and eventually landed face up. A brief feeling of exhilaration rushed over his body as he saw all of Monday through Friday printed in glorious 1,200 DPI black and white, followed by the conference room hours: 9:00, 10:00, 11:00, and a slightly faded, but definitely passable, 12:00. But at 1:00 the black softened to a middling-gray and lightened drastically more by 2:00. By 3:00 the gradient was harsh and blocky, and barely visible. By 3:15 the printed calendar gave way to one-thirds of untouched, brilliant white, printer paper.
Aldon checked the wall clock: 5:00. He looked around the office for support, but his co-workers had already started filing out of the door one at a time. Each person wore the jersey of their favorite team or player. The procession resembled a line of homecoming game losers more than an office full of customer support specialists heading home after a long casual Friday. He grabbed his over coat and headed for the door as well, leaving the paper on the floor.
Aldon ran through possible explanations as he walked to his car. With the initial shock of the moment gone, he could now concentrate on why it happened. He knew he should have changed the cartridges earlier in the day when Dale had tried printing some church fliers, but couldn’t remember why he didn’t. Renee, that was it, Renee needed help with her speakers. Renee’s speakers weren’t working. Turns out they weren’t working because they weren’t turned on. Not that different from her malfunctioning monitor last week. “Everything’s pink,” read her email. Turned out to be a loose serial cable that she “swore she checked a dozen times.” Clearly those were bigger mistakes than forgetting to change the ink in the shared printer, a task anyone could do, but because of the timing, everyone would remember the printer. Regardless, it was Aldon’s mistake, he should’ve changed the ink and he didn’t, he would have to own up to that. Learn from that. Make sure it didn’t happen again. He would come in early on Monday, before any meetings were scheduled, refresh the ink and paper supply of all printers on the floor, and print out the calendars.
While sitting at a red light, Aldon’s phone chirped. He pulled the phone from his pocket, it was a notification from Twitter, a mention, the content of the message hidden. As the light turned green, the phone chirped again. Aldon glanced quickly and noticed a second mention notification, and then a third, followed immediately by a fourth, fifth, and sixth. He placed the phone back in his pocket. The chirping continued, albeit muffled, until Aldon reached another stop light and turned it off. He glanced at the car in the lane next to him, but looked away awkwardly when he realized the driver was already looking at him. He forgot temporarily about the notifications and focused instead on the other driver: did he feel just as uncomfortable being caught watching a stranger? Was he thinking about whether or not Aldon was thinking about catching him looking into a stranger’s car? Then, he realized the other driver had never looked away. He was still staring at Aldon. He brought his attention back to the other driver, who was staring intensely now, by pretending to check for something in his glove box. The glowing red light in Aldon’s periphery changed to green, but the driver continued staring until the car behind him blared its horn, at which point the driver spit on Aldon’s passenger side window, and sped off.
Once home he tossed his cell phone, along with his keys and wallet, onto his kitchen counter and headed upstairs to take a shower. It took his water heater a few extra minutes to get warm during the winter months so he turned it on first and then got undressed. While he waited, Aldon grabbed his laptop to see what was going on with Twitter and why he received such a sudden influx of mentions. By the time Aldon had left work, around thirty minutes ago, he’d already accumulated fifty six new notifications. He clicked on the Mentions tab and read the first one from local beat reporter Rebecca Harvey.
@MNGR_Jen speaks about @DaRealAldon: Wish we could get it back, but at the end of the day, we made a lot more mistakes than just low toner.
The statement was standard fare from Jen, who was known for her unique brand of stoicism, especially following a Friday night like they’d just had. The room had begun filling with steam, and the laptop screen was fogging. Aldon scrolled up to read the next tweet, also from Harvey, before it disappeared into the mist.
@DaleBML on @DaRealAldon: You hope to avoid those kind of mistakes, but to point out one person is unfair. We all needed to do better.
That tweet was followed by a reply from Harvey herself.
@RHarveyWKLA: Full story at 7, only on @WKLA.
Aldon closed the laptop and got in the shower, not really sure what to make of the office’s comments. They were clearly trying to be supportive, but he thought he saw a tinge of blame, it was Twitter though, so who could really tell. One thing he was sure of was Dale trying to cover his own ass, hoping no one noticed the church fliers, which he had been reprimanded for on multiple occasions. It had become one of those things you just live with: Dale was a good teammate, he brought a lot of intangibles to the office, so what if he occasionally tried printing hundreds of poorly designed church bulletins. You take the good with the bad, and Dale was mostly good.
After his shower, Aldon set the laptop down on the living room coffee table and walked to the kitchen. He pulled a twelve inch skillet from the cabinet, set the stovetop burner to medium-high, and checked the microwave clock: 6:19; he walked to the freezer and grabbed a frozen meal for two, pulled apart the opening, dumped the contents into the skillet, and covered. He set the timer on the stove for ten minutes.
Aldon returned to the coffee table. He sat down on the couch and cracked the laptop open again. The still open Twitter page reminded him of Rebecca Harvey’s “full story at 7.” The notification bubble on his Mentions tab had given up, and read simply “99+.” Aldon knew better than to wade through the unending, nameless criticism; knew there would be a handful of political, pandering-but-neutral statements from his co-workers, that the majority of posts would be at best cheap shots, and at worst hate spewed bile meant only to provoke, but he couldn’t help it.
@custserv_GOAT: some ppl jus not made 4 end of day. give it 2 me all day. every day. #GOAT #NEAL
Neal’s not so subtle jab at Aldon had already been retweeted over 500 times, with most people tagging Aldon and adding their own emoticons. He wasn’t surprised by the sentiment, Neal had always been a firebrand for the company: not as useful as he thought he was, always shocked and indignant about his lack of use. What was surprising was the popularity of it. Aldon didn’t expect this level of response to what he felt like was a fairly routine mistake. They were only a few weeks into the fiscal year, everyone was still getting their legs, fresh recruits were adapting to a new system; these types of mistakes wouldn’t happen come end of FY 2015. Maybe it was just Neal’s amusing-when-not-exposed-to-it-everyday brand of self-delusion that people were supporting. He scrolled up.
lmao wtf wat up @DaRealAldon??? dat print game doe
How much do they pay you again @DaRealAldon?
Hey @DaRealAldon, just stay home next time.
@DaRealAldon shouldn’t be allowed within 5 feet of the printer, dude’s got no print game. Stick to what you know #conferencecalls
Y’all so focused on @DaRealAldon’s print game, but what about that hairline? #letitgo #letitgooooo
He’d cleared the vanilla statements from his co-workers and was now in the thick of the anonymous Twitter mob. Aldon knew it was only downhill from here, especially considering the basically harmless nature of the first handful of tweets. He had a decision to make as the next few moments would define the rest of his weekend: he could stop now, let his dinner finish cooking, maybe watch a movie and spend the next few days putting Friday night behind him, or, he could dive headfirst into an Olympic sized pool of internet hate. Aldon dove.
Fuck you @DaRealAldon, tired of rooting for such a group of losers
mess up like that again and better watch your back. @DaRealAldon #notplaying #igotbullets
@DaRealAldon bald ass milk dud looking mother fucker hope you die for real
I hope @DaRealAldon’s mother gets raped by a pack of wild dogs
@DaRealAldon is nothing but a thug in a suit. Go back to the hood and sell drugs if you’re not going to play to win.
fuckin cunt @DaRealAldon
@DaRealAldon good for nothing nigger
His face grew hot, his whole body tensed, the heat quickly traveled to his chest, then shot down to his arms and legs, mutating gradually from seething rage to unnerving queasiness. He placed his hand on the laptop lid, his thumb unconsciously applied increasing amounts of pressure to the screen until a black hole outlined by pinks and yellows and teals grew from the epicenter of the weight. He was trying to decide whether to close the laptop and put it away for the weekend, or to close the laptop and smash the thing against his living room wall. He knew most of the comments were from throwaway accounts, hoped at least; people purposefully trying to upset, threaten, or intimidate, whatever the reason known only to them. But the knowledge of deliberate provocation was as maddening as it was comforting, and always left Aldon with the same question: why? He’d read a couple of interviews with people confronting their internet trolls, but they all seemed to boil down to the same thing: a lack of control. When pushed they all say, “I just couldn’t help myself,” not, “I think it’s funny,” or “I just don’t like you,” or “I wanted to be acknowledged.” It may start out as that, just for laughs or a way to get somebody’s attention who would otherwise never interact with you, but it always ends by losing control; the hatred becomes habitual, second nature. Something that’s as natural a reaction as a doctor checking your patellar reflex. A subconscious act woven into the fabric of a person’s biology.
His attention was broken by the bleating of the stovetop timer. He wasn’t sure how long it had been going off, so he stood up quickly and jogged to the kitchen. The frozen meal had melted into a cooked one. It was frothy and bubbling underneath the lid, with small amounts of sauce spilling over the sides. He returned to the couch and, against his better judgment, opened the laptop. His Twitter notifications had reached their unknowing pinnacle again. Faced with another mountain of hate speak he turned the laptop off. He found his cell phone and put them both in his briefcase for work, where they would remain until Monday morning, and threw the briefcase in the trunk of his car. Aldon sat down with his dinner, it had cooled enough to eat, and turned on the television. The local news station was finishing up their weather forecast. Aldon was hunched over his food, elbows on the coffee table, when he heard a female anchor announce, “Thanks Bob, and now to our biggest story of the night: “What’s wrong,” Harvey paused for dramatic effect, “with Aldon?” Aldon froze over the plate of lukewarm pasta, strands of spaghetti still hanging from his mouth. He grabbed for the remote without looking up, turned the television off and finished his dinner, and weekend, in silence.
-----
The office was typically empty any time before 8:00; Aldon had at least an hour before anyone else would show up. Despite the rough start to his weekend, he was able to relax and recoup for the majority of it; he felt refreshed and ready to improve on the parts of his game that lead to last week’s debacle. He set the briefcase down at his desk and then headed towards the supply closet. In the closet he was reminded of one of Dale’s best qualities: he was a great organizer. Everything was in its right place. No stray sheets of printer paper were sticking out, and the ink cartridges were separated into three equal stacks, each stack representative of the printer it resupplied. One shelf held a tower of pen boxes two feet tall; neatly arranged with the appropriate ends flush and facing out so as to identify the pens inside. He grabbed enough paper and ink cartridges to restock all three multipurpose printers on his floor. He started with the one right behind his cubicle, the one he knew would be empty, but as it turned out, they were all empty. No one else had been maintaining the printers despite Aldon’s repeated one on ones.
He returned the extra paper to the supply closet and tossed the old ink cartridges into the recycling bin. Aldon still had some time before anyone else would show up for work, so he explored the floor, taking time to appreciate the things he missed in the middle of a busy day. The first thing that got his attention was the bulletin board that Renee maintained outside of the break room. She did a wonderful job with it week in and week out. There was really no one else on the team who could design a bulletin board like Renee, and Aldon had the thought that if the company hired Renee only to maintain that bulletin board, it would be worth it. Before returning to his cubicle, Aldon visited Neal’s desk. It was a total mess: crushed soda cans, candy bar wrappers, a headset left hanging over the edge of his desk, dangling by its 3.5mm cable. Aldon had no idea why Neal still had a job with the company. He returned to his desk and pulled out his cell phone, powering it on for the first time since Friday night. He set the phone to the side while it booted up and logged onto his work computer. As he waited for the email client to load a slight vibration from his cell phone registered on the desk. Aldon looked over at the illuminated lock screen. Another notification. He swiped it away, and put the phone back into his briefcase.