The Ugly Girls' Coalition
And a short treatise on the meaning of HR
Dear S,
Editor’s note.
The characters in this short story are not modeled after any people in particular. And the happenings themselves are also purely fictional. Nobody has ever witnessed a work environment where the following kind of behavior takes place. And in fact, nobody knows where a writer could possibly find the material necessary to write such an outrageous story. The writer himself is convinced that such behavior would never be tolerated in any civilized society, in fact; and if, by some stroke of misfortune, you have ever heard of any such cowardice and knavery, he encourages you to leave a comment or two describing it, in minutest detail, so that any imaginary women who may have suffered such imaginary tactics can take imaginary encouragement — and maybe rally some imaginary support.
A gavel bangs, and a frazzled, middle-aged red-head in a pantsuit is standing at a podium.
“Good evening, ladies. Thank you for coming to this emergency session on such short notice. As you well know, corporate just hired Jennifer last week, and many of us are upset.”
“Boo!” shouts a fat woman in the back.
“Megan, I hear you. We had hopes that HR would weed her out, but unfortunately Dave is doing the hiring this time, and despite our best attempts, it appears he’s hiring with his dick again. Trisha, if you could please bring the evidence forward.”
A short, balding woman with a fupa waddles to the front with a few sheets of paper.
“Sisters in arms,” she begins, as she puts a picture of a beautiful, happy brunette onto an easel: “the woman you see here has been found guilty of the following misdemeanors and crimes, and must be held to account immediately.” She points with a stick to the chalkboard.
“Crime one: she looks better than us.”
At this Megan shook her head in disapproval and shoved another twinkie into her mouth.
“Two: she has a twinkle in her eye, and appears to be having a good time. Three: the boys apparently all like her, and they’ve been seen laughing with her in the break room.”
“Is she married?” Megan asked.
“Unconfirmed,” Trisha shot back. “And that in itself leaves many of us anxious. If she’s single, why, there goes your shot with the boys — not that any of us had a shot with them anyway, but still. If she's married she makes all the rest of us look bad for falling apart. For goodness’ sake, she’s at least 36.”
“Is she a bitch?” asked Cris, a flabby twenty-something with green hair and a nose ring.
“Worse,” said Trisha. “She’s angelic.”
BOOOOOOOOOOOO! the congregation howled in unison.
“Yes, as we all know that means she’s harder to crucify. If we can’t call her own behavior to witness we’re going to have to make some up for her. At this rate she’s even winning the women over quickly. Why, I saw even Gladys talking to her in the break room.”
“The slut!” yelled the fat woman in the back.
“Agreed,” Trisha said. “We have no option but to label both of them sluts. Anybody seen Jennifer talking to any men — to management, perhaps?”
“I saw her talking to Fred yesterday in the breakroom,” added Taniqua, an angry looking and manly woman.
“Then our first order of business is to tell everybody they’re making whoopie. Has she been seen with anyone else?”
“Ooh! I saw her talking with Bill this week too!”
“Then let’s say they’re playing hide-the-sausage. Beautiful work.”
Hear, hear! the uglies chimed together.
“What about her work ethic?” Trisha asked.
There was a long pause. Finally Cris, the greenhair with the nose ring, spoke up. “According to our best sources she… [flipping through a stack of papers] ... appears to be doing… a really good job.”
A groan erupted from the audience.
“This, as you well know, is very unfortunate news. Ladies, since this is a job environment, work is alleged to be the only reason we’re here. This means, if she’s showing up on time and doing good work, we can’t get her ruined on technical grounds. But how are the rest of us supposed to work if she looks so much better than us?”
“We can’t!” Megan shouted frantically from the back.
“So… maybe let’s just imply — casually, after we see her walking somewhere — ‘oh, there she is just walking around again.’ And Taniqua, could you keep an eye on her when she goes to the bathroom?”
“On it.”
“Let us know so we can tell everybody she’s ‘pooping again’.”
“You can count on me, Madame President.”
A hand was raised in the back, and a small woman with a mousey look stood up to speak.
“Yes, Anna?” Trisha said.
“Um, I was just thinking, and, uh, I was wondering… um, if the boys like working with Jennifer, isn't that okay? Couldn't we just, maybe, like, be nice to the boys and they'll enjoy working with us… too? Maybe?”
A series of confused looks were shot around the room as women threw up their hands in annoyance.
“No, no, no ladies: Anna's new here, and that’s actually a great question. And no need to apologize, Anna: nobody here ever apologizes.” She went on. “Ladies, it is of utmost importance that we remember why we’re here."
She puts a picture of Henry Cavill over the picture of Jennifer and continues.
“Exhibit B: The Boys. As you all know, workplaces have been integrated sexually for decades now. And we have been trying, the whole time, unsuccessfully, to make our way amongst men with a minimum of charisma and other things known as ‘soft skills.’
She continued. “Many women are okay with playing the game and are actually pretty good at it: that’s why they weren’t invited. But being good to work with, as you’re all aware, is another job in itself: it requires kind words at the right time, and being fun, and encouraging, and turning the other cheek, and going the extra mile — things which require humility and graciousness, good manners, and a genuine concern for the people around you. We all know that in the long run they’re more important than a pretty face, and, in fact, a pretty face without them is obnoxious to even the boys.”
She went on, “well, Anna, in the middle of this impossible drudge, our research teams found it’s easier to control men (and even women!) by campaigns of petty grudge-holding, nit-picking, slandering, and crying — tools that even the dumbest, most talentless woman can employ with great capacity and ease. Men know that when they step out of line they’ll be treated to the full salvo of our displeasure: that is, not a direct confrontation, which they can many times control and even win, but a long slog at work for them, full of mean barbs, eye-rolls, and little papercut lies — a slew of things we reserve for men who don’t love us, and even worse: who don’t obey us.”
“Preach it, sister!” shouted Taniqua.
“Well, this Jennifer character, or maybe we should call her Jezebel—”
“—I propose a motion to rename the accused Jezebel!”
“All in favor of Jezebel say aye.”
Aye, the harpies said in unison.
“Anyhow, this Jezebel character operates with a cutting-edge arsenal of tactical positivity. And she's winning people over in minutes with what took many others years to accomplish. This, quite frankly, is a direct attack on all of us — especially us. Why, can you imagine working in a place where women had to get ahead by making everyone happier?”
“Fuck that!” yelled Taniqua.
“Well guess what?” Trisha continued, “God didn’t give me good looks, and he certainly didn’t make me charming, or interesting, or funny. He didn't make any of us here funny, did he? That’s why Susan’s job in HR* is to shut all that down too.”
The women turn to the HR rep and nod their heads in appreciation.
“That’s why we have to play our cards right. Our organization exists because a few people are loved just for existing and most others need ‘a personality.’ Well, I’m tired of being charming, uphill, during a rainstorm, when other people get a free waltz through the park — aren’t you?”
“That's right!” they all chimed except Anna, who seemed to melt deeper and deeper into her chair.
“And if we can't rise up to their level, we have no choice but to pull them down to ours. Since we're all on the same page now, I hereby adjourn this session of The Ugly Girls’ Coalition. All rise to salute the President — me — and to recite the Ugly Girls’ Anthem.”
On that the ladies stood hand-to-heart and sang:
Equality for humankind!
No drudgery in being kind!
Attraction — never!
Don't patch up — sever!
On sunny days and in foul weather
All ugly girls must stick together!
Yours,
-J
*The philosophy of the HR Rep is simple but emasculating. Although all business exists for the purpose of furthering life, it became known, after decades of managing payroll, that life itself was directly obstructive to the pursuit of business.
The original businessman had a direct interest in masking his real opinions and desires, but even this hiding of the life force had limits. When he was the owner of his own trade, a blacksmith could still tell an unruly customer to shove it. And he always had the option of hitting on the milk-maid. If an opinion was too disgusting, a perversion too offensive, a point of politics or religious matter too heretical, he could state his own position and lose himself a customer — an unlikely scenario, but always possible. It was the things he valued dearest up against the thing that funded his pursuit of them.
But as the division of labor intensified, capital became massed in fewer and fewer hands, and the disruptions caused by “extraneous” things such as deep-seated feelings and forces-of-life became not only more numerous, but more diverse — and thus more destructive to the business-owner. The potential for conflict multiplied exponentially, and along with it the chances of losing income.
Thus laughter was the first thing to go. Not laughter in the sense of canned jokes and limericks, which appeal most to the extreme elderly and children — i.e., those whose wit is either completely undeveloped or in the process of undevelopment. I mean laughter in the truest sense: a recognition of man’s philosophical, social, and religious absurdities, and a slaying of his pretensions one brutal jab at a time.
The likelihood of disruption was too high with production; and once the product was packaged up and ready to be sold, the likelihood of losing a customer because of a stocker or a cashier was even worse still. The number of producers themselves, in a society where machinery multiplies efficiency astronomically, always remains small, and isolated. The number of potential consumers, and the ability to offend them with truth and irony, is always significantly higher. Thus the larger, the broader, the more diverse society became, the more likely it was that one man's parochial feelings became cumbersome — and that more and more of any particular man's feelings were considered to be “parochial.” Even when the majority holds them.
When the sexes were integrated, lust and its pursuit were next on the chopping block. Hitting on either employees or customers was always a game of shadows and subtlety; but HR's primary goal was to cut not just sexual advances down to the bare minimum, but sexual attraction alongside it. Dress codes were implemented not just for the maintenance of professionalism, but for keeping men’s eyes on their work, and for keeping the women free from competition — which they hate. Broadly-worded rules against compliments and gazing and ask-outs were laid down, which terrorized the ugly and were immediately disregarded by the few and the beautiful. But in general, the thing that business is almost meaningless without was banned, technically, from all the offices of business. The bosses had a go for a while, and it was eventually found that women hated it. And now in most cases even that is illegal — with good reason.
But truth itself was the biggest casualty. Truth has always been a casualty anytime two people feel two different ways about one thing but need each other for another important thing. But Truth in a business setting is mostly impossible. The honest man, one who wears his feelings on his sleeve, to whom things are sacred and disgusting, who knows that 1 + 1 = 2, and that ‘common sense’ means there are things everyone should know and abide by, is a bad fit for dealing with customers and employees — who each hold delusions of their own, and are just as protective of them as they are with actual truths.
Out of these fears — the fears of sex, comedy, and truth — was born the HR department; and in reaction to the HR department was born the Employee’s Blessing:
May your private life be unsuitable for business.
May you pursue many things more ardently than a paycheck.
May your jokes scald the wicked and the powerful
and may nobody frumpy scold you for it.
May you take your chances with beautiful women,
and keep your distance from people who disgust you.
May you feel comfortable speaking truths gently to strangers,
And may strangers speak many truths gently back to you.
May your clothes be worthy of your personality,
And may diversity take a backseat to the virtues of your cohorts.
Amen.