My Commute

This novella is a fictionalized memoir dedicated to the disappeared of American corporate life. Its main motif, as the title suggests, is narrator Alison's commute to and from CHN Crumbles, Inc., a multinational corporation in which she works at a relatively low-level clerical job, in a cubicle. Alison has a vision, appropriate for the millennium, showing that for all of us to survive, workers must unite in a cooperative union, emulating the bees. Alison's daily commute becomes a metaphor for her life as she interacts with the menaces on the highway and the equally grim hazards of company politics. Chinese fortune-cookie aphorisms become her guiding philosophy. Among the other characters are: Freddie, a womanizing, vindictive manager; Stephanie, a young, fast-track executive who caters to Freddie and is mentored by him; Inez, another middle-management striver who tries to emulate him; Rose-Says-Not-to-Tell, a co-worker who relays company gossip; Celeste, a white-m! agic witch who tries to improve life in the department; and Janice, Alison's friend, who takes no nonsense from the corporate brass. Alison's observations of her company's de-jobbing practices, its managers' strategies and foibles, and her co-workers' concerns, complaints, and day-to-day struggles to survive should hit home with any reader who has recently worked for a major American corporation.