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Sometimes I think I should have called it "Women out of touch with reality" instead of ( A Cheaper World )

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Once or twice a month my office lets people go early if they want so they can attend a networking event HR puts on. Usually it's at a bar, and people drink and talk and have a good time. I've never been able to go, because I didn't get to go early when other people did, and I was 100% fine with that because I don't generally do well at social events.

Now, that being said, I was looking forward to today's. I was actually going to get to go, and I have a whole clique of new team members who will let me sit with them and look like I'm actually someone who knows how to make friends outside of the internet.

So I RSVP'd, like you're supposed to do in order to give them an accurate headcount. RSVPing is the polite thing to do, and one is not supposed to be punished for it.

And then today I get an email that we are not meeting at a bar. We are meeting in a conference room on the 19th floor to have an Office Building Scavenger Hunt. There was a list of clues, even. The thing is, given that I am the ex Ninja Office Boy, I know everything about this building and what happens where and could have filled the list of clues out like a survey without moving from my ergonomic cubicle chair.

Then I get a second email about what team I'm on. Guess who else is on my team? Douchey ex-Overboss! By now, my outrage about the scavenger hunt has infected the rest of the team, so everyone's looking over my shoulder like "AWKWARD, SAM. AWKWARD."

And then I get the general announcement email saying "By the way, if you didn't RSVP, you can still come to the party around five, after the scavenger hunt has concluded, and have snacks!"

So wait, I've been roped into a scavenger hunt I didn't know I was signing up for and the slackers who didn't click the "RSVP" button get to show up at five and eat snacks?

I am going home instead, and my boss is going in my place because she agrees that this is made of awkward and she should have spoken up and put a stop to it when they emailed the supervisors to suggest it.

There better not be pizza. If I miss out on pizza because I inadvertently RSVP'd for team building activities, I might have to break out the old Ninja skills and torment HR as only someone who intimately knows this building's climate control system can.

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So, I finished reading Player One by Douglas Coupland on the train home. twirlynoodle recc'd it to me and again, I feel so bad that I didn't enjoy it, but...

ETA: I should say that Twirly and I came at the book from very different angles -- it's not like I think she has bad taste or anything -- she got different things out of it than I did, because of different interests, I think.

Okay, I have to give it points, because very rarely does a book inspire strong emotions in me. The problem I think is that the emotions that Player One inspired in me were anxiety and sadness, and while I get that some people find catharsis in sadness, I am not one of them. I don't actually like books about the apocalypse, because I quite like electricity and running water, and I'm still smarting from having read the "pets" chapter of Earth Abides when I was fifteen (I taped that chapter shut afterwards so I could never accidentally read it again).

I could talk a lot about structure and where I think the book succeeds and fails in that regard. Emotions aside, I have a personal theory that the gormless protagonists of the book fail to offer a coherent counterpoint to the very verbose antagonist, which makes the book seem like a platform for some truly nauseating social and religious philosophy, and I genuinely don't think that was Coupland's intent. I do think the book makes its author come off as an incredible snob who wants to write about "ordinary people" conceptually without actually thinking much about them or questioning the idea that there's this set of people, somewhere, who are "ordinary". All his characters read like extras from Thomas Harris novels.

I think as an ecological cautionary tale the book works well, except that it's written in a way which means the people who need to get the message won't get that far into it. This is not exactly uncommon, though, so I feel kind of bad calling him out on it.

Anyway, the point is that I feel like I should have liked the book more, and should feel guilty for offering as one reason I don't like it that the book is dreadfully sad. Books like this sometimes used to make me think maybe I just didn't get it, but I'm thirty-two years old and I'm reasonably confident in my critical reading skills, especially as a writer myself. If I didn't get it, I'm pretty sure I'm not the one to blame.