Shadow Puppet Storyteller

Company policy

Four months ago, I began working out of a regional office closer to home, which served to both keep me with the company, but in a different capacity, and rescue me from the uncertainty surrounding the production department I was leaving behind. I still have friends that are working as the skeleton crew for the shrinking in-house production area. With each change I catch wind of, I "write home" to see how my buddies are faring. I try to keep it light. When my left-behind co-workers tell of their torture, I say it's company policy.

It's sad, but true, there are SNAFUs aplenty. And dare I point out that SNAFU literally translates as: Systems Normal, All Fucked Up. ID badges not working at the door, and lights turning off on a production floor with crew are conditions I've dealt with before at this company. I suffer vicariously through a co-worker's description of the pitfalls. As I write it, I wonder if I am using the word vicariously properly.

Indeed. Webster's dictionary tells me that while vicarious can describe: imaginative or sympathetic participation in the experience of another; there's a definition that precedes it. Vicarious: performed or suffered by one person as a substitute for another or to the benefit or advantage of another : SUBSTITUTIONARY <a vicarious sacrifice>. There is such a thing as survivor guilt. And I now think I have the perfect definition and understanding of it.