The Circle (21 page)

Mae looked at Annie, and saw, for the first time she could remember, something like
real worry.

At four thiry Dan sent a message:
Great day so far! Meet at five?

Mae arrived at Dan’s door. He stood, guided her to a chair, and closed the door. He
sat behind his desk and tapped the glass of his tablet.

“97. 98. 98. 98. Wonderful aggregates this week.”

“Thank you,” Mae said.

“Really spectacular. Especially considering the increased workload with the newbs.
Has that been difficult?”

“Maybe the first couple days, but now they’re all trained and don’t need me as much.
They’re all excellent, so if anything, it’s slightly easier, having more people on
the job.”

“Good. Good to hear.” Now Dan looked up, and probed into her eyes. “Mae, have you
had a good experience so far here at the Circle?”

“Absolutely,” she said.

His face brightened. “Good. Good. That’s very good news. I asked you to come in just
to, well, to square that with your social behavior here, and the message it’s sending.
And I think I might have failed to communicate everything about this job properly.
So I blame myself if I haven’t done that well enough.”

“No. No. I know you did a good job. I’m sure you did.”

“Well, thank you, Mae. I appreciate that. But what we need to talk about is the, well … Let
me put it another way. You know this isn’t what you might call a clock-in, clock-out
type of company. Does that make sense?”

“Oh, I know. I wouldn’t … Did I imply that I thought …”

“No, no. You didn’t imply anything. We just haven’t seen you around so much after
five o’clock, so we wondered if you were, you know, anxious to leave.”

“No, no. Do you need me to stay later?”

Dan winced. “No, it’s not that. You handle your workload just fine. But we missed
you at the Old West party last Thursday night, which was a pretty crucial team-building
event, centered around a product we’re all very proud of. You missed at least two
newbie events, and at the circus, it looked like you couldn’t wait to leave. I think
you were out of there in twenty minutes. And those things would be understandable
if your Participation Rank wasn’t so low. Do you know what it is?”

Mae guessed it was in the 8,000-range. “I think so.”

“You think so,” Dan said, checked his screen. “It’s 9,101. Does that sound right?”
It had dropped in the last hour, since she’d last checked.

Dan clucked and nodded, as if trying to figure out how a certain spot had appeared
on his shirt. “So it’s been sort of adding up and, well, we started worrying that
we were somehow driving you away.”

“No, no! It’s nothing like that.”

“Okay, let’s focus on Thursday at five fifteen. We had a gathering in the Old West,
where your friend Annie works. It was a
semi-mandatory welcome party for a group of potential partners. You were off-campus,
which really confuses me. It’s as if you were fleeing.”

Mae’s mind raced. Why hadn’t she gone? Where was she? She didn’t know about this event.
It was across campus, in the Old West—how had she missed a semi-mandatory event? The
notice must have been buried deep in her third screen.

“God, I’m sorry,” she said, remembering now. “At five I left campus to get some aloe
at this health shop in San Vincenzo. My dad asked for this particular kind of—”

“Mae,” Dan interrupted, his tone condescending, “the company store has aloe. Our store’s
better stocked than some corner store, and with superior products. Ours is carefully
curated.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know the company store had something like aloe.”

“You went to our store and couldn’t find it?”

“No, no. I didn’t go to the store. I went straight to the other store. But I’m so
glad to know that—”

“Let me stop you there, because you said something interesting. You said you didn’t
go to our store first?”

“No. Sorry. I just assumed something like that wouldn’t be there, so—”

“Now listen. Mae, I should admit that I know you didn’t go to the store. That’s one
of the things I wanted to talk to you about. You haven’t been in the store, not once.
You—a former college athlete—haven’t been to the gym, and you’ve barely explored the
campus. I think you’ve used about one percent of our facilities.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just been a whirlwind so far, I guess.”

“And Friday night? There was a major event then, too.”

“I’m sorry. I wanted to go to the party, but I had to run home. My dad had a seizure
and it ended up being minor but I didn’t know that until I got home.”

Dan looked at his glass desk and, with a tissue, tried to remove a smudge. Satisfied,
he looked up.

“That’s very understandable. To spend time with your parents, believe me, I think
that is very, very cool. I just want to emphasize the
community
aspect of this job. We see this workplace as a
community
, and every person who works here is
part
of that community. And to make it all work it requires a certain level of participation.
It’s like, if we were a kindergarten class, and one girl has a party, and only half
the class shows up, how does the birthday girl feel?”

“Not good. I know that. But I was at the circus event and that was great.
So
great.”

“It
was
great, wasn’t it? And it was great to see you there. But we have no record of you
being there. No photos, no zings, no reviews, notices, bumps. Why not?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was caught up in the—”

Dan sighed loudly. “You do know that we like to hear from people, right? That Circlers’
opinions are valued?”

“Of course.”

“And that the Circle is predicated, to a large extent, on the input and participation
of people like yourself?”

“I know.”

“Listen. It totally makes sense you’d want to spend time with your parents. They’re
your parents! It’s totally honorable of you. Like I said: very, very cool. I’m just
saying
we
like you a lot, too, and want to know you better. To that end, I wonder if you’d
be willing
to stay a few extra minutes, to talk to Josiah and Denise. I think you remember them
from your orientation? They’d love to just extend the conversation we’re having, and
go a bit deeper. Does that sound good?”

“Sure.”

“You don’t have to rush home or …?”

“No. I’m all yours.”

“Good. Good. I like to hear that. Here they are now.”

Mae turned to see Denise and Josiah, both waving, on the other side of Dan’s glass
door.

“Mae, how are you?” Denise said, as they walked to the conference room. “I can’t believe
it’s been three weeks since we gave you your first tour! We’ll be in here.”

Josiah opened the door to a conference room Mae had passed many times. The room was
oval, the walls glass.

“Let’s have you sit here,” Denise said, indicating a high-backed leather chair. She
and Josiah sat across from her, arranging their tablets and adjusting their seats,
as if settling in for a task that might take hours, and would almost surely be unpleasant.
Mae tried to smile.

“As you know,” Denise said, putting a strand of her dark hair behind her ear, “we’re
from HR, and this is just a regular check-in we do with new community members here.
We do them somewhere in the company every day, and we’re especially glad to see you
again. You’re such an enigma.”

“I am?”

“You are. It’s been years since I can remember someone joining who was so, you know,
shrouded in mystery.”

Mae wasn’t sure how to answer this. She didn’t feel shrouded in mystery.

“So I thought maybe we would start by talking a little about you, and after we get
to know more about you, we can talk about ways that you might feel comfortable joining
in a bit more in terms of the community. Does that sound good?”

Mae nodded. “Of course.” She looked to Josiah, who hadn’t said a word yet, but who
was working furiously on his tablet, typing and swiping.

“Good. I thought we would start by saying that we really like you,” Denise said.

Josiah finally spoke, his blue eyes bright. “We
do
,” he said. “We really do. You are a super-cool member of the team. Everyone thinks
so.”

“Thank you,” Mae said, feeling sure that she was being fired. She’d gone too far in
asking for her parents to be added to the insurance plan. How could she have done
that so soon after being hired?

“And that your work here has been exemplary,” Denise continued. “Your ratings have
been averaging 97, and that’s excellent, especially for your first month. Do you feel
satisfied with your performance?”

Mae guessed at the right answer. “I do.”

Denised nodded. “Good. But as you know, it’s not all about work here. Or rather, it’s
not all about ratings and approvals and such. You’re not just some cog in a machine.”

Josiah was shaking his head vigorously, no. “We consider you a full, knowable human
being of unlimited potential. And a crucial member of the community.”

“Thank you,” Mae said, now less sure she was being let go.

Denise’s smile was pained. “But as you know, you’ve had a blip or two when it comes
to meshing with the community here. We have of course read the report from the incident
with Alistair and his Portugal brunch. We found your explanation totally understandable,
and we’re encouraged that you seem to have recognized the issues at play there. But
then there’s your absence at most of the weekend and evening events, all of which
are of course totally optional. Is there anything else you want to add to our understanding
of all this? Maybe with the Alistair situation?”

“Just that I really felt bad that I might have inadvertently caused Alistair any distress.”

Denise and Josiah smiled.

“Good, good,” Denise said. “So the fact that you understand makes me confused, in
terms of squaring that with a few of your actions
since
that discussion. Let’s start with this past weekend. We know you left campus at 5:42
p.m. on Friday, and you got back here 8:46 a.m. on Monday.”

“Was there work on the weekend?” Mae searched her memory. “Did I miss something?”

“No, no, no. There wasn’t, you know, mandatory work here on the weekend. That’s not
to say that there weren’t thousands of people here Saturday and Sunday, enjoying the
campus, participating in a hundred different activities.”

“I know, I know. But I was home. My dad was sick, and I went back to help out.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Josiah said. “Was this related to his MS?”

“It was.”

Josiah made a sympathetic face, and Denise leaned forward. “But
see, here’s where it gets especially confusing. We don’t know anything about this
episode. Did you reach out to any Circlers during this crisis? You know that there
are four groups on campus for staffers dealing with MS? Two of them are for children
of MS sufferers. Have you sought out one of these groups?”

“No, not yet. I’ve meant to.”

“Okay,” Denise said. “Let’s table that thought for a second, because that’s instructive,
the fact that you were aware of the groups, but didn’t seek them out. Surely you acknowledge
the benefit of sharing information about this disease?”

“I do.”

“And that sharing with other young people whose parents suffer from the disease—do
you see the benefit in this?”

“Absolutely.”

“For example, when you heard your dad had a seizure, you drove, what, a hundred miles
or so, and never once during that drive did you try to glean any information from
the InnerCirclers, or from the larger OuterCircle. Do you see that as an opportunity
wasted?”

“Now I do, absolutely. I was just upset, and worried, and I was driving like a maniac.
I wasn’t very present.”

Denise raised a finger. “Ah,
present
. That is a wonderful word. I’m glad you used it. Do you consider yourself usually
present?”

“I try to be.”

Josiah smiled and tapped a flurry into his tablet.

“But the opposite of present would be what?” Denise asked.

“Absent?”

“Yes. Absent. Let’s put a pin in that thought, too. Let’s go back to your dad, and
this weekend. Did he recover okay?”

“He did. It was a false alarm, really.”

“Good. I’m so glad to hear about that. But it’s curious that you didn’t share this
with anyone else. Did you post anything anywhere about this episode? A zing, a comment
anywhere?”

“No, I didn’t,” Mae said.

“Hm. Okay,” Denise said, taking a breath. “Do you think someone else might have benefited
from your experience? That is, maybe the next person who might drive two or three
hours home might benefit from knowing what you found out about the episode, that it
was just a minor pseudo-seizure?”

“Absolutely. I could see that being helpful.”

“Good. So what
do
you think the action plan should be?”

“I think I’ll join the MS club,” Mae said, “and I should post something about what
happened. I know it’ll be beneficial.”

Denise smiled. “Fantastic. Now let’s talk about the rest of the weekend. On Friday,
you find out that your dad’s okay. But the rest of the weekend, you basically go blank.
It’s like you disappeared!” Her eyes grew wide. “This is when someone like you, with
a low Participation Rank, might be able to improve that, if she wanted to. But yours
actually dropped—two thousand points. Not to get all number-geeky, but you were on
8,625 on Friday and by late Sunday you were at 10,288.”

“I didn’t know it was that bad,” Mae said, hating herself, this self who couldn’t
seem to get out of her own way. “I guess I was just recovering from the stress of
my dad’s episode.”

“Can you talk about what you did on Saturday?”

“It’s embarrassing,” Mae said. “Nothing.”

“Nothing meaning what?”

“Well, most of the day I stayed at my parents’ house and just watched TV.”

Josiah brightened. “Anything good?”

“Just some women’s basketball.”