Bobanonymous
The boba tea shop looked as if someone had sterilized a dollhouse and opened it for business.
The walls were white. The counter was white. The menu screens glowed with pastel fruit, cartoon milk splashes, and little black pearls stacked in cheerful columns. A plastic fern sat under an LED strip by the register. The floor was too clean. The air smelled faintly of sanitizer, brown sugar syrup, and new vinyl.
Syd and Oliver stood in line between two college girls comparing nail colors and a man in running shorts tapping at his phone.
Neither of them commented on the room.
Both men noticed it.
Syd kept his hands in his pockets.
Oliver studied the menu as if the difference between taro cream and wintermelon foam might have consequences.
OliverYou’re going to order something black.
SydTea.
OliverIt’s all tea!
SydI’ll have one of those.
The line inched forward. The cashier smiled absently.
Syd ordered black tea with no sugar. Oliver ordered jasmine milk.
They waited beside the pickup counter while sealed cups slid under a little machine that pressed plastic film over the tops with a hydraulic hiss. Whhhsspthit!
Oliver took out his phone. His eyes flicked back and forth rapidly.
Syd noticed, and then he saw what was on the screen.
SydThat looks official.
OliverIt isn’t.
SydThat makes it worse.
Oliver looked up from the screen.
OliverI sent something anonymous.
Syd smiled before he could stop himself.
SydOf course you did.
OliverYou haven’t even read it yet.
The machine hissed again. Shthwawip!
Oliver cleared his throat and started reading:
Sir,
The culture in the division is toxic. The leadership do not expect, reward, or want excellence. Instead, they want conformity to the way we typically do things. There is no expectation that team members read the previous reports. The leadership have given up the hope that we can even communicate effectively with the engineering chain of command.
The personal and professional cost of speaking plain truth is too high for most people. Feminine workplace politics and character assassination are used to ostracize employees who do not conform to the existing culture of apathy and resignation to eternal gross mis-management. In my opinion, there isn’t enough social proof in the world for me to reject what I can clearly see to be true. However, that does not seem to be the case for most of the people working here.
I think of myself as a civil servant. Others call themselves federal employees. We need to shift the paradigm ~ it may seem sort of ridiculous to you, sir, but believe me when I say that many of the civilians you have here are fundamentally opposed to classical liberalism and, quite simply, are just not serious people.
I would like to suggest that the annual ethics training be reworked to focus less on $10 pizza lunch rules and more on the fundamental ethical responsibility that we have to the American tax payer. We should all be required to stand and say the pledge of allegiance at 9am at the start of the day, every day to instill a sense of duty in our workforce. Requiring the pledge of allegiance would show public support for people like me who want to change the culture and strive for excellence. Saying the pledge every day will reinforce the correct position that every civil servant should have which is dedication to God, Country, and Family.
If any federal employee is unwilling to pledge their allegiance, I think they should be removed from their position.
Charging hard,
A Discouraged American Citizen.
Oliver lowered the phone.
Syd stared at him for half a second.
Then he busted out in a laugh.
Oliver’s expression did not change.
SydYou sent that?
OliverYes.
SydTo an actual inbox.
OliverYes.
SydAn anonymous report.
OliverYes.
SydIn the belief that someone would read it, feel pierced by duty, and begin the restoration of the republic, right?
Oliver took his cup from the counter. The plastic was cold and beaded with moisture. Scrawled in swoopy letters, complete with a heart above the i ~ “Olive.”
Syd’s cup had no name.
His cup was labeled ~ “BLACK TEA.”
They moved to the window and sat at a plastic pink hightop. The window looked out on a parking lot, a nail salon, and a bank branch with a faded flag waving lazily above the drive-through.
Oliver pressed the pointed straw through the film on his cup.
It made a small, violent pop.
SydYou’re naive.
Oliver drank. A tapioca pearl moved up the straw and stopped halfway.
OliverI know what you think.
SydNo, you don’t. Do you think the note was too blunt?
OliverIt was blunt.
SydHonestly, in my opinion it was a fair critique.
Oliver put the cup down.
Syd leaned back. The stool gave a small squeak beneath him.
SydYou’re alone in the dark of night, howling at the machine. What did you expect?
OliverAt this point? Nothing really. I just thought it should be said.
SydMaybe you shouldn’t work here.
Oliver frowned and then looked out the window.
Outside, a woman in scrubs crossed the parking lot with a drink carrier.
Syd pointed at the phone.
SydWhat are the odds?
OliverOf what.
SydOf that doing anything.
Oliver was quiet.
SydOne in ten thousand? One in fifty thousand? Less?
OliverI don’t know.
SydYou do know.
OliverNo. Low.
Oliver turned his cup slowly on the table. The pearls gathered at the bottom like black shot.
OliverYou enjoying this?
SydA little.
OliverYou don’t have any hope.
SydCorrect.
Oliver nodded once.
Syd smiled.
Syd took the phone from the table and glanced at the message again.
SydYou really wrote “shift the paradigm.”
OliverThat part was pretty good, wasn’t it?
SydYou wrote it anonymously and managed to sound like a nerd.
Oliver reached for the phone.
Syd let him take it.
OliverYou’re missing the point.
SydI doubt that.
OliverThe problem isn’t that public servants are stupid. The problem is the culture.
Syd lifted his cup and examined the sealed plastic top.
OliverThe noble ideal of Civil Service doesn’t have anyone hooked.
SydAnd your answer is to make everyone stare at the hook every morning?
OliverIf they work for the federal government, should they swear allegiance and be reminded of that pledge every day? Yes! Obviously.
Syd’s smile widened.
SydThat’s actually quite subtle.
OliverIf they are hostile to their own authority, they should have to face that contradiction every day.
SydYou mean say the Pledge?
OliverYes.
SydSo, you think that will force some kind of belief.
OliverNo.
SydYou think it forces ethics then.
OliverNo.
Syd waited.
Oliver shoveled a few jelly balls around in his cup.
OliverIt forces the question. It says, before anything else happens, this is the country. This is the Constitution. This is the public. This is the thing that comes before your office politics, your preferences, your faction, your comfort, your career. Before any of you.
Syd watched him.
SydAnd if they mouth it without meaning it?
OliverAt least we would be forcing them into the shape of truth.
Syd laughed again, softer this time.
SydThat is really quite the sentence.
OliverIt’s true.
SydIt’s theater.
OliverNo.
Syd blinked.
Oliver looked at him.
The shop played a quiet pop song, soft, no edges. Behind the counter, a young man wiped an already clean surface.
Syd punctured the plastic seal on his cup. Tea jumped through the straw and splashed his thumb.
He wiped it with a napkin.
SydYou can’t compel allegiance.
OliverI know.
SydThen what’s the point?
OliverAlignment.
SydWith words?
OliverWith a standard of excellence.
Syd looked down at the pink tabletop. It reflected his elbows in a dull plastic shine.
SydYou think people trying to change the culture need to see the country behind them.
OliverYes.
SydYou think the Pledge does that.
OliverIt could.
SydIt won’t.
OliverYou don’t know that.
SydI know the species.
Oliver’s eyes moved to the bank flag. It lifted once, then sagged against the pole.
OliverYou know how to dodge a question.
A child at the next table shook a sealed cup with both hands. Brown sugar streaks slid down the inside like a slow-motion mudslide. The child’s mother said, “Careful,” without looking up from her phone.
Syd folded his napkin once.
SydLet me tell you what happens.
Oliver waited.
SydSomeone reads it. Maybe. Someone forwards it. Maybe. Someone says the tone is concerning. Someone says the writer seems frustrated. Someone says there may be a training opportunity. Someone says the Pledge idea is inappropriate, or impractical, or legally complicated, or culturally insensitive, or not aligned with current engagement priorities. Then someone “closes the loop.”
Oliver said nothing.
SydAnd nothing changes.
OliverMaybe.
SydNot maybe. You think you’re in a republic. Everyone else is in an office building.
Oliver put his cup down.
OliverA public agency is not merely a workplace.
SydTo them it is.
OliverThen they are wrong.
Syd tilted his head.
SydAnd your anonymous note will cure that?
OliverNo.
SydYour morning Pledge?
OliverNo.
SydYour little report?
OliverNo.
Syd spread his hands slightly.
SydThen what are we doing?
Oliver looked at him.
OliverLook, I’m not going to go along with this.
The words stayed there.
Syd did not answer immediately.
A sedan pulled up to the bank window. The driver waited with one arm hanging out into the heat.
Oliver looked back down at his phone.
For a while they sat at the plastic pink hightop by the window.
The menu screens changed above the counter. Mango became matcha. Matcha became strawberry. Strawberry became something blue, purple, and red like no fruit had ever been.
Syd turned the cup slowly in his hands.
SydYou’re naive.
Oliver stood.
OliverMaybe.
He dropped the cup into the trash.
Syd looked at his own cup, more than half full.
Behind the counter, another sealed drink slid beneath the machine and disappeared under the press.
The hiss came down cleanly. Shthwoooop!