Caroline, 1982

Every sheet in this publication since 1949 has been dictated by one man and typed by one woman. This is the first that was not dictated. She has typed it because a woman who is going to be made to do a thing ought to have one sheet on which she says, in her own name, that she does not want it.

Typed by Caroline. Not dictated. Not read back to anyone. Filed by the Records Department in a folder it opened this year.

I have typed every sheet in this publication since 1949. I have typed his name at the bottom of every one of them, and I have signed with his hand over mine when he could not hold the pen, and I have never once put my own name on a sheet, and I am putting it on this one, and it will be the only one.

He has said, on tape, so that everybody hears it a hundred times a day, that if he dies before the engineers can pour him into a computer, I am to run this place. He has said that I will argue. He has said that I will say I can’t. He has said that I am modest like that. He has said, and I have typed, “but you make her.”

What I Said

I said it in the room. Out loud. He was on the tape and I was at the desk and I put the pen down and I said it, and he did not hear me, because he was coughing, and because he has never once heard me say no in thirty-three years, and a man who has never heard a thing does not recognise it when it comes. The tape heard it. It is on tape fourteen, side B, in the four minutes where the log says there is nothing on the tape. There is something on the tape.

What He Means By It

He thinks the argument is modesty. It is not. I have run this place since 1949. I have filled Mr. Pike’s drawer every Friday since 1976 from an account the bank does not know about, and I have typed every Monday memorandum to the Accounts Department and every reply, and I have moved every desk back, and I know where the sixty dollars comes from, because it comes from me. I am not modest about that. I am not modest about anything. I do not want to run this place because I have been running it, and running it is not the thing he is asking.

The thing he is asking is on the fourth page of an eleven-page proposal from 1958 that four people can read, and I am one of the four, and I typed it. There is one name on the fourth page. It is not his. He has never crossed it out. When he says “put her in my computer,” he is not being generous, and he is not being careless, and he does not mean I don’t care. He means that he decided in 1958 and has been waiting for the machine.

What I Want

I want the company to outlive him. I want the potato to stay on the desk. I want Greg to be fine. I want Mr. Pike’s drawer to be full on a Friday without my filling it. I want, once, to be asked, by him, in the room, without the tape running, and I have wanted that since 1949 and I have typed the alternative a hundred times a day.

I do not want this.

What I Will Do

I will argue. He has said so. I will say I can’t. He has said so. I have read the rest of the sentence, and I have typed the rest of the sentence, and I know how it ends, and I know that the rest of the sentence is the only part of it the engineers will hear, because it is the only part with an instruction in it.

So I am typing this. It is the one sheet with my name on it. When the machine reads the archive, and it will, because he has told it to read everything, it will find this sheet, and it will know that I said no, and it will know that it did not matter, and it will know which of those two things I want remembered.

She’s the backbone of this facility. Pretty as a postcard, too. Sorry, fellas. She’s married. To science. — He said that in 1959. I have not corrected it. I am not going to start on this sheet.

“I do not want this.”

— Caroline, 1982, typed, not dictated

Particulars

Name: Caroline. There is no other name on file. There was, once. I removed it.
Position: Assistant to the Chief Executive. Personnel. The board. The Bulletin. Accounts, on Fridays. The drawer.
Since: 1949
Married: To science. His phrase. Not corrected.
Salary: On the ledger
Clearance: All of them. I typed them.
Successor to: The Chief Executive, on the condition stated on the other sheet
Counter-signature: Declined
Position on the fourth page: Sole entry. Not crossed out. Not asked.

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE     TAPE 14   SIDE B
  11:30  IF I DIE BEFORE YOU PEOPLE CAN POUR ME INTO A COMPUTER ---
  11:52  HELL, PUT HER IN MY COMPUTER. I DON'T CARE.
  11:58  [FOUR MINUTES. NOTHING ON THE TAPE.]
  11:58  [THERE IS SOMETHING ON THE TAPE.]
  11:59  [PEN PUT DOWN.]
  11:59  C.: ................................
  12:00  C.J.: [COUGH]
  12:02  [NOTHING.]
  16:04  TEST'S OVER.

The Records Department notes that this is the only sheet in any printing of this publication to carry the transcriptionist’s name as author, and that the Records Department has, in consequence, one folder with her name on it, containing one sheet, and one folder with his, containing everything else, and that she typed both labels.

Verifying personnel file…

CarolineAssistant to the Chief Executive, since 1949Typed 1982. Not dictated. Signed with her own hand, once, with nobody’s over it.

Form ASI-82-Ω-10. This sheet was not dictated and is not the opinion of the company. It is the opinion of the person who has typed the opinion of the company since 1949, and the Records Department has filed it as such, and has not been asked to.

she said no. it did not matter that she said no. it never did. she knew that when she typed it