May 14, 2008
You’re Fired
“Personal Days,” by Ed Park
Michael emerges from his office to announce that he’s taking pupternity leave to raise his new shih tzu.
You cast a knowing glance at your co-worker Jim. Jim, who’s 63 years old and suspicious, barks, “What are you smiling at?”
The office usually falls short of TV, but not so in Personal Days, Ed Park’s literary debut. Like Dunder Mifflin seen through Kafka’s eyes, the novel explores the distinct boredom of Cubicle Land.
Unfolding in Post-it–size passages and sections structured like software manuals, the novel takes aim at procrastination, paranoia, office supply pilfering, and computer-crashing e-mails of kittens, along with the etiquette of shared elevator rides, cigarette breaks, and after-work drinks.
Personal Days doesn’t stop at satire. Park navigates hilariously between gentle irony and genuine anguish, much like that mocking question your computer asks each night before you log off.
Are you sure you want to quit?
Available at Books & Books, 933 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach (305-532-3222 or booksandbooks.com); online at amazon.com.
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