Joshua Ferris’s first novel Then We Came to an End (PS3606 .E774 T47 2008b), about office workers at a failing advertising agency, was a donation from a former Florence instructor. When I finally noticed it, how could I ignore the front-cover blurbs: “Entertaining”; “Engrossing”; “Very Funny”? I took it home and pleasantly wasted about three hours with it.
The most useful thing I learned was the phrase “walking Spanish down the hall,” which is the agency’s office slang for walking down the hall to your boss’s office at the request of an email. For some people, the request comes as a huge surprise; others pretty much expected it. While you’re in the boss’s office getting laid off, your email and intranet access are being turned off, and Security is preparing a box so you can take home your personal stuff.
At this office, the people being fired don’t respond that well. One ignores the firing and returns the next day to attend a meeting. One comes back a few weeks later dressed as a clown and evades the guards who have been specifically assigned to keep him away from the now nearly empty (because of the lay-offs) fifty-ninth floor.
The layoffs end—for no reason I can tell—on September 10, 2001 (get it?), and then the book flashes forward to 2006. There’s been some death, but most of the characters have moved on reasonably happily with their lives, which is reassuring though perhaps more credible as a plot device than as something that would happen in life.
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