So Barrelhouse did a special “Office Life” edition for issue number 8 and hosted an “Office Life Invitational” for submissions. I had more than one office story sitting around, and some of them were just plain weird. The one that they ultimately chose, Assistant to the Vampire, was written primarily for my own amusement. I didn’t know if the particulars of my office would be the least bit interesting to anyone who doesn’t work there. It’s kind of like Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina line: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The same goes with offices, which is why it is usually so miserable to hear other people tell you their office stories. There isn’t much in life that’s more dull, except hearing about other people’s dreams. Tonight there’s a Barrelhouse event at KGB Bar and they’re planning to read some stories from this edition and asked if they could read this one. There is nothing more amusing to my cubicle-mates than hearing that New Yorkers will be subjected to tales of our office follies. They love it. So I don’t think I find office life to be very inspiring subject matter, but sometimes putting it down is a matter of survival. Sometimes it’s the only way to force meaning on things that were so grotesquely meaningless. And if that puts a smile on my 
colleagues’ faces, so worth it.