response 2/25

Wow, "Orientation" really was an Office-Space caliber short story of the mundane monotony that is office work. I like that it took a personal turn toward the middle to talk about the fancies of each of the workers, going into the office romances and intricate webs they weave. I think the second person point of view works well because it makes the story more real. It provides a "welcome to your new reality" while giving the third person omniscient narrator who looks into the deeper meanings of their lives. The presence of the serial killer didn't surprise me; I think that the trope of "The Quiet One" is being played up enough by media. The story doesn't rely heavily on it though, so that makes up for it. I like that nothing is really supposed to happen. It just kind of outlines the lives of the reader's new coworkers, presenting a new, separate society filled with characters with their own pros and cons just like the real world.

"Hitchhiking" was an interesting read because I didn't understand what was going to be happening. I like to read through a story and not be able to predict how it will end. I was especially caught up with the end lines of "Hitchhiking" and I wonder what it meant. How exactly was our narrator supposed to be helping us? He boarded different cars (never telling US where he was going, mind you) only to insult us later after the accidents were usually caused by a combination of bad timing, driving conditions, and personal responsibility. If this narrator causes crashes and wrecks with whoever's car he gets in, wouldn't he begin to feel paranoid and a little less likely to try again? Or was that the whole point? Did he have the ability to save all of humankind and we, the ridiculous people, kept putting him in harm's way every time he tried to get to his destination to save the world? I would like to know how he hasn't died if those first lines described his most recent attempts at hitchhiking.