On Workplace Culture vis-à-vis the Handmaid’s Tale

On a day in June shortly after noon, I finally came to the realization that when you work in an administrative capacity, you are still seen as a Handmaid. Perhaps, because I am also part of this place, I happen to be a Handmaid within a prettier house, with a kinder family and a Commander who still looks me up and down and comments on how great I look.

As if I do it for him.

As if in this day and age, this is still a thing.

Which it is. Hold on, let me water your plant.

My fellow Handmaid though-- the chatty one? They hate her. They make her cry. Her house is not as nice and her Commanders treat her more like an Unwoman.

Today, we were called like chien to eat after the Commanders and the wives.

And in we went, quiet as church mice but grabbing leftovers quickly like rats, shushing each other as not to interrupt the very very very important banality going on.

Am I a Handmaid? My senses were shorn as Auntie Aye called me, just to tell me not to ask for help with a Herculean task. But we’re like a family, right?

And I said “ok” and just took it.

I am a Handmaid here. Internally unruly. My name is June. My name is Sam. My name is Samantha. My name is Ofteesee.

They say I am indebted. Entitled. Be grateful. How can I pretend to be of a place and also a clear cog within it?

I will lift myself up and out of this place, pay my fake debt for a false learning, and I will change how this system works. God-willing, I will change it all. I don’t know how.

But no one should feel like a Handmaid. 

Excuse me, I have to go respond to this email.

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• An excerpt from an expressive essay about social hierarchies, workplace dynamics and frustration, written with a wink to The Handmaid’s tale as a vehicle for further exploration.
  

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