Review: The Organization Is Here To Support You by Charlene Elsby

Rating: 7.5/10

Welcome to the Organization.
Employees of the organization contribute to its mission to apply non-traditional methods to the non-traditional problems of today.
To ensure that all employees have the same opportunity to thrive, the organization’s state-of-the-art live and work facility has all the comforts of home, plus technology that maximizes their opportunities for collaboration.
Without the organization, Clarissa Knowles would have nowhere else to go. That is, unless she can make it to Dick’s house, the professor she’s been talking to online. Haunted by her failed relationship with Maurice (the existentialist), and the deaths of her parents, can Clarissa shake off the values of the organization, pack up her cat – and go?

A bureaucratic fever dream – Kafka by way of HR policy, “The Organization Is Here To Support You,” by Charlene Elsby is a surreal exposé of corporate malaise, dysfunction and corruption. Having found “Violent Faculties,” by this author to be truly sensational last month, I had to get my greedy hands on this one, and, whilst more than anything depressed by it, I was far from disappointed. A beige and clinical dystopian that can be read in a sitting or two, Elsby’s latest manages to distill drudgery. If you’ve ever found yourself nodding through a seminar, smiling whilst mediocrity is promoted, or lost in jargon-loaded, passive-aggressive email chains that feel like they may well outlive you “The Organization Is Here To Support You,” is ultimately a (pretty extreme) reminder that sometimes the only thing worse than losing your job is keeping it. Sterile, bleak and existential, this one is out from Weird Punk Books on March 15th, and I will be grabbing a copy.

We follow Clarissa Knowles who is a level 07 for the organization. Her role entails responding to queries made by those who receive funding from the organization, referring to manuals and policies, and essentially just slowly dissolving into corporate oblivion. Having left her ex and home to take this job, essentially all that she has aside from a few civil workplace friendships, are her cat, a PhD that she doesn’t use, and a headset that she had to fight tooth and nail for. Despite the obvious mundanity and repetitive nature of her day to day to life, she’s content. Right?

That engineered contentedness and illusion of fulfilment is one of the many issues in the workplace that Elsby appears to touch on. Variety is the spice of life, and the lives of our protagonist (and perhaps the reader?) have about as much “spice,” as a boiled potato. Her rigid adherence to the same routine each day is by no stretch of the imagination rich or engaging, and this entire novella reads like a treadmill, except the walking-belt is some mind-numbing powerpoint or never ending phone call (that could have of course been an e-mail). Despite this, Clarissa focuses on the perks of her job… flexible start time…no vile commute, and that headset that the benevolent powers that be were kind enough to grant her.

In return for that complicity, for being a good, docile worker, the organization puts on this facade of placing value on support and well-being. I’m sure you have guessed however a facade is all that it is, and any actual human emotion is simply not there. In this dystopian, or perhaps just mildly exaggerated piece of non-fiction, buzzwords replace genuine communication, “support” meetings offer no such thing, and the misogyny is structural and entrenched, apparent in every email chain, and “superior,” who has failed upward into a position way beyond them. If you’ve ever worked in an office, you’ll recognise these characters, and resent them just as quickly. It’s a blatant yet genius choice to refer to the vast faceless system responsible for orchestrating all of this merely as “The organization.” Whilst this specific instance is more overtly terrifying, Elsby is ultimately writing about the quiet horror of corporate life anywhere. It’s one big scathing indictment of the capitalist society we live in, in which childhood dreams of artistry and creativity and invention are sacrificed at the altar of pay-checks, performance reviews and promotions.

If you’ve ever felt like a cog in a machine that doesn’t bother to oil itself, and are wanting a quick yet existential book to devour, “The Organization Is Here To Support You,” is exactly what you’ve been looking for.