Big Dead Place

by Nicholas Johnson

Jane: I want to make informed decisions.

  Franz: Right. So one of your decisions is—okay, I’ve got these two Housing moves, or I could choose to stay where I am and accept the consequences of it—

  Jane: Right.

  Franz:—regardless of what those are.

  Jane: No. I like to make informed decisions. That’s why I want to know what the consequence will be if I get written up for not moving.

  Franz: Then we’ll just have to wait and see. I don’t know—

  Jane: . . . And I’m asking you to talk to [the HR Guy], find out, and to let me know before the 8th.

  Franz: I don’t think we can find out “hypothetically”—

  Jane: You’re asking me to move by the 8th but you can’t find out the answer to a question by the 8th?

  Franz: I probably could.—I don’t understand why “why why why,” Jane.

  Jane: Why I’m upset?

  Franz: No. I don’t understand why you don’t want to move. Why is this all so emotional and such a big deal for you? Why are you putting this much energy into this? I’m not sure what’s behind it, to be honest with you. I mean, it’s a very important deal with everybody in the community. I’m giving up a two-room suite with my own bathroom by myself for a roommate.

  [Long discussion about the particulars of Jane’s Housing status, housing points, job points, etc.]

  Jane: Why can’t I take until Winfly? Why is that a problem?

  Franz: I don’t know. I don’t know who’s coming in at Winfly. I don’t know what their Housing points are—

  Jane: If I agree to the move, or to have [Sasha] move in with me, why can’t we take until two days before Winfly, which is the original time I was planning on—it’s still a huge change to move instead of having someone move in with you. Why can’t you make that concession? Why can’t you say “All right”? Do you know how much respect you’d get out of the community if you said, “Y’know what? This wasn’t clear. It wasn’t clear because it was our job to make it clear, and we didn’t make it clear. Therefore, the few people it affects, we’re going to make it right.”

  Franz: I think it’s just unclear to you. I haven’t had to have this conversation with anybody else.

  Jane: Did you read [So-and-so’s] email?

  Franz: I did. And it’s been resolved.

  Jane: You just said it’s only unclear to me. It wasn’t clear to him either.

  Franz: But now it is.

  Jane: Because his request was met.

  Franz: Right. And unfortunately we cannot meet your request.

  [long silence]

  Ike: From my perspective, I won’t even speak on the Housing policy because too many curse words will fly out of my mouth. Let’s just say I have an issue with them as well. But let’s talk about Jane. If you choose to stay in your room, against the policy and against the move, you’re going to get written up. You’ve already got clarification on that. And if you are written up for insubordination from the station manager, I’m not going to be able to assign you anything more than a 2, if I’m very lucky. And I had planned on assigning you a Level 5 if at all possible. And that’s why I wanted to sit down with you and talk about that. Now, whether or not this is fair, whether or not this even makes any sense, I don’t want to see you lose anything you’re due, even though it might be unfair to you, and it may be unfair all around—we’ll have to figure that one out later—what I’m concerned about is you getting through the season and getting the fair bonus you deserve for the work you’ve done, and I don’t want to see you lose that because of an incident that may or may not have been your fault, that may be in question. In the end, you’re not going to win unless you follow what the rules are supposed to be. Whether or not they’re fair.

  After weighing principles versus hard economics, Jane decided to comply because, as she told me, it was a lot of money to lose just to prove you can’t trust the company. That was the end of it, or so she thought, until the end of the season, when her bonus was cut anyway. The meeting was documented as justification for the cut, despite her compliance, which was soon forgotten.

  Though Jane’s eventual defeat would by any measure be a small and insignificant provincial affair, the story must continue, because there are details that will change the story from an isolated petty occurrence into a timeless story of the circular seasons of human vengeance. To get there, however, we must understand why, at the end of winter, Jane and the Denver Housing lady huddled together in a janitor’s closet.

  All year long Jane had received high marks for her periodic work evaluations. But when she received her year-end bonus evaluation, she found that her bonus had been slashed. Jane’s evaluation reported that she had been “abusive” to Debbie, the Housing Coordinator in Denver. The evaluation referred to an “attached email” from Debbie that supposedly validated the accusation, but it was not attached, and no one knew where it was, or what it said. Regardless, Jane’s evaluation documented that at the Chalet Meeting, “Jane was warned that her near abusive behavior was not going to be tolerated at all.”

  This was a false statement. I had insisted that Jane take my MiniDisc recorder to the meeting, so we knew that “abusive behavior” had not once been mentioned or otherwise brought into question. And because Thom and I were present for the phone conversation Jane had had with Debbie, we knew the basis of the claim was false as well, so we wrote witness statements attesting that Jane had said nothing that could have been considered “abusive.” “Abusive” denoted a spooky subset of “inappropriate” that, if unchallenged, could be met with financial retaliation, a red flag in the HR file, and possibly exile.

  “If the call wasn’t abusive,” HR countered Jane, “then why did your employees write witness statements?”

  Debbie, the alleged victim of Jane’s abuse, came down at Winfly. She spruced up the Housing bulletin board outside her office, adding to the printouts of room assignments and lists of “job points” that ranked employees by position a glossy poster of a multi-ethnic band of smiling youngsters beneath the phrase “Smiles are Contagious.”

  Six weeks after she arrived, Debbie and Jane stepped into the supply closet to get away from the crowded and noisy Housing Office. Amid the ammonia smell and brown bundles of paper towels, they discussed the sudden year-end allegations against Jane. Debbie clarified that she had never said or written that Jane was abusive, and was in fact thankful for their positive interactions since Debbie had arrived at Winfly.

  But in the course of this irregular meeting in the supply closet, Debbie talked frankly about how the atmosphere in Denver may have influenced Jane’s downfall. Over the tops of partitions decorated with photos of families and pets, Denver was still talking about the death threat from last winter.

  “People were so worried that things were going to be horrible,” Debbie explained to Jane. “I think that they were being very protective of the Housing Office, and that’s why they made me do everything from Denver, which was kind of weird, to protect [Ellie]. And then somebody—it was a weird setup in Denver, you know how they have those office dividers—somebody came over and said, ‘Whoa, you were handling that person really well,’ and the scuttlebutt got around. Someone asked, ‘Are people beating up on you?’ And I said, ‘No, I’m fine.’ And they said, ‘Nononono, you need to let us know.’”

  Management’s black eye at the hand of an anonymous winter-over was still remembered in the hive of Denver. Between cubicles, suburban office folk said that something should be done about it. Someone should pay for the death threat. Though Jane had complied, she had first resisted, so she was as good as anyone to atone for events of the previous year, when the Housing Coordinator had told people that policy was none of their business, and in return had been offered a knuckle sandwich. Debbie told Jane, “They wanted to really nail people this year.”

  Using recording devices to document the behavior of the professional manager is an Antarctic tradition that dates back to at least the IGY in 1957, when scientists tape
-recorded the conversations of Commanding Officer Finn Ronne, whose duplicitous documentation to his superiors was inconsistent with events as recorded by seismologist John C. Behrendt in his book Innocents on the Ice.

  Behrendt records that Ronne censored the messages they sent out by radio, refused to let someone who’d crossed him send messages to his family, confiscated a book called My Antarctic Honeymoon that was critical of him, forbade the scientists from fraternizing with the enlisted men, objected to people shooting movies, threatened to lock one of the men in irons, shoved an ice pick in a penguin’s eye, and even cheated at ping-pong. Ronne once referred to the field of exploration as “the last of an exclusive fraternity.” Behrendt wrote of his time at Ellsworth Station: “[Trust among the crew] is the only thing that separates the atmosphere here from that of a totalitarian police state.”

  Meanwhile, Commander Ronne sent to the U.S. press releases full of glorious embellishments, which Behrendt recorded in his journals:[6 May] Ronne sent another press release which is full of the distortions which I am now convinced that everyone who writes for the public about Antarctica is guilty of, e.g. “Suns rays dipped below the surface 24 April [not] to return until latter part of August. Those who braved elements topside -37°F, 18-mile wind witnessed beautiful sight whole northern heaven aflame.” It was actually about 0°F to -5°F with little wind, and we just saw a little color where the sun was. “Temperature hovers between -26°F and -40°F.” Actually the range has been around 10°F to -10°F the last couple weeks…

  [25 May] Ronne sent out another press release. It was nauseating, filled with distortions… “Killer whale packs several dozen still poke pointed heads up through ordinary ice floes… Their mouthful of teeth and snorting sound makes one tremble because they will attack human beings every opportunity. They are the man eaters of Antarctica, wild beasts of the sea. I thought they had withdrawn long ago.” No one has seen a killer whale since we quit our seismic work at the tidal crack. “Your breath gives hissing reverberation. Moisture you exhale immediately freeze[s]. Ice crystals grind together as they leave nostrils or mouth. One of the strangest things about cold temperatures.” I have yet to observe any phenomenon like this.

  [23 June] Just before the movie, while I was taking a gravity reading, Ronne came in and went over a news release with Kim, on the aurora program. He borrowed our thesaurus a few days ago. Kim told him he thought it was too flowery. Ronne agreed but said that’s the way the public wants it… Kim tried to tame him down but to no avail. Ronne described red rings around the moon, which nobody has seen, and depicted the aurora as being all colors of the spectrum. Kim did manage to stop this last statement; the only colors he (or anyone) has seen are green and very occasionally red. The Captain changed his statement to “a symphony of color passing in review.” Kim told him that “symphonies don’t pass in review.” So he changed it to “a symphony of color parading in review.”

  During that time, the civilian scientists and some of the crew expressed themselves through numerous media: publishing an underground paper called The Daily Sandcrab4; keeping journals; drawing cartoons of the time Ronne slipped and fell on the ice and blamed someone else for his fall; sending coded radio messages (when one of them wrote to a friend “Fervently hope you can visit with resupply to observe firsthand activity here—including Caligulas Rain,” Ronne asked what the latter term meant, and the scientist told him it was a geophysical term); and recording disciplinary meetings Ronne held in his room as well as radio conversations to his superiors in which he accused the scientists of “causing hatred and discord among the men.”

  Sasha’s fall from the good graces of The Program began late one evening in July. She and a couple of friends had been chatting over a bottle of wine in the deserted Galley when Franz passed through, perhaps to fetch toast or bug juice, and approached their table.

  “I don’t want to be a dick about it,” he said, “but you can’t drink wine in the Galley.”

  “I thought that was just in the summer,” Sasha said.

  Franz said that wine wasn’t allowed in the Galley, even in the winter.

  Later Sasha apologized to Franz: “I’m sorry we put you in a tough position.”

  Franz, who didn’t drink at all, nodded and said, “I’m disappointed in you.”

  Irritated by his moral bent, Sasha wrote to NSF asking about the policy, which had been initiated nine months earlier in the summer with this email:To: McMurdo -- All

  Subject: Alcohol in Dining Facility

  McMurdo Community,

  The consumption of alcoholic beverages in the Dining Facility is not allowed, unless prior approval has been granted by the NSF Station Manager.

  Generally, only the bars and the dorm lounges were good for drinking, because the Galley, with its fluorescent lighting and food court ambience, was an ugly place for a bender. Prohibited from something they seldom did anyway, much as if they had been forbidden to wear their shirts inside out, enough people nevertheless complained about the directive that an addendum came, explaining that the policy was “established over the concern that there may not be adequate seating in the dining area if people lingered at tables after their meals.” Now that the policy had been justified as for the good of the community, the barks of protest subsided.

  Then in July, in the dead heart of winter, with the station population just over 200, in response to her question about why a policy to prevent overcrowding was enforced in the winter, Sasha received from NSF an email stating that the alcohol policy in the Galley “…was developed by the USAP Executive Management Board, which is made up of the Senior Representatives from each of the primary agencies (NSF, SPAWAR, 109th, CODF, RPSC).” The alcohol policy would have to be introduced “for reconsideration at the EMB meeting coming up in September. Any change to the current policy would have to be sanctioned by the EMB.” The policy initially willed by one local NSF manager and later rationalized as ensuring seating in the crowded summer had calcified over the course of the year into barnacled heritage through the inactivity of a hibernating executive committee including government agencies, two offices of the military, and a corporation, all suddenly helpless to exercise power but for a small annual window period.5

  On August 1 Sasha was also told to move from her room immediately, without the prior warning promised by the Housing Coordinator in June. Sasha had done six seasons, including winters, and she was fed up. She wrote a sarcastic email to Franz and Ellie asking if there were any other upcoming Sundays that she should plan on working. The next day Sasha was summoned into HR and written up for misconduct. The Counseling Notice said that Sasha’s email had been “offensive and inappropriate.”

  Sasha wrote to Debbie in Denver asking for one extra week to move. Debbie replied that she wished she could grant additional time, but could not. Sasha wrote back, “I’m sorry you’re not able or willing to compromise. I guess we’re back to our starting point.”

  Sasha was brought into HR and written up again. The Counseling Notice said, “Sasha was asked to refrain from making any more communication of an unprofessional nature.”

  During this time, Sasha’s supervisor, who had signed her disciplinary notices, called the doctor to find out why Sasha had recently visited Medical. The doctor warned Sasha’s supervisor that her request could not be fulfilled lawfully.

  On the day of room inspections, Sasha’s room was the first to be inspected, at 8 a.m., by Ellie, the Housing Coordinator, who was known as one of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet. Sasha had cleaned her room well, and she passed inspection promptly. However, she had forgotten her wallet in one of the drawers, and Ellie put it in the skua pile in the hall. Ellie called Sasha at work, urging her to retrieve the wallet before someone took it.6

  During room inspections that day, three people were issued fines of $350 each on first inspection, despite the “three chances” that had been discussed at the All-Hands Meeting. A woman who had been in The Program for ten years was threatened with a
bonus cut for leaving some shirts hanging in a wardrobe.

  Ellie called the Paint Shop supervisor at 4 p.m. and told him that one of his staff, Ed, did not pass first room inspection and must go to his room immediately to finish cleaning it. Thus far we had been adamantly instructed that all room preparation was to be done outside of work time. The supervisor agreed to send Ed home to clean his room better. Ellie said to hold the line, then passed the phone to the HR Guy. The HR Guy told him to write up Ed for missing work.7

  About this time, three TV stations and the radio feed went dead because of a problem out at Black Island. Apparently one of the vents was blocked with snow and some of the equipment was freezing. A party departed a few days later to fix it, and one of their vehicles caught fire a few miles out.

  By mid-August we had light for about two hours a day, though the sun hadn’t come over the horizon. Jane and I drove up to T-site with the loaders to change the cardboard and wood dumpsters. To the south, the sky was dark gray, and so was the ice shelf. The moon was huge, low, gold and streaked with black. To the north the sky was light with colors that predicted nacreous clouds. It takes about 20 minutes to drive from town to T-site in a loader, and at the top of the hill I noticed the view for the first time. All winter there had been no point in looking away from the station, because there was only darkness. The station had become everything. Even with the new light, the colorful moon and the mountains had almost not registered.

  With Winfly imminent, one evening we had an Award Ceremony in the Galley. We received medals that read “Courage, Sacrifice, Devotion” and certificates that read, “In recognition of valuable contributions to exploration and scientific achievement under the U.S. Antarctica Research Program.” At the bottom of the certificate was an official seal with a mighty eagle standing on a crest that depicted a test tube and a microscope before an ancient flaming lamp on an Egyptian pyramid. This was the old logo for the National Science Foundation, a relic of enticing Freemasonry, before democracy and public funding corrupted the elite society of science and the logo became a globe ensnared by a mob of generic human figures.