Today's selection for Mentally Incontinent comes in the form of an email dialogue shared between Joe Peacock and a completely fictional - and thus, unable to sue him - former co-worker who initiated contact with Joe after years of silence. This format is a brave choice, and is truly a signal of the advances of the modern world encroaching on long-standing writing and formatting conventions. What a groundbreaking moment in literary history... A website posts an email. What next? IRC logs?

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Subject: Wanting to contribute to your site ('Naner Puddin')
From: "Steven N. Utty" [addresswithheld@gmail.com]
Date: Fri, 9 January, 2009
To: joe@mentallyincontinent.com

Hello Joe-

I'll be straightforward and honest- I'm looking to start my writing career seriously, and wanted to know if you were interested in me contributing to your book as a fictional (or even non-fiction) writer.

My pen name is 'Naner Puddin' - You may or may not have heard of me, or read some of my writing; I wrote a fictional piece on a forum that basically revolved around, eh, warm tears, and fresh cries.

I ultimately found out through third parties that people absolutely loved the story, and in fact, I have a sizable fan base that I knew nothing about up until recently!! LOL

Of course I'm not looking for money, I'd contribute for free. Let me know if you're interested-

Steven


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Subject: Not a snowball's chance in my ass
From: joe@mentallyincontinent.com
Date: Fri, 9 January, 2009
To: "Steven N. Utty" [addresswithheld@gmail.com]

Wow.

I must say, first, that I admire your courage. It must have taken quite a lot of intestinal fortitude on your part to build up whatever gumption was required to actually ask me to publish your work. But then again, I might be giving you too much credit (as I've done practically since I met you). I might be attributing to courage what should probably be attributed to being a few crayons shy of a Fun Pack.

So, what would your story be about? I personally would like to see any of the events that occurred while I was managing you at Medical Software Solutions. Would it be about the time when, just two weeks after being hired, you decided to just not show up to work for almost two weeks, failing to return any and all phone calls and emails to you which prompted me to actually call hospitals around your home and see if you were admitted? And when you finally did come in and I confronted you about it, you cited the "corporate policy" of working from home for software developers?

I'd very much like to see your take on the dialogue that occurred where I reminded you that, not only were we a 100 person company and, as such, lacked any real "corporate policies" whatsoever, but that the work-from-home arrangement came directly from me as your manager, so I got to say what goes and what doesn't? Alas, I should have accepted your resignation that day... Stupid, STUPID me for trying to coach you to reach your potential instead of ridding myself of your incredibly useless self.

But hey, that would have limited the material you could draw from for your stories which you want published in my book! I never would have gotten to write a deposition when your "Fuck Bush" stickers on your truck were vandalized and scratched out, and you accused someone at our building of doing it, going so far as to file a formal complaint - which ultimately led to the discovery that "It might have happened over the weekend..." To think, I might not have lost all that work time, fighting that little battle for an entire week, and that story might not have had a possibility of being in my book -- if I'd only let you quit.

And I never would have learned about the Arena Football League's open tryouts for the Georgia Force, either. You never would have asked me if I would try out for the team with you. You couldn't have asked me about my high school football career, which never would have led to you finding out I was a center, which never would have led to you saying "I was a quarterback! We should go out and take a few snaps at lunch one day!" And I never could have politely declined, which would mean you never got to report me to our manager for, oh what was it... Creating a hostile work environment through reverse accusation (whatever the hell that means? I think it means you thought I was calling you gay by refusing to let you put your hands in my crotch as I passed a ball between my legs to you, but I'll never really be sure).

God, to think that never would have happened... I think that'd make a great story, don't you? It's much better than the time you ran panicked into my office during a small meeting to ask me if our work-issued monitors were coated to protect against "eye cancer," and when we laughed, you filed another complaint with HR and forced me to buy you a then-expensive flatscreen LCD monitor just so you wouldn't get CANCER OF THE FUCKING EYE. Which doesn't even happen.

As good as all of these stories would be, with the subtle scene-setting exposition of you doing pushups and situps in the hallway during lunch breaks and staring down people who had to walk past you, or the daily accusations that the females in the office who had seniority over you were also creating a hostile work environment, I think that the best story you could write for me would be the time you inserted yourself into a discussion about organized labor and called us Nazis.

Yes, the words "Adolf" and "Hitler" were used in the conversation. But they were nowhere near glorifying the man - we were talking about how overall production falls when work is mandated and quotas are kept. It was just a lighthearted talk amongst the developers about how everyone liked the "come and go" work schedule I'd set up, and how much more productive we were as a result... But you had to come in and begin talking about fucking concentration camps. And it wasn't like you took a position for or against them.

No.

You just said "Are you guys talking about concentration camps?" And when I answered "Yes," you immediately said "Well, as a black man, I find that offensive." And when I tried to explain the conversation to you right then, you interrupted me and said "You might as well call me a nigger to my face" and left without allowing us to respond. Oh, how good it feels to be able to write this out here, where you can't just win by blocking response...

But as good as that part of the story would be, it couldn't possibly beat suing the entire company for racial discrimination and, again, creating a hostile work environment. And I can't help but laugh at how you listed just about everyone in our department EXCEPT ME on the complaint... I guess you figured two separate instances of being proven a fucking loon were enough, so you'd try attacking someone else. And attack you did - the reports you wrote up about the conversation, and many before it, were like reading the script to a fifties sitcom - except you replaced "Wally" and "The Beaver" with "nigger" and "porch monkey". They would have been laughably horrible fabrications, if they weren't so damaging to my staff and my friends... Thank God three of the other people involved in the conversation were also black, or we might have looked like we were hiding something.

I'll have to take you to task if you don't include in your recounting the fact that you quit the company at that point and, when you were asked to take a polygraph test to back up your claims, you refused and lost your lawsuit (which cost us weeks of productivity and tons of money). Then, a few weeks later, you came back and asked if you could have your old job back. And when I laughed in your face, you went and asked MY boss, who had a little more tact and politely told you that there were no positions.

Just a note, from writer to writer - this would be a perfect place for an epilogue, where you explain that, every three months afterward (and up until this day, as far as I know), you come back to the building to ask for your old job back. And you keep getting told "no." Even on the day the former CEO left the company, you showed up to his goodbye party and crashed it, looking for a job spot.

And now, you're asking me to publish your work.

Like I said, I admire the guts and / or lack of common fucking sense. I wish I were as brave as you. Alas, Penguin has mandated that there won't be any "Guest Stories" in this upcoming book, as copyrights and licensing were not set up to handle that. But hey, I'll pass this email along to them (and my other readers) and see if they're interested in hearing more from you.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Yours (but no, I still won't take snaps with you in the parking lot),

Joe Peacock