BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : JUNE 19, 2000 ISSUE
BOOKS Workplace Wit PASTORALIA Stories By George Saunders Riverhead Books -- 188 pp -- $22.95 Anyone who has held a less-than-ideal job is likely to appreciate the absurdities of the workplace revealed in the broad, darkly comic title story of George Saunders' second collection, Pastoralia. None of us has ever had to work as a caveman in a theme park, required to grunt rather than speak, to pantomime eating bugs, and to skin and roast a goat each day for sustenance. Still, many have experienced pressures to perform, and missives from managers like this one: ''And in terms of mass firings, relax, none are forthcoming, truly, and furthermore, if they were, what you'd want to ask yourself is: Am I Thinking Positive/Saying Positive? Am I giving it all I've got? Am I doing even the slightest thing wrong?'' Saunders can make a reader laugh aloud, but his observations cut deeply. This collection offers workplace satire of the highest order, achieved by exaggerating the indignities suffered at the lowest levels in a manner that is funny, disturbing, and often dead-on. All six stories in Pastoralia were originally published in The New Yorker, where Saunders' fiction helped win a National Magazine Award this year. His first book of short stories, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, also humorously addressed the discontents of consumerism and capitalism in stories such as ''The 400-Pound CEO.'' Pastoralia finds Saunders in top form. Other targets in this collection include, in the story ''Winky,'' a motivational seminar in which attendees are given the mantra: ''Now is the Time for Me to Win.'' Toward this end, they are urged to tell those who are impeding their progress to ''stop crapping in my oatmeal.'' Workplace conflicts arise in ''Sea Oak,'' in which a young man employed as a scantily clad waiter at an aviation-themed version of Chippendales, called Joysticks, struggles to maintain his ''Cute Rating'' and hold on to his job. When urged to violate the rules for bigger tips, he is faced with what is, in his world, a difficult moral dilemma. Such choices are at the heart of Saunders' writing and give his fiction gravity despite the broad humor. In ''Pastoralia,'' for instance, the narrator is faced with the task of authentically portraying a Neanderthal man to entertain the tourists who all-too-infrequently poke their heads into his cave. He is also required to fax in nightly evaluations of his partner, whose attitude and performance have been poor. Reluctant to betray her, he has been filing the same bland reports each evening. But he needs to hold on to his job so he can continue to pay the medical bills piling up at home for the treatment of an ailing child. As his boss says, in pressing him to turn in his co-worker: ''Are you vested? Great to be vested. Just wait until you are. It really feels like a Benefit. You'll see why they call Benefits Benefits, when every month, ka-ching, that option money kicks up a notch. Man, we're lucky.'' Some luck. By LARRY DARK _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS Workplace Wit PHOTO: Cover, ``Pastoralia'' INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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