After checking in with the receptionist at the HR front desk, a glance at the waiting area—consisting of four pleather arm chairs the color of weak coffee, one mini loveseat (a tight fit for two grown adults) and two swivel-back-office chairs situated at computer drop-down terminals—tells me that every place to sit is already occupied. More than occupied, these people look rooted, nestled in so deep they appear permanently affixed to the furniture: not the most encouraging sign that, at eleven in the morning, a sense of resignation permeates their bodies, signaling they’ve already given up on the day.  

Then, I spot three others—two slouching against the opposite wall, and another bracing himself upright in the corner. Standing room only. So, resting my hips back against the closest available wall, I settle in.

The notice to visit the HR office in order to renew my federal employee ID—the plastic badge that allows me to log onto my work computer, access systems, physically enter buildings and otherwise perform the duties of my job as a healthcare administrator—came last week, after which a lump immediately lodged in my gut. This will be the first time my badge requires refreshing; but my co-workers’ tales are epic. Renewing one’s federal employee ID badge is the stuff of psychological horror: enigmatic paperwork processes that rival riddles from the sphinx, mad hatter-type logic mirroring absurdist satire, all making what should be an easy task a near Herculean feat.

Despite the number of humans in the HR lobby, the loudest sound comes from the dull hum of the HVAC system. No one speaks, or looks up, or around, or at each other. Eleven pairs of eyes, all remain cast down—at phones or fingernails or an empty spot on the floor.  

As the clock marches twenty minutes past my scheduled appointment time, I force myself to inhale deeply, to tamp down the frustration that’s brewing in my stomach. No one has been called back yet; and, worse still, not a single HR employee has been seen coming or going anywhere in the suite—almost as if no one works here at all, and the person staffing the front desk is simply a ruse. 

This idling around, this lack of information on why operations are running amuck, hits me as a blatant disregard for my time. Of course, none of us want to be here; but it pains me—deep in my soul—to think that being a part of this inefficiency, of this defunct system, is somehow the most I’ve been able to accomplish with my life.

After the one-hour mark breezes by, only one of the original eleven employees have been served, and three more stumble in. Each new entrant surveys the space, furtive, unsure where to place their bodies in this cramped box.

A life consisting of days like this—of mundane, ordinary experiences—is never what I’d intended for myself. (Who would, right?) But I’d explicitly feared such an existence. My dreams had been real: To be an artist. To be a dancer. To have the spark of humanity that raged within me be recognized and appreciated by others.

In spite of my best intentions, though, I couldn’t translate my passion into a career that provided food and shelter; and since then, nothing else has seemed to matter: not the size of my paycheck as an administrator (generous); or the number of promotions received (several); or how good people continually say I am at my job. All of these so-called successes have come with an asterisk, accompanied by the rank taste of failure; and in moments like today, it feels like the universe is reminding me, yet again, of just how monumentally my life plan has crashed and burned.

Peeling my back off the wall, I return to the front desk to ask about my status.

The receptionist wears an unflappable expression, hardly bothering to glance my way. His voice sounds like a practiced recording; this must be how he copes with the countless irritated employees who assuredly accost him each day: “I don’t know when you’ll get called. They’re pretty backlogged.”

“But I had an appointment at 11:00,” I remind him, though do not add the fact that 11:00 a.m. had come and gone over an hour ago, and that I have an actual job with actual responsibilities—none of which can be addressed in this WIFI dead zone.  

“They’re pretty backlogged.”

“Should I make another appointment? Try to come back tomorrow?”

“That’d be good,” his tone brightens just a bit. He’s probably relieved to have one less frustrated human in the overfilled lobby. “Try to get the first appointment of the day, that way there’s less chance of them being behind schedule.”

The inanity of the situation seeps under my skin like an inflamed rash. It’s such a disheartening thought: to visit this place again tomorrow, to now slog through my own job responsibilities upon leaving here, to have to deal with any of this nonsense. And, while exiting out the suite’s glass doors, I can’t help but wonder: when might I finally figure out how to be ok with where my life ended up?

*

The first appointment for the following day has already been booked, but the second slot is available and a soft breeze of optimism blows through me—how backlogged could HR get with only one appointment ahead of my own?

Re-entering through those same glass doors, I’ve come prepared to pass the time with several literary magazines, and a bushel of patience. After being the first to check in, I’m also the first lucky person to nab a pleather arm chair, right next to the plastic potted plant. Nothing is going to deter me from getting my new ID badge today.

Objectively speaking, there’s nothing wrong with my line of work. It’s actually quite respectable, though you do have to tolerate sitting at a computer for countless hours and endure becoming enmeshed in soul-crushing systems. The polar opposite, actually, of what had always inspired me about dance: the beauty of it, the intensity. How alive it made me feel. And somewhere, buried deep under the grind of each day, that sensation of how special it was to dance still percolates in me. To be able to do something that so few others could do. To have talent. To have something to express to the world.

The sound of my name breaks my reverie—an HR employee beckons, only a half hour behind my scheduled appointment time! Following her into a claustrophobic office (where I could touch both walls if my arms stretched wide), we move through the processing: signing attestations, setting a new PIN code, redoing my fingerprints and security scan, and taking a new photograph. Under normal circumstances, my vanity requires both a mirror and a comb before a shot like this is taken (there’s no tucking a bad ID away in a drawer, hidden from sight). But today, with my new badge only moments away from my possession—and this ambiguous waiting game nearing its end—I let her snap any old picture of me: hair awry, and my usually practiced smile nothing more than a thin-lipped grimace.  

But after spending an hour together, the HR rep’s brow deepens into a cavernous furrow. She hasn’t asked me for anything—a signature, a social security number, creation of a new password—in quite some time; all the required steps appear complete, only the production of the actual, physical badge remains.

She hits a series of keys on her keyboard, mutters in frustration, shakes her mouse, tries again. Next, she gets up, goes into another room, disappears for five minutes. Returns and sits back down, grunts. Checks her personal cell phone, pounds on the keyboard again. Silence, shoulder shrug. Then: “The printer’s not working. Why don’t you go back to the lobby and wait? Maybe it’ll start later.”

On my trek back to the waiting area, still no badge in hand, my body feels like a basketball with all the air let out.

Of course, why would it be any easier for me to get my badge than it had been for my co-workers? I realize I’m not unique in this regard, or even unique in the fact that I ended up in a line of work that I don’t particularly love. Honestly, no one in my family had ever felt happy—full of passion—for their work. We were lower income folks—forklift drivers and line cooks and nurses’ aides. A job was a paycheck. So maybe in that vein, I did think my path would be distinct, the first one of us who was going to find joy in their work—neigh, their calling.  

And I understand that many others have been able to feel purpose in any number of jobs—indeed, that the act of work itself can be a source of pride. So, what’s my problem? Why do I keep sulking around like a mopey teenager, resenting everything that is not dance, no matter how well it treats me?

*

In my absence, the lobby has filled. Scampering to the last available seat, I promise myself that, with any luck, the printer should be fixed soon. Across from me, at one of the defunct computer drop-down terminals, another employee tilts back aggressively in an office chair. His audible sighs fill the noiseless vacuum, his frustration palpable. How long has he been trying to get his updated badge?

The man’s face mask (which is still required in healthcare settings) drapes down around his chin. He’d lowered it a moment ago so he could yell at the front desk receptionist, something about: How ridiculous this waiting around is when we’ve all made appointments. And now, as he perches there, still seething from his tirade, a crisp woman in high heels clicks across the room. When she sees his mask askew, she stops and taps him on the shoulder, pulls her mask up a notch higher over her own nose and indicates for him to do the same. Then, she clip-claps on her way, oblivious, while he stares daggers at her back.

The juxtaposition of the two—the angry and the unobservant—catches me off guard and a quick laugh escapes my lips. I’m also curious: did that guy choose this life, this career? Or had he been robbed of his destiny too?  

*

A memory comes to me, from nearly twenty years back: My feet stuck to the pavement, as if caught in wet cement on New York City’s West 55th Street. Me attempting to pull myself together, to ward off a panic attack, to lift one foot in front of the other, and enter the warehouse that had been across the street. Inside, an audition had taken place for a dance company I’d wanted to join. Back then, there I was, chasing my dream of becoming a professional dancer and standing frozen in the middle of a sidewalk. The closer my approach to the warehouse entrance, the more my stomach had lurched, ready to vomit up all my anxiety. Eventually, to ease my discomfort, I’d turned the other direction and retreated, instead, back towards Midtown. My head had slumped, feeling like a bowling ball held up by the straw of my neck. Greasy tears slithered down my cheeks, creating salt-stained tracks. My insecurities devouring any chance of success.

So, certainly, it hadn’t all been great. I’d never possessed the confidence to weather the barrage of rejection that every artist encounters; being told “no” once or twice made me doubt my talent. And my expectations had been unrealistic—growing up, I’d watched movies like Flashdance, considering them pseudo-documentaries, and thought that I, too, would be the lone outsider with just enough heart to achieve stardom on the first try, despite all the odds. 

Ultimately, though, in full accountability, hadn’t I made a choice that day on the New York sidewalk, when I’d turned away from the audition? And hadn’t I continued to make that same choice, with each audition thereafter, when I was too scared to show up and compete? Opting for mundanity and security over instability and hustle? Bureaucratic hoops over struggling to pay bills?

Perhaps so, though I’ve skulked around all these years feeling a failure—but really, somewhere back there, hadn’t I chosen this life?

*

Without a clear timeline—holding out for a mysterious printer with an undiagnosed problem to miraculously begin functioning—minutes feel like hours, a vortex into which time is literally sucked from my life. My emotions swing like a pendulum. In one second, a nearly irresistible urge rushes through me: to fall to the floor, sobbing, like a child in a temper tantrum. In another beat, I refrain myself from overturning the empty magazine rack in a fit of rage. Instead, I channel my energy into watching, hawk-like, each time the door from the back offices open. Hoping that now might be the time to receive my new badge. But it never is, and there is no information available—no sense of how long my fate will be relegated to this hell-like limbo.

With no answers in sight, my thoughts turn apprehensively to the emails undoubtedly mounting in my inbox, not being addressed. Or the reports that need to be written, the budgets that need tracking, the pile of tasks mounting up while my day fritters away here. As the pressure mounts inside my brain, though, something else mounts, too: a voice inside me, like a reminder. You could just quit, it says, comforting-like. Just walk out right now and never look back. Screw the badge. You don’t need it. Go back to dance. Start teaching. Live your best life.   

But if that voice is my little devil-on-the-shoulder, offering a quick balm, the angel-on-the-other shoulder counters: Why on earth would you do that? You love dancing now more than ever. Why would you ruin that?

And it’s true. I never stopped dancing, and never stopped loving it. My love for dance is even greater now than when I was trying to make a buck from it. My overwhelming feelings of self-loathing have also diminished. So, who cares that dancing doesn’t pay my bills? Why do I keep conflating my sense of self as an artist with where my paycheck comes from? Why do I feel like my job defines me? Defined by who? By “society?” Who is that? And really, wouldn’t society look more favorably upon a higher status role as a healthcare administrator than a lowly dancer? So, who am I talking about? Friends? Family? Or is it me? Am I really the one creating these definitions and then limiting myself with them?

The room distorts around me, shifting with this altered perspective; and from somewhere in the haze, the HR representative emerges. Thank goodness, here it is: after spending four hours in this office today, she’s come to provide an update. My ears prick, ready to hear that maintenance is underway, that my ID is printing as we speak. 

Instead, she says: “You might as well leave and try coming back again tomorrow.”

*

Crossing back through the glass entry doors for the third day in a row, my emotional core has been scrubbed numb, devoid of both impatience and optimism, detached from any expectation of a particular outcome. Who knows if my new badge will manifest today—or in another week?

As another hour seeps past me, now with a full understanding of why those who were planted in this very spot on my first visit looked so hopelessly resigned, the HR employee from yesterday appears from the hall. She walks to my seat, extends her hand without fanfare and says: “Here’s your badge,” then leaves.

The giddiness—the relief!—that surges through me is disproportionate to the accomplishment, as if I’ve just completed my first marathon. I want to turn to the others around me with a stupid, sloppy grin, but their wait isn’t over yet. So, my head remains bowed as I gather my things. Though, the truth of the matter is, despite any of my emotions or limiting beliefs, I have persevered. I’ve shown up and have continued to show up, not just here at HR, but each day—on my computer, at my desk, in meeting rooms and on conference calls.

Looking at the ID, the badge consists simply of my name, position, and a terrible photo from one singular, terrible moment. It’s a simple piece of plastic—of course, it’s not meant to be my whole life story. While walking out of that office, a strange sense of achievement washes through me as I slide my badged lanyard around my neck, the weight of it resting against my chest like a medal.  

-Melissent Zumwalt

Melissent Zumwalt is an artist and administrator who lives in Portland, Oregon. She is a 2023 Best of the Net finalist and her written work has appeared in Arkana, Hawaii Pacific Review, Hippocampus, Mud Season Review, Rappahannock Review and elsewhere. Read more at: melissentzumwalt.com