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going to tell me three things you like about me? It’s your turn.”
    I like it that you work in Bio and that it’s clear on the other end of the complex, I thought. “I like your suit,” I said, “even though shoulder pads are terribly passé. And so is red. Too threatening. Feminine is what’s in.”
    “Don’t you feel better about yourself?” Management said, beaming. “Don’t you feel closer to your fellow worker?”
    Too close, in fact. I beat a hasty retreat back to my table and Gina. “Where did you go?” I demanded.
    “To the bathroom,” she said. “Meeting Survival Rule Number One. Always be out going to the bathroom during sensitivity exercises.”
    “Before we go any further,” Management said, and I braced myself to make a break for the bathroom in case of another sensitivity exercise, but Management was moving right along to the increased paperwork portion of our program, which turned out to be procurement forms.
    “We’ve had some complaints about Supply,” Management said, “so we’ve instituted a new policy that will increase efficiency in that department. Instead of the old departmental supply forms, you’ll use a new interdepartmental form. We’ve also restructured the funding allocation procedure. One of the most revolutionary aspects of GRIM is the way it streamlines funding. All applications for project funding will be handled by a central Allocations Review Committee, including projects which were previously approved. All forms are due Monday the twenty-third. All applications must be filed on the new simplified funding allocation application forms.”
    Which, if the stack of papers Flip was holding in her duct-taped arms as she passed among the crowd was any indication, were longer than the old funding application forms, and they were thirty-two pages.
    “While the interdepartmental assistant’s distributing the forms, I want to hear your input. What else can we do to make HiTek a better place?”
    Eliminate staff meetings, I thought, but didn’t say it. I may not be as well versed as Gina is in Meeting Survival, but I do know enough not to raise my hand. All it does is get you put on a committee.
    Apparently everybody else knew it, too.
    “Staff Input is the cornerstone of HiTek,” he said.
    Still nothing.
    “Anybody?” Management said, looking GRIM. He brightened. “Ah, at last, someone who’s not afraid to stand out in a crowd.”
    Everybody turned to look.
    It was Flip. “The interdepartmental assistant has way too many duties,” she said, flipping her hank of hair.
    “You see,” Management said, pointing at her. “That’s the kind of problem-solving attitude that GRIM is all about. What solution do you suggest?”
    “A different job title,” Flip said. “And an assistant.”
    I looked across the room at Dr. O’Reilly. He had his head in his hands.
    “Okay. Other ideas?”
    Forty hands shot up. I looked at the waving hands and thought about the Pied Piper and his rats. And about hair-bobbing. Most hair fads are a clear case of follow-the-Piper. Bo Derek, Dorothy Hamill, Jackie Kennedy, had all started hairstyle fads, and they were by no means the first. Madame de Pompadour had been responsible for those enormous powdered wigs with sailing ships and famous artillery battles in them, and Veronica Lake for millions of American women being unable to see out of one eye.
    So it was logical that hair-bobbing had been started by somebody, only who? Isadora Duncan had bobbed her hair in the early 1900s, and several suffragettes had bobbed theirs (and put on men’s clothes) long before mat, but neither had attracted any followers to speak of.
    The suffragettes were obviously ahead of their time (and rather fearsomely formidable). Isadora, who leaped around the stage in skimpy chiffon tunics and bare feet, was too weird.
    The obvious person was the ballroom dancer Irene Castle. She and her husband, Vernon (more miserable little boys), had set several dancing trends: