September 27, 2005
Week 22 - The Quest 2
Episode 2
Shari Kern holds up a sheet of paper covered with numbers. "First you sort them by campaign date, which you can see here." She points.
"Okay," Hal says.
"Then, by keycode, which is printed here." She moves her hand down a bit.
"What's a keycode?"
"Every time we send junk mail to a list of names... We have to give the list a keycode, so when we get the orders in we know where they came from."
Hal looks at one of the papers. "There's, like, a thousand of them. You spend all day working with stuff like this?"
Shari shrugs. "Girl's gotta eat."
"Yeah, but, Jesus... This stuff... this is totally deadly. It's just, like, a billion numbers. I'm getting a headache just being in the same room."
"I don't like it any better than you do! Your dad's the one who wants it all cross-referenced and indexed and whatever."
"Man, if I had to deal with this stuff all the time... I'd go Columbine on everyone so fast! Come in with an AK47 one day."
"The thought's occurred to me."
Hal looks at her. "What's your story? You in love with Mr. Spock or something?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Everyone in this office is some sort of nerdy freak."
"I just work here. Like I said, I gotta eat."
"So, you're not, like, wearing Wonder Woman panties or anything?"
Shari glares at him. "You want a black eye, you little punk?"
"Hey, I don't mean anything, it's cool. You're the only one here who's halfway normal."
She points to the stack of papers. "Less
talking, more filing, Buster Brown."