ATTACHMENTS (RAINBOW ROWELL)

Jennifer Schribner-Snyder and Beth Fremont are best friends who work for "The Courier" newspaper, and wile their days away typing emails back and forth to each other although company policy absolutely prohibits this. Lincoln O'Neill is a young IT guy who has been hired to snoop into company computers to ensure no employees are breaking this rule. Although Lincoln realizes that it's too late because he's already got the job, but the newspaper ad was rather misleading: "Full-time opportunity for Internet Security Officer. $40k. Health. Dental." Lincoln was under the impression that he'd be scanning company computers looking for hackers and protecting the company, not reading boring "prohibited" emails between co-workers and friends. Instead, he found himself sending out memos every time somebody in: "Accounting sent an off-colour joke to the guy in the next cubicle."

The program the company installed: "WebFence "flagged nasty words, racial slurs, supervisors names, words like secret and classified." It also flagged large attachments suspiciously long messages, and frequent messages between the same people. Poor Lincoln, for everyday hundreds and hundreds of these illicit emails were sent to a secure mailbox, and it was his job to read and follow-up on every one! Lincoln hated it. He felt it was wrong and that he was eavesdropping, which of course he was. The worst part of this whole crazy job for Lincoln was that all the staff knew he was hired to do this and they all despised him which made him feel terrible because lets face it; Lincoln was a heck of a nice guy but he needed the job just like anyone else. And, pretell, what did Lincoln do during slower periods? Surf the internet of course!!

Now, the only problem Jennifer and Beth have with this whole new office policy is that they are "journalists", "free speech warriors" who don't fall under the radar of this so-called new company policy so their fingers fly, nine to five without a care in the world!!

Jennifer was a "Features Copy Editor" and Beth was an "Entertainment Copy Editor" writing about upcoming movies, which ones to see, which ones to steer clear of and which were good, bad, or otherwise.

Lincoln liked Beth and hadn't bothered sending the half dozen, at least, warning memos he should have, and now that he's let it go this long, how can he do that now?

Lincoln has also recently moved back into his Mom's house and she is insisting on babying him. She makes fairly elaborate meals for his dinner like tandoori chicken and chicken paprikash because he works nights, not days "like normal people." And according to her, interfering with his sleep because he's not out in the sun during the day soaking up the vitamin D for his good health. And, for heaven's sake, she reminded Lincoln, she didn't even allow him a night-light on when we was a kid because it messed with his levels of melatonin which regulated his sleep!

This was a quick, light-hearted, witty read with unimaginable quirky characters. And with just the right touch of sarcasm and wit, this makes for a pleasant afternoon read!

May 7, 2011