.ok. caroline hc time ! step into her shoes with me for a minute. donโt worry. itโs cozy in here. theyโre very comfortable shoes. anyways. picture this.
you are a woman living in the 50s. you have intelligence and wisdom both. you have multiple degrees you fought tooth and claw for. in spite of your raw skill and talent, you cannot for the life of you get the job you deserve. you have the right disposition, the education, everything. you are doing nothing wrong. ( well, period-typical sexism aside, but, you know. ) when it comes down to it, you are, admittedly, desperate.
so, when youโre offered a job as a secretary to apertureโs ceo, you jump on that opportunity.
as it turns out, the job sucks ass. your boss is nonsensical. he probably hired you to have a pretty face around. you stay late every single day doing paperwork, typing reports, cleaning up othersโ mistakes. but, if itโs any consolation, mr. johnson says you make one hell of a cup of coffee.ย
itโs probably the coffee that grabs his attention, but you can work with that. sure, you know more about science than some of the people in this building ever will, but if heโs satisfied with a good cup of coffee, fine. whatever works.
once you have your foot in the door, things start to look up. your boss recognizes your prowess. the pile of work on your desk grows. you think if it were sentient, it would eat you. but itโs just paper and ink and words written in ink put on paper, so you can handle it. filling out a few extra forms is worth it, once your boss grants you the power to influence apertureโs operations. naturally, you eat up any information you can glean from the testing tracksโ results. cave couldnโt find his way out of a paper bag without you holding his hand, but he put together one hell of a company. youโll give him credit for that much. perhaps there are methods to his madness, though concealed. for a little while, you respect him more.
aperture has its ups and downs, as any company does. patent violations, lawsuits, missing astronauts, senate hearings, as any company does. all the while, you carry aperture on your shoulders. want to know who is coordinating your lawyers, gathering supporting evidence and burning the rest ? yup, itโs you ! you are the definition of a candle burning itself from both ends. why ? the same reason as always: for science. canโt do science if aperture is dissolved. no one else will have you, especially after youโve associated yourself with cave โ try to remember which skin is yours โ johnson for all these years. something, something, burnt bridges.
after a while, aperture kind ofโฆ runs out of ups. you kind ofโฆ run out of your respect for cave. begin the downhill tumble. loss after loss. failed experiments. busted budget sheets. you keep getting phone calls from test subjectsโ concerned family members. youโve been getting these kinds of calls for a couple decades, now. youโve grown to expect them, but suddenly, they weigh heavy on you. you suppose anyone would grow tired of telling people youโve never heard of john doe, and maybe they ought to call the police ? itโs the repetition, you tell yourself. otherwise, you wouldnโt mind ! really. honest.
it doesnโt help matters that cave is the desperate one, now. despite all your efforts to keep the company afloat, he is the sole reason aperture is hemorrhaging money faster than air leaking through an astronautโs cracked helmet. er, an alleged astronautโs allegedly cracked helmet. sorry.ย
cave is relentless. he wants a win. he wants a breakthrough. he wants to knock black mesa down a peg. he wants, and he wants, and he wants. and everything he wants, is the impossible. he throws money at problems with no solutions. you have to stop yourself from commenting, โ why donโt you burn it, instead ? at least that would solve the heating problem. โ after all, where would he be without his charming assistant ? quiet, quaint, makes his errors poof away ?
itโs fine. it is fine. life goes on. you make him coffee. he yells at the accountants. you stay at your desk for twelve hours straight. he bitches about black mesa. you review the monthly budget. he buys seventy million dollarsโ worth of moon rocks. you snap.
youโve sunk decades of your life into this company. from the very beginning, you worked until you fell asleep at your desk at night. you havenโt visited your apartment in weeks; you basically live here. you are the overseer. you talk with the department heads. you dictate the terms of the experiments. you put everything in order. aperture would be dead without you. this is your company, and you are not going to let him take it from you.
itโs no accident that mr. johnson imbibes ground up moon rocks. aperture has many, many accidents. this is not one of them. sure, he plays around with the dust like itโs sand in a playground. he tells you, โ this is the next big thing, gonna put us back on top again. โ placatingly, you nod. but, itโs not an accident when he develops silicosis. youโre better than that. smarter. more deliberate. just, all around, better. and why shouldnโt you be ? you, after all, make one hell of a cup of coffee.
