The Space Station - Chapter 1 - Page 8

Functionary’s mind once more turned to the progression of his past life. After a while, Functionary had become aware that his career was not advancing with the alacrity with which it had previously, progressed. At first he could not make out the reasons for this vocational deceleration. It did not appear to him that he was inept and, indeed, while he could have been deluding himself about his own performance, he seemed to be achieving all the obvious objective criteria for success. He was meeting the performance targets and requirements demanded of him. He was succeeding with manifest ease in the increasingly challenging tasks he was set by his seniors. More subjectively, he felt that he was not an embarrassment to those who were ultimately accountable for his work. No, Functionary's problems appeared to lie beyond how well he performed his immediate job. In the world of the Service, even at the height of his apparent popularity, Functionary was always somewhat of an outsider. Functionary was ever so slightly a misfit. He got on well enough with his seniors and with those with whom he had to deal, but most of his relationships were somewhat superficial and strictly constrained to limited contexts and times. His relationships did not leak out into other periods of the day or to activities which were not strictly work related. In particular, he observed how others in his work place passed more pleasantries and time together. The interactions between them frequently fulfilled other broader and longer-term functions extending beyond the communication of immediate work-related concerns. When Functionary dealt with others, it was more often than not to effect some immediate work-specific task he needed to complete. Especially, those personnel, like himself, singled out for accelerated advancement clearly spent more social time with their superiors and with each other. Yet he avoided the round of sports, office parties, and off-day events at the quarters of superiors, clubs, eateries and fashionable “watering holes”. Functionary, had no problem with hard work to achieve the immediate goals of work and the Service, but he just could not find the motivation to invest time and effort in socialising with work related superiors and equals. When the work was done, he wanted to leave its environment far behind. Yet, he gradually became aware of how important these relationships were to advancement in the Service. Related to his loner character, was another trait which was probably of equal importance in explaining the diminishing momentum of his career. He was again, slightly a misfit when it came to his perception of things, the questions he asked and, the conclusions he reached. He was all too inclined to ask awkward questions about why things were the way they were and this clearly led to him having a reputation for being a little awkward and eccentric. As time moved on, he even began to fear that others perceived him as a little dangerous in his thinking and, at all sorts of levels, as not altogether reliable. Clearly, some of his superiors became a little irritated by these features of Functionary’s character. His partner had clearly tolerated these aspects of his character and behaviour while there were the compensations of his status and, more particularly, his potentiality, but as the latter dimmed, so did her apparent understanding, loyalty and attachment. Increasingly, her tolerance waned and Functionary became aware of an irritated exasperation in her reactions to his behaviour, to his statements contradicting the normal way of understanding things and, as time moved on, merely his presence.