You might think, if you are more rational than spiritual, more literary than practical, that purgatory (the assessment and waiting room for entering heaven or hell), is not real but imagined. Perhaps you may have loosely used the term to describe tedious moments, laborious conversations, Christmas with the parents or in-laws, or a regular commute. It is purgatory, because each second, minute and hour, is a painful drain on your precious time and resources.
And finally, some of you,
who have a job and career which requires you to attend and sit in meetings, may
have found the need to express yourself internally with the term: purgatory! But what would you do if it
turned out the dreaded meeting was that gap between heaven and hell?
As is the case in all
large corporations, I meet with people who I have never met before, who
introduce themselves with grand job titles, which mean nothing to everybody present.
This is where I find myself: in a windowless room in the basement of the
offices, with no mobile and Wi-Fi connectivity, having listened to the
loud-mouths having mouthed-off and the quiet ones spoken sensibly.
In fact, we all thought
it had been a good meeting – which meant none of us were any the wiser on a
range of unrelated subjects to the initial purpose. It was only when we were
ready to leave, that a voice through the spider phone (which had not been
working), stated that none of us could leave until a decision had been made.
Initially, we all blamed each
other for failing to come to a decision, but once we had decided that a
decision was unlikely, we agreed to reconvene the meeting. However, the heavy
metal basement door would not budge, even when we banged and kicked it. We
were, in effect, cut-off from the world, and so implemented an emergency
response to our situation.
We established that we
had no contact with colleagues in the office, the world beyond the office or
satellites circling the earth. We had a half bottle of water in the water
cooler, which we started to ration. As the hours passed, we discussed the
notion that our incarceration was a consequence of failing to come to a
decision. As inhuman as it may sound, it was not implausible to some, although
neither was it credible. Having utilised a matrix drawn on a flipchart,
brain-storming, amateur counselling, combined with leadership and team building
exercises, we concluded that this was, purgatory,
real and not imagined.
One by one we revealed
our sordid lives: the affairs, the drug and alcohol dependency, the physical
and mental abuse inflicted or received, the drowning of a cat, the neglect of
elderly relatives, and a possible homicide.
So, we wait, to be
assessed, evaluated and allocated to heaven or hell. And I returned to my
laptop; only just now to be interrupted: ‘What are you doing?!’ exclaimed a
woman, who I believe disliked me from the beginning. ‘Writing a story,’ I said,
‘Exercise Six, Management and Training manual.’
