Lack of Control, Apathy, and the Mundane in “Orientation” Anonymous College

In a world run by major corporations, it is not uncommon to find one’s self in a position of very little control, even over one’s own life. This feeling caused by lack of power and the other grieves of life sometimes brings about a feeling of apathy regarding things that does not directly affect or relate to one’s self. These factors of life present themselves frequently throughout Daniel Orozco’s “Orientation,” a cynical but witty story that illustrates the rules and circumstances that an office’s employees are subjected to that reflect the company’s values and the ways that people cope with dissatisfaction. Orozco’s social commentary addresses the apathy with which people view events and actions that do not affect them as well as the lack of control that they truly have over their own lives.

Throughout “Orientation,” the text presents a pressing feeling that, within the office, there is a complete lack of control among the lives of the workers. From the beginning of the narrator’s instructions up till the last punctuation mark, the new employee that is being addressed appears to have more and more of his/her basic rights as a human diminished. The first illustration of this is the narrator’s instruction on phone use: each...