America’s Inescapable Offices

In the face of unprecedented disaster, even elaborate safety measures can seem absurd and insufficient. For instance, to clear radioactive debris from the roof of the molten Chernobyl nuclear reactor, Soviet authorities resorted to using what they called “bio-robots.” About 4,000 human men were handed gas masks, gloves, and lead-lined boots and instructed to fling the radioactive graphite over the roof’s edge. To keep their radiation exposure relatively low, each worker would spend only a few minutes shoveling. Then the next bio-robot would take his place.

I was reminded of the Chernobyl cleanup crew’s intricate safety dance when I was on the phone with someone in a typically much tamer profession: government contracting. The contractor in question—who asked to go by James, his, and on June 22, James says, his whole office was asked to return, even though coronavirus cases were in the state.