He’d been delayed in Vienna for so long that by the time a flight became available his schedule had him in Seattle, so he’d flown straight there. This was annoying—beyond annoying: frustrating. In fact, his absence filled me with what I can only describe as anxiety. Not that his presence made you feel un-anxious, calm; far from it. The whole place ran on anxiety: it was Peyman’s motor-oil, his generative fuel. But there’s anxiety and anxiety. With the Project contract won, knowing the weight he attached to it, I, like everyone else in the Company, was now anxious to see Peyman and, through Peyman, to connect: either to some rich and stellar network that we pictured lying behind this name, Koob-Sassen; or, if not that, then at least to … something. Being near Peyman made you feel connected. In his absence, I spent the week wrapping up other briefs that I’d been working on: transcribing audio files, drawing up charts, tweaking documents, drifting around websites. Mostly drifting around websites.3.2 What does an anthropologist working for a business actually do?
