Exploring Mundanity and Uniformity in Orozco's 'Orientation'

Throughout life, certain phrases and situations seem to reoccur with the same uniformity as if it were occurring for the very first time. Whether it is a coach’s motivating speech that you can recite after hearing it year after year or the principal’s first day of school disciplinary commands that you can regurgitate like your favorite theme song; so many situations in life have become cliché, uniform, and most of all mundane, but that is what I believe Orozco perfectly captures in his short story “Orientation”. Specifically, Orozco captures this mundane concept by the lack of dialogue and the repeated use of common-sense statements such as, “This is a microwavable oven. You are allowed to heat food in the microwave oven” (52). Additionally, the repeated use of the pronouns this, that, these, and those highlights uniformity because by constantly referring to objects as this or that, I believe Orozco is identifying an underlying action we as humans commit; how often do we view decisions and aspects of life as this and that

While she admits that some days one will have to cram 12 hours of work in an 8 hour workday, the narrator also admits that some days one must expand a 1 hour workday to fill the 8 hour quota. Orozco hits the nail on the head with this rule because when one thinks of work in America, does it not entail that it should be 8 hours? I believe so and Orozco recognizing that some days will be crammed while other days will be spent essentially idling speaks volumes about how the typical workday. Why do we not work at our own pace and have days longer and shorter than others instead of filling this illogical 8 hour quota? In conclusion, Orozco’s “Orientation” comically depicts a fictional orientation. Nevertheless, throughout this piece, Orozco pinpoints certain parallels that are comical yet unequivocally evident in the American