A Small Annotation
Author’s note — This fictional narrative began as a question: What if we could “meet” our data? Although I set out to explore the idea a bit more playfully, the story — or, perhaps the ethical stakes of the craft of data analysis and visualization —took me in a different direction. I hope you experience something similar. Love y’all.
It was boredom, not inspiration, that made me an artist that day. I transformed my desk into something more romantic, less like an analyst and more like how I imagined da Vinci or Lloyd Wright kept their desks: my computer’s commanding presence isolated to just a corner, where I could keep a glancing eye on the update (had the progress bar even moved?), with graph paper now framed with pens and a ruler.
I turned my eyes to the data, stoically named “Yearly public financial assistance per recipient.” A sample of 50 rows, neatly printed in high contrast on thin stock paper. I looked first at the columns: a unique identification code, and then 10 sequential years listed out, ending with last year. Underneath each year were dollar signs. Each unique identifier represented an anonymized recipient; each year an aggregate of all financial assistance a person had received.
Typically, I’d start with bars and lines on screen calculated from averages and variances. With my computer stuck in update mode, I opted out of the math and went straight to drawing.
If I were more philosophical, I might have taken a moment to ponder the way our artistic mediums impact how we think about the world. I might have noticed that, without the computational horsepower trained with statistical functions, I saw each individual row a little clearer. I might have realized that each line became a story, and each ambiguous identifier a character with real wants and desires.
But I’m not philosophical, and so without much thought I decided to simply draw all the points. With data over time, I naturally saw lines moving across the page — and 50 lines create quite a mess. However, this felt like my high school writing free-thought exercises.
On the left side of my graph paper I drew a thick black line, labeling it “Public financial assistance amount ($).” I added some dollars along the graph paper’s printed grids. I drew another thick black line horizontally across the bottom of the page, creating a very wide “L.” Relying on the printed grids, I labeled the 10 years in my data set.
I was ready to plot the data. I started with row number 1: ID 5566. I noted the first years’ dollar amount, rounded, and found the corresponding intersection of year and dollars on my empty chart. I made my first mark.
All by itself, it seemed like such a statement. Something lives here, at least metaphorically. This value has a home. Perhaps I built that home, but this data point belongs.
But I’m not a philosophical person — so before I could wonder at the relationship between the creator, creating, and created, I was moving on to the next year. This dot was slightly higher: 5566 had received slightly more financial assistance in the following year. The third dot was higher still, but marginally so. I continued moving through the years, seeing a few steady years at the same point, until abruptly the values dropped to zero. During the last three years, this person had received no financial assistance.
I grabbed my ruler and connected the dots, drawing a line that narrated the data: 5566 was receiving financial aid at slowly increasing or steady amounts — perhaps simple adjustments based on inflation. But, suddenly, the lines dropped to zero, and there it remained.
I imagined the story: 5566 simply needed a few years of financial aid to get back on his feet. The aid enabled him to focus on getting a job, and now he was financially stable. Perhaps now he even had a family. Money was still tight, but the family was comfortable. Financial aid had done its job.
And so went my drawing, mark by mark and line by line. Each row, plotted with care and attention, became a story. New recipients entered the program, just as 5566 had left the program. Some rows only had a year or two — some sort of hardship, but these were strong people that quickly “bounced back” on their feet.
I lost track of time. By the time I’d plotted all the lines, the chart was a mess of scribbles on top of one another. Much of the ink was smudged, lines bleeding over other lines as my hand had drawn narratives from left to right. The data had stained the side of my hand. While a newcomer might see the stains, the bleeding, and the overlapping lines as merely a mess, each line was now a person, with a story.
I realized, though, that my computer had rebooted at some point, but now it was close of business, and I had a messy chart that gave me some ideas for tomorrow. The data would still be there when I returned in the morning, and with an idea on paper, I expected to be very productive with a processor doing the work for me.
I grabbed my coat, hat, gloves, and scarf for the Midwestern winter muck, and navigated the labyrinth of beige cubicles to the lobby and exit, where I’d pass a few people waiting to fill out applications for new or renewed aid.
But when I got back to the lobby, I walked into a thick crowd of people. I couldn’t even see the door on the other side. A small lobby, maybe only fifteen chairs, was crowded with dozens of people. The few chairs were occupied, some sat on the floor, but most stood. The extra layers for winter only added to the bulk of the room.
As I tried to navigate a path to the exit, an office administrator approached me. “Listen, we need you. I know it’s not your job, but we’re overwhelmed out here. Could you give us a hand?”
I attempted to stammer any excuse possible that didn’t betray the truth of some take out and Netflix, but she wasn’t hearing it. “Fifteen minutes. Just review a few applications. You know what we need on these forms, just make sure they are completely filled out the right way. That’ll help us move much faster.”
I’m sure my face illustrated my selfish annoyance. I’d taken this job to work with data, not people.
“Please.”
By this point, a few of the applicants had noticed the conversation. The lobby was too crowded for privacy. The stares were far more effective than her begging.
I nodded, and she sat me down at a small folding table they must’ve pulled from a closet. Parts were still covered in dust, while others were cleared in hand and paper-sized swipes. I removed and set my winter wear on the ground behind my seat. By the time I looked up, someone sat across the desk from me.
“Hi,” he said, bleakly. His jacket bunched up in the chair, and part of his face was still hidden behind his scarf. “Here’s my application.” He slid it across the table.
Perhaps too curtly as I looked at his application, but to manage his expectations, I said “I’m not the person that approves anything. I’m just helping make sure everything is filled out correctly so they can do their jobs faster.”
There was an unnerving silence, and I looked up at him for a moment. He seemed frustrated and insulted, and I realized that my tone was condescending. I tried to recover, a bit: “Sorry, we realize these are complicated forms and many people make some small mistakes. But if you get to them,” I nodded my head toward the administrators, “and there’s a mistake, you’ll have to wait in line again.”
I don’t think I’d won back any grace, so I returned to his application. There was a box asking if he’d previously applied, but it was blank. This was why we had to review these, and now I felt vindicated beyond his insulted look.
“You left this blank,” I stated.
“Well, yes. I had a question on that one. You see, I’ve never applied for financial aid, but my wife had. I wasn’t sure if I should put that down.”
“Oh, yeah. We have a way to handle that.” I wrote down his wife’s name and date of birth, I walked toward the massive filing cabinet rows in the back: ugly, darker-than-army green cabinets labeled with letters for last names. I found the corresponding file cabinet and drawer and began searching through files. I eventually located the correct file and opened it.
5566. The number pulled my attention as if it were a magnet for my eyes. I double-checked the name and date of birth, and then returned to the identifier. 5566.
I flipped through the file, digging back through previous forms. The years of aid matched up with the data I’d plotted, details I only recalled because I’d so intimately plotted them by hand.
I had just plotted this line. It was 5566, the line that had received enough financial aid to become stable. After several years of aid, she’d — apparently I’d assumed too much — gotten a job. This was the narrative we all hoped for in this business, the thin bipartisan overlap on the agreed purpose of financial aid.
I stuck the file under my armpit and returned to my dusty, folding table desk and 5566’s husband. “OK, I said. I’ve found it. I’ll keep these applications together since this is aid toward the same household.” I made a quick note beside the blank checkbox for the administrators.
“Could I see the her application?” he asked. A seemingly peculiar request, but without any harm. I slid it across the table, smudging more of the dust.
He flipped through the old application slowly, scanning the forms. At the last page he paused. He ran a finger over the bottom, touching the signature as if it were sacred. His jaw set against a sudden downward pull in his cheeks and brows, fighting against some sort of emotive gravity than seemed to very suddenly exert itself on him.
I realized my staring was probably awkward, although he didn’t seem to notice. I returned his application. As I reviewed the application, which only required a few minor modifications here and there, my attention was interrupted by a small voice. I looked up to see a small boy, probably about nine, pointing to something in a children’s magazine. His face seemed to be growing into a strong resemblance of the man, trading the pudginess of toddler-hood for a strengthening brow and jawline. The boy’s deep-earth brown hair matched the man’s, and I assumed the boy to be his son. The boy’s eyes, darting across the magazine, seemed to betray the heritage from his father, a gentle green compared to his father’s brown — probably inherited from 5566.
The father across the desk from me was attentively listening to the child. “Daddy, I can’t find the candle. Do you see it?” I divided my attention between the file and watching the father assist his son in a magazine puzzle. “Hmm,” he said. “I think you should look near the teddy bears. I think I saw one of them hiding it from you.” The boy, without acknowledging the help, dove his face close to the magazine, light blond hair hanging over his forehead and brushing against the pages.
“Does everything look OK?” the father and husband asked.
“Almost done,” I said. I scanned the final page and, satisfied, said “It looks good now.”
“Thank you”, he said. “So, I wait for one of the administrators?” I nodded, although the urge to probe about 5566 was gnawing at my focus. “OK. Again, thank you.” He began to gather his things.
“Wait,” I insisted. “May I ask you a question?” The man simply turned back to me, but didn’t really say anything. I took that as permission.
“I was, uh, reviewing your wife’s application earlier today.” I struggled with how many details I felt I should provide about my real job. “I’m an analyst, and I was just looking into some of our previous aid.”
Worry reshaped his face: “Was there something wrong?”
“Oh no, nothing like that. I’m not an auditor.” I watched relief relax him, more relief than I would have expected over such a simple question.
“It’s a peculiar coincidence. I noticed your wife received aid for a number of years, but just a few years ago that aid stopped. Did she find a job?” I didn’t think about how leading the question was. Scientific method be damned, I was just confirming my own theory.
“Oh no,” he said, with heavy sadness. “She passed.”
And this is one of those moments we all experience, moments of being wrong, but wrong in the worst ways. Wrong in ways that are private and public. Wrong in ways that make our assumptions too obvious.
“I’m sorry,” I said, embarrassed.
“Cancer.” His voice carried a contempt that comes paired with hopelessness against something that cannot be beaten.
His pause lasted years.
“That’s why we needed this in the first place. Eventually, she couldn’t work, and her treatments were so expensive.”
Pause again.
“They gave her several extra years, but apparently in US healthcare the currency we pay with is our homes, cars, and quality of life.”
That’s not exactly something you can reply to.
After an awkward moment he spoke again: “Sorry, I don’t want for it to sound like I’m bitter. Everything we gave was worth it.”
My curiosity got the better of me. “But,” I asked, “you’re just now coming back? Did you lose a job?”
“No, nothing like that. I was a stay-at-home dad, and Melissa worked.”
Not 5566 anymore. Melissa.
“She was in advertising, and pretty respected. She made enough that we had what we needed, and quite a bit more. When she passed, we got her life insurance payout.”
Talk about the wrong narrative.
“Toward the end of her life, when she couldn’t work, I took a part-time job as a barista.” He started to say something, hesitated, and then said “I have a degree, but we knew she didn’t have much time left, and I wanted us to spend time together as a family. After she passed, I was able to get full-time hours in my job, and we’ve been using her life insurance policy for after-school care, and to try to pay off her healthcare bills.”
Again, what’s the appropriate response here? Repeating generalized apologies sounds inadequate.
“I’ve tried to look for a higher paying job, but ‘stay-at-home’ dad is pretty much just a gap on a resume. This year, the reserves we have from the life insurance dipped low enough that we can qualify for aid.”
“So you’re back because you’ve got a minimum wage job, and that doesn’t exactly pay for daycare and cancer treatments.”
He nodded. “Yes, except it isn’t minimum wage. We get paid an extra dollar an hour. The company brags about paying above minimum wage, but I can still barely afford the cost of working. I’m hoping that a bit of aid can help us until I can find someone willing to take a chance on me. Or maybe something in management will open up, that would help.”
I nodded, with that awkward-pursed-lip-half-smile that says “… hang on, it gets better, hopefully?”
“Well, I guess I’ll go get back in line?”
“Sure.” He returned to gathering his things.
“Hey, man. Good luck. I’ll put a note in your file sharing some of this. These details are important, but there’s not exactly room in the application. Maybe one of the administrators will find a way to include these details in the calculations for aid amounts.”
“Thanks, I’ll appreciate that.” He picked up his things and meandered back out into the mass of people in the lobby.
The rest of the night went relatively uneventfully, but likely because I was so distracted by the conversation I’d had. I stayed longer than I’d agreed, but likely more because I wasn’t focused. After that conversation I was feeling more dejected than altruistic.
The lobby had begun to clear, and got to a point where my help would only slow down the process. I left without saying goodbye to the administrators. At this point, I had no energy left for conversations.
Any congested traffic had cleared away while I’d helped with applications. It was a smooth drive home. It was one of those drives where you move from point A, to B, to C and beyond without thinking. My hands and feet operated the car while my brain devoted itself to thinking about Melissa and her family.
As such, I was surprised to find myself turning around, surprised when I started driving back the way I came, surprised when I pulled into the office parking lot. Surprised when I walked into the office, through the lobby, and back through the cubicle maze.
I returned to my desk, my hand-drawn chart on grid paper framed by my art supplies. Without taking off my coat or gloves, I grabbed the magenta marker.
I sorted through all the lines, finding the first I’d drawn. It was hard to parse it out from the mess, but the ink was the most faded, the most smudged, and I remembered the pattern. I traced my finger across the line, now seeing each dot as a progressive worsening of her illness, and lost wealth. The drop to 0 was now final, and irreversible.
I traced my finger back to the beginning of the line and drew a small arrow. Next to the arrow, I wrote a small annotation.
“Melissa.”
