A female secretary working in a corporate office environment. She experiences a profound loss of identity, mentally associating her body parts with inanimate office supplies like paper clips, mimeograph ink, switchboards, and rubber bands. She recognizes that the workforce offers little freedom from traditional gender expectations, leaving her feeling like a piece of equipment used to calculate credit and debit.

The men populating the male-dominated corporate office where the speaker works. They hold managerial power and view the female clerical staff as decorative support rather than intellectual contributors. Their attitude causes the speaker to feel that her ideas are disorganized and invalid.

A symbolic entity that the speaker feels she is about to deliver into the office space. It acts as a literal reproduction of her current state, functioning as another mechanical piece bound to the repetitive existence of administrative labor.