March 11, 2002
Little Things About Being in the Workforce We Had Almost Forgotten


  1. The persistent artificiality of the office environment, in which all substances are uncomplicatedly synthetic (mouse pad), or so complicatedly synthetic that one is unable to determine what non-synthetic thing this piece of the environment could have been modeled on (cubicle), which leads one to vertiginously question the existence of the pre-synthetic world.
  2. The strange sense of quasi-intimacy one has with those who work in cubicles adjacent to one but with whom one will not, probably, regularly interact as a part of one's job.
  3. The attendant concern that one is bothering them as one chats them up on the first day.
  4. The sweeping sense of here-we-go-together which a mass- transit commute supplies. Off-rush "commuting" does not create this feeling, which is one of being borne along on a tidal surge of humanity.
  5. The function of soda. (In an office, we average one a day. Without an office, one a week. We do not understand this: the appropriateness of office-soda just seems self-evident.
  6. The envy of other people's business-casual attire, which always seems to be both more casual/comfortable and more office-appropriate than ours.
  7. The need to account for one's whereabouts: in particular, the creation of a voicemail message containing the phrase "I'm Away From My Desk," which sounds vaguely impressive and secretive, as if it could mean anything from "I Handle Important Problems Which Take Me Hither And Yon, So Expect Not To Find Me At This Mere Slab Of Pressboard" to "I Have Embezzled the Pension Fund, And Am En Route to Venezuela."
  8. The insulting expense of lunch. Mind you, it was an excellent soup, but sweet mother of pearl was it costly! We'll tell you who hasn't scaled back in this bloody recession: the high-end lunch purveyors. Here's the thing: "three-lentil chili with roasted habañeros" is still, fundamentally, chili. Food for hobos and ranch-hands. If it comes in cardboard, with a plastic spoon, it should not cost you the majority of a ten-spot. We're of a mind to open up a Grilled Cheesery ("Can I get a three-Havarti melt on rosemary ciabatta, please?") and clean up while the herd is still willing to pay.
  9. The utter strangeness of the idea that this weird new building and desk and all will become (with luck) as familiar to one as one's cat, that this isn't just a place you have wandered into for a moment, that this is your desk. That this job, like a virus, will enter one's life and change one and impart knowledge, cynicism, elation, fellow-feeling, and occasional moments of terror.
  10. How sweet the sound of the words "direct deposit."

Posted by BT at March 11, 2002 11:29 PM
Comments

Great minds of cheese think alike.

But have you stolen a box of liquid paper yet?

Posted by: Bootsy B on March 12, 2002 11:27 AM

I have just changed my out of office message to the "I Have Embezzled the Pension Fund, And Am En Route to Venezuela."

Thanks, BT.

Posted by: james on March 12, 2002 02:36 PM