Cubihell

These walls, this chair, that screen.

Listening, always listening. Personal Muzak. Don't bother me.

Too quiet, too noisy, your phone call, his conversation. 

I think: shut. up.

Reading, reading. Typing. 

Can't find something. Familiar frustration. Looking.

The comfort of a Diet Coke.

And another.

And the bathroom.

Thinking not about what I'm doing. What I'm going to do. What I'm reading. What I wish. Maybe I worry. Maybe.

Something else.

Phone rings. Question answered.

Time and time and time. Same hours, different day.

Email and write and send.

Daydream.

Cross another off the list.

Too quiet, too noisy, too cold, too warm.

Thinking, typing, reading, writing, breathing, talking. Working.

Longing.

Wondering--how came I to this cubihell? How. Is this -- ?

These walls, this chair, that screen.

About my meetings

We're a meeting kind of company. We love to have meetings. Or we hate it. We must love it: we have so many. There seems to be a tipping point: when we have too many, we hate it.
So there's a planning kind of meeting at 8:15 every morning, and I've been asked to start attending them.
Uh-oh.
I believe I have shared what kind of person I am: not a morning person, nor a night owl, but a "couple of good hours around lunch" type.
Definitely, not morning. That first hour at work, pretty shaky. Oh, I've learned to put on a good front. Now I have to keep it on during a meeting. Where I may be asked to think: even speak.
Uh-oh.
It's a short meeting, or supposed to be. Good thing.
I've been to three, I think now: hard to remember stuff that happens during a near-comatose state. Can I be held responsible for stuff I say? Probably.
Uh-oh.
And, as if my co-workers are helping? Because they are NOT! Why would anyone use these words in a sentence at 8:30 in the morning, and expect me to let it slide by without comment: "Tinky-Winky" and "hermaphrodite"? Really, Tyler, why? Why say those words? Because even I could not let them go by.
Let's just say, we agreed that Tinky Winky is not just straight, he's/she's probably gender-less and totally sex-less. Even with the purse.
But the TV in the tummy...now that I'm not sure about.
How about you? How's your meetings going?

About rocky waters

That makes no sense, does it? Rocky waters? Rocks under the water? Choppy waters? Maybe...rocky patches. Yea, that's the ticket.
Anyway, at work we're going through a little patch of roughiness--people leaving for new jobs, divisions with different modus operandi-s attempting to work together, projects coming in late, budgets being crunched, visitors in-house, interviews conducted--business as usual, but also, busier...rockier.
Do you drive to work in kind of an intense fogginess? It's a weird zone--those 20 minutes or so between Ft. Wayne and Huntington--my getting-ready flurry done, still thinking of home things, yet knowing what's on my task list ahead.
And most of the time, I never think of those 20 minutes again. They're focused...but immediately lost as soon as I walk across the parking lot. Weird. Even if something unusual factors occur--a big roadkill (always attention-getting), an accident (hopefully nobody hurt), passing a co-worker pulled over by the state police (thank GOD it's not me).
So then you spend your day at work: This familiar territory that's full of problem solving and concentration that's becoming a little different because of changes and friends gone and new people on board, and wow, when you get out to your car--that little bit of home on wheels--it feels good. Phew. Get me the hell home.
And the drive home like the morning in reverse: letting go of the work stuff, switching gears to what's on the agenda for the evening, all leading to my best moment of the day: Changing from work clothes to home clothes. AAaahhh. Those Rocket-dogs feel good.
Well, how 'bout you? How's work comin'?

About weird organisms

Well, we were talking about work stuff and Jayme said, you know, I couldn't do Jen's job, and I asked, why?
Seems that Jen, a nurse, works in the Surgical/Trauma Intensive Care Unite (STICU) has to deal with a lot of particularly virulent germs. Like one that ate a poor woman's lungs!
"She has to deal with some weird organisms," Jayme said. "I couldn't do that."
"Oh yea we do," says me, "We both have to deal with some pretty weird organisms at work every day."
The light bulb illuminated over her head and she laughed.
"Oh yea I do...!"
I have worked with some potentially lethal organisms over the years.
I think particularly of Sue, who taught me what being stressed really was. Before anyone was a drama queen, she was. She led the pack in obsessive paranoia, and, being the daughter of doctors, and having a nursing degree in addition to her writing degree, she knew hypochondria and medication like she knew her last name. She was hyper and chatty and completely self-centered, and spending the day with her was like walking into a popcorn popper that never quit. I had no clue what "anxiety attack" meant until I met Sue. I don't think I've been the same since. My heart rate is still elevated after spending 8 hours a day in an office with her for two years. And this was in the '80s.
Then there was Brian. The worst kind of boss, unctuously caring, slyly backstabbing. Another obsessive compulsive (is there an epidemic?), victim of bad self-esteem, and passive aggressive to boot. What a joy to spend 10 years working with that man! I'd have terrible bad dreams about him, and he is the only fellow employee I ever felt like I carried around in my head with me. It took me two years after he retired to get rid of him.
So, how about you? What weird organisms are you tryin' to wash off your hands?

About my delicate feelings

Last week, we had a co-worker -- who usually telecommutes from afar -- in the office for a retirement visit. I, with the help of others, spent quite some time and effort planning and executing a couple of days' worth of various activities (lunches, dinners, reception, gifts, etc.) to make sure her last couple of days were good ones. I was having a busy week, so it all got squeezed in among the usual business.
Friday afternoon, as I was wrapping up my week's work, trying to get out a little early in anticipation of a busy holiday weekend, I heard her saying goodbye to a couple of people nearby and expected her in my cube any second. She never came. When I looked for her a moment later, she had left.
Instead, when I got my email over the weekend, there was a brief note addressed to everyone in the company saying thank you and that she was "overwhelmed."
I was underwhelmed.
Now, I'm a grownup ... I don't expect a dump truck of thanks or appreciation over every little thing. But tell me -- doesn't it seem to you that if you'd been hosted and toasted for two days by people you've worked with for over a decade, you'd make an effort to pull yourself together and at least say goodbye, if not, thanks? (Please note, I was not the only party planner who did not get a chance to say 'bye.)
So, you tell me: am I expecting too much? What are you thinkin' about showin' some love to others?

About my bad day

The full moon is over, but its effects seem to linger.
Because yesterday at work, before 8:30 a.m., it was like bam! bam! bam!, one bad thing after another. No, you can't have this event in that meeting area. Have it here. Hey, I need these pages with all these graphics launched Sept. 1. Oh, we need this information added to those pages you finished last week, and then an enews alert sent out, yesterday. Here's another enewsletter to do in addition to those four you're working on. Oh and the intern just left and your other help is retiring...tomorrow. And it's not like I don't have this and this and this on my regular Wednesday to-do list.
How can people think that they can give you a ton of stuff to do, and you are going to drop everything you already have to do, and get their thing done? Do people really think you're sitting at your desk, staring at Outlook, waiting for their email informing you of their tasks? Because that's how they act. "Oh! I didn't know you needed two weeks to do this!" Well, I didn't need two weeks--I meant Monday of this week, and is that really so much to ask of something to be launched on the first?
Thank goodness for my part-time college student's help! I would be sunk without her.
I thought I was having a bad day, anyway, until evening. Angela had had a bad one, too -- worse than mine, actually ... hers had started out with the news that a former co-worker had passed away of breast cancer, leaving a teenage daughter.
That got me thinkin'.
You know, I had survived my day. We'd even accomplished more at work than I anticipated, and I left all that baggage in my cubicle. I was sitting at a fourth-grade football practice, watching the nuttiness that only little boys can bring to football, a last sweet, hot day of August, with the sun slanting behind me, my own daughter nearby. I had a sticky two-year-old in my lap, who wanted nothing more than to smile at me and play with my bracelets and share her (damp) crackers. After practice, I would leave with some of the people I love most in this world, and we would run an errand, and then go home, and I would finally crash. I'd sit on the couch, my laptop warm on my legs, the Cubs on TV, and I would never feel so alive, nor so happy for another bad day.

Well, what are you thinkin'? How was your day?

About our United Way Campaign

Our company is a "Pacesetter" company. I am not entirely sure what this officially means, so I can only share my observations of a Pacesetter company in action.
It means that our campaign begins in August instead of September (that may be a big clue as to what "Pacesetter" means).
It means that we have a big red sign in the office front yard that says, "Pacesetter."
It means that we have a month of frenzied United Way promotional activity targeted at us, the employees in the seats. So far this month, we've had car-wash day, school-supply-donation day, buy-a-Nelson-chicken day, and, best of all, corn-hole-game competition day.
It means that we are offered extensive and imaginative opportunities to give above and beyond the "fair share" that gets taken out of my pay check automatically anyway. It means I can give $5 to have my car washed, spend $10 or more on school supplies, buy a ticket for a half a chicken for $6, and I don't know what the corn-hole game cost, that activity scaring me a little.
But there is a little donation I am more than happy to make. (On the record: I'm happy to make them all, and do, with the exception of any corn-hole involvement, see above.)
That donation is the $3 for a single Friday, or a mere $8 for the entire month of August, for the priviledge of Wearing Jeans on Friday.
Oh to enter the way-back machine, when I worked for a bunch of people who didn't care if I wore jeans every day! And when I had that freedom, I didn't do it! I'd actually wear OTHER fashion.
And even here ... for the first several years of my employment, we had Jeans Friday every Friday. For free. How I loved that one day a week when I could chuck the demands of business casual for the comfort of business denim.
Then controls tightened, and Friday became just another business casual day.
But not in August. No, for the support of UW, and a mere $8, we once again enjoy the the Jeans Life.
OH, the irony: I hate wearing jeans in hot weather. And it has been hot. And then I was on vacation, and missed the first Jeans Friday. And last Friday, in 90 degree heat and humidity, I went for the ever flexible Jeans Skirt.
But today: Cooler. And it's Jeans Friday. And I'm here. My fashion statement: White Jeans.
It takes so little to make grownups happy. I don't know why more efforts aren't made more often.
Well, how about you? What little work thing makes you happy?