Anyone who has ever worked in an office setting knows that it is unlike any other kind of job. You are expected to come to work, sit in your little 5x8 cubicle and keep to yourself. This is ideal of course, but it is kind of like trapping a wild animal. You can’t expect us to sit for 8 hrs a day in front of a computer, sometimes two or three computers and not find something to entertain ourselves or look for reasons and ways to escape!
Now, I have been told I am lucky, in the sense that my cat Patches was lucky to be put to sleep before her teeth fell out and she died of starvation, that I don’t have a full cubicle. I have a half like cubicle thingy with walls that don’t completely cover my computer screen or any other business going on in my desk area. Why the walls are there, I have yet to come to a firm conclusion, but I think it may have something to do with making us know that we have boundaries, kind of like the invisible fence my parents have for their Jack Russell. I am thankful not to feel like a mouse trapped in a cage with 4 ft high cubicle walls; however is it too much to ask for a little privacy at my desk? I mean, how else will I successfully become the best mobster I can be in Mafia Wars or chat endlessly on Yahoo with my friends if I keep getting caught?! I will never achieve true slackerific tendencies with 3 ft walls and a computer screen in plain view of anyone who walks through the door.
While working at a different office for a week I was treated to the endless entertainment of a true cubicle land, office space, mice in cages setting! If getting my work done at my own office was difficult, it was never going to happen here! Not only do I have actual cubicle walls, but so does everyone else. There is something about being trapped in a cubicle for 8 hrs a day that makes you forget that there is anyone else around you. It is like you have been taken to a new dimension where the only things that exist are your computer (with full internet access, now here I can fine tune my slackerific tendencies), your cup of coffee on the desk and your and my favorite…PERSONAL PHONE CALLS! Oh the things I know about people that they would never in a million years dream of telling a complete stranger, yet inside those cubicle walls you feel like you are empowered, that you are in control of your world and that no one else exists, so you feel free to bask in the glory of all of your personal drama as if no one else can hear or judge you! Big mistake! (please note names have been changed, and or forgotten due to non importance, to protect the innocent)
Barbara’s husband is a jerk, he painted the living room the wrong shade of green! Can you believe it? How could he even think to wake up early, go to the store and pick up the paint that she picked out and paint the living room the WRONG shade of green? Now, if you were having this conversation where you knew people could hear you, you would probably be a whole lot nicer about it, but not in this new cubicle dimension. Barbara flipped out! I heard curse words I didn’t even know existed! Ok, I know what you are thinking, so what? She is a woman, and women overreact about this bullshit all the time! Let me tell you about Frank. He is an IT man and thinks the sun rises and sets over his ass! I don’t know if the sun does, but according to his conversation with his doctor there is a whole lot more than a sunrise goin on down there! Sally hates her mother in law and apparently doesn’t get it enough from her husband, Kathy is taking new medication for her depression and anxiety, and the list goes on!
So reflecting on my week in this new dimension, I can’t help but count my blessings, and by blessings I mean how much it still sucks, just doesn’t suck as bad, that I don’t have to deal with the endless personal drama coming from people who I would never want to know more than their employee number and authorization for rental days, let alone what their proctologist determined was the reason for their “discomfort.” I will take my limited internet access, my joke of a cubicle and my peace and quiet and bask in it’s glory, that is until my co worker who sits less than 3 feet behind me brings in lunch and starts slurping and chewing louder and my grandma does when she eats without her teeth in…those cubicle walls would come in handy just about then!
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