October 13, 1998

BORING, that’s my first fully formed opinion about this office job other than “I hate it!” which is my usual first reaction to everything—driving, shopping, boys, so I discard my first opinion now and take my second thought about anything. I do still hate this job though, and that’s my 3rd, 4th, and 5th opinion about it.

By now I should have a family, or at least a fiancé, or be working in my field of choice. None of the above seems likely to happen. It seems even a more dismal prospect while working at these mindless office tasks. My days fill up with thoughts and memories to keep my brain active, since the work just isn’t doing it for me. I remember how I used to hate coming in from recess in school. My how I hated the smell of the sweaty outdoors clinging to the boys who spent that 15 precious minutes getting their aggression for school out through wrestling one another. We girls were much more civilized and traded stickers. Unfortunately we still had the sweat to deal with as we escaped the –20C weather and struggled into our indoor shoes. Bright eyes, rosy red cheeks, snotty noses on sleeves, and the ritualistic shedding of ski pants then morphed into sitting cross legged in an area marked on the carpet by cracked old masking tape to await the cheesy 1970s film strip of the day.

I’m on a break now, the adult version of recess. If I were smart I would go outside and run off some of this work related aggression. We get 1.25 hours of sanity per day. On our time sheet we write 1.25 break/lunch, but it really is just a little slice of heaven during the repetitiveness du jour! I wonder what they would think if I wrote ‘1.25 hours of heaven’ on my time sheet? I take this time and use it somewhat productively by reading, scribbling my thoughts on a scrap of paper, or just gazing out the window. There’s no window in my part of the office, I think they know that if I had a window I wouldn’t get any work done. In college, some days I never saw daylight at all. I would shuffle onto the bus mid-winter in the 7am darkness only to enter a windowless studio to work all day. I would emerge at 5pm in the cold Northwestern Ontario dark and remind myself that the daylight of the weekend was just around the corner.

They want us to be productive, but they don’t want it to seem like they are watching us. I think that’s why they have these damn half desks, high enough to not be seen over while seated, but they have the authority to cruise around and spy from the upright position. They also let us tally up on our own how many files we’ve put away, or purged, or opened, or checked. Really I think they just don’t want to count it up themselves, because really we do a lot of work. Unlike regular government employees we are on contract and can get canned at anytime so we actually have to work to keep our jobs! What a concept!

The elusive they would be our managers, or, as they like to be called ‘team leaders,’ or any of the dreaded people who have the least amount of control over us. I suppose this includes the old biddies that have been there so long they feel they have some measure of superiority. I dread hearing a managerial voice telling me I have to do a new job, or that I have made a mistake. I dread that almost as much I dread the whispering of co-workers coming down the hall or around the corner, especially if they are talking about me. Something about this caged atmosphere leads grown adults to behave like high schoolers. I never peed once the whole 5 years of high school purely because I didn’t want to walk into the smoky, gossipy bathroom where every metal surface reflected my inadequacies to the ‘popular’ girls who would then spout off about those faults.

I’m back at my desk now from the institutionally pastel puke green painted break room. I suppose it’s meant to soothe. It doesn’t work though because I still know I have to come back to this desk. I don’t even have the luxury of my own cubicle that I can hide out in and do no work in all day like the full timers. I’m out in the open, at a folding table where my productivity is constantly being monitored. I shouldn’t even be writing this now, but my current supervisor is on her break. I like timing it so that I am just coming back from my break when everyone else in my section is leaving for his or hers so that I get what seems like 30 minutes alone. It’s really the alone part I am fixated on. I don’t mind the work; I’d just rather be alone and not have to listen to the mindless workplace chatter, which, unfortunately, has seemed to increase after the long weekend. Plus those extra fifteen minutes alone at my desk are fifteen minutes less I have to waste my Walkman batteries tuning everyone out.

At least it’s a four-day week. Being only on contract here I’m just office scum, low man on the totem pole, moved from one low skill job to the next wherever they need me. I have no say, and they don’t care. I personally think it’s more fuss to keep transferring and training me than it is to just keep me in one place long enough to make some friends.

Even this story is affected by this sluggish job. Usually I prefer to write as a stream of consciousness, yet work forces me to fit all my creativity into an hour and twenty-five minutes spaced out by their rules during the day. Not to mention I have to crowd all my ideas onto one little sheet of paper I managed to scrounge up, and I am writing with a pen that has barely any ink left! What is it with the government not wanting to share? They have all sorts of good stuff like tape and pens and folders, you know school supply stuff, and they expect you not to take any home! Well sorry, if there’s any way I can get my hands on some of this free stuff I am going to do it—wouldn’t you?

Most days are moderately all right with the benefit of music. Having long hair has its advantages. If I wear it down I can hide ear bud earphones, wires and all, underneath my hair. Walkman strategically placed underneath files to be worked on…Voila! Mission complete.

I need the money though, so technically I am betraying my artistic abilities for $5.50 an hour in hopes of being able to use the money to take off and do what I really want to do. I’m a slave to the ways of the world. Isn’t that the predicament all artists find themselves in? I guess what I’d really like to do is lock myself away somewhere exotic, only going out for limited life experience, and write my little heart out. I’d publish it all as “Thoughts of an Insane Writer” and make a bundle. I’d play the stock market while living on my very own tropical island and make some more money to spend on trips to see all the things I learned of on the computer while I was locked up writing my heart out! Then I’d buy a new VW Beetle, go to England, and hook up with some hot English guy, (I love the accent). See these are all the things I am thinking about when I am supposed to be diligently working.

My next topic to ponder is would I be thinking any of this if I were doing another job, or if I was just at home lazing around? Or is it the general malaise of this job that prompts all these dreams and plans…thus is it a good thing? We are all prisoners at one time or another in our lives, to ourselves, and to others’ expectations. My life has been spent in a box being observed it would seem, now it is my turn.