Hello
Gentle Reader
The
day begins at 8:00am, this means wake up between 4:30am and 5:30am, though
preference is given to 4:45am and 5:00am, which provides enough time to make
coffee, eat breakfast or any morsel of food in the fridge, shower and get ready
through all those morning rituals. By 7:30am, its best to be out the door to
catch the bus. As its winter you need to leave earlier to account for the snow
ridden and slippery streets. After you get to the bus you wait until it
arrives. If you are on time its late. If you are running late it’s on time. The
closest transit stop to work is across the street, which is a two minuet walk;
four minutes if you need to wait for the light to cross. Upon reaching the
perimeter of the building its time to smoke.
This first smoke is the last gasp before entering the building. A toxic
final breath of fresh air, but a ritualistic one based off routine. It should
be noted addiction is structured in routine. Routines are structured in habits.
Smoking just happens to be filthy one, but in this instance excusable; and on
that note habits are enforced by rationale, just like the one previously
evidenced. After the cigarette is butted out, its time to collect one’s
belongings and trudge forward. The doors are waiting, the receptionist on
guard. Upon entering its time to begin with the pleasantries of work: “good
morning,” says the receptionist, and in turn you exchange the same greeting
back.
If
one positive note can be taken from the pandemic, it’s that everyone has been
provided their own office. Prior to the pandemic—as you are told—members of
your business unit were placed into a ‘shared workspace,’ because other offices
had to be reallocated for clients working out of the building and an increase
in engineering personnel. Prior to the client move in, and the engineering
personnel real estate takeover; they each had their own offices. By the time
you entered the shared workspace, the atmosphere to their new landscape was
fermented with soured feelings. The pandemic raged on, social distancing was
brought into further question and next thing you know, here’s your own office.
While they happily skirted back to their own ‘space,’ getting first pick of the
available real estate, you were left with the rotten leftovers. It’s a lot like
hand-me-down clothes, or any other personal austerity measure, which can only
be described in the plainest language originating from the vernacular: it fucking
sucks.
If you are
to envision the ideal office it is tucked away, best left out of sight and out
of mind. It’ll be hidden down some quiet corridor or lengthy hallway, the kind
of place which can be overlooked or missed upon first impressions or glances.
No place is quite as ideal as being somewhere lost in the labyrinth. Past
nameless offices, doors and walls; just incidentally tucked away. No that’s not
the case in this instance. You get the pleasure of being the neighbor of
reception, that questionable, aimless function provided by the organization and
no one knows quite why. Regardless every time the door opens, every visitor
that enters, you know they are there. Oh, the pleasures of being placed right
in the thick of it all. You do your best not to complain—at least not out
loud—while internally you scream.
By
8:05am you made the short jaunt from the doors, past the reception desk, to
your door. Might as well let loose the first sigh, as you envision a longer
more enjoyable stroll down some other hapless corridor, to some other anonymous
office. You enter where you don’t bother turning the light on anymore. Before
when you did, you had them dimmed down as far as they could go; everyone walked
by and thought is strange the light you kept, referring to you as a mole. Now
that you don’t bother with turning them on, they walk by and exclaim with
concern that its so dark, are you alright? After changing your shoes and hanging
up your coat, the day has begun. The anchor takes hold the minute you sit down.
The dreaded time sheet. The horrible time sheet, which is more aptly known as:
Time Tracking. That micromanaging piece of accounting software that demands
complete abject admonishing accountability with how your day is spent. This is measured
in quarter (15 minutes), half (30 minutes), three fourths of an hour (45
minutes) and hourly (60 minute) increments. Each project you touch must be
accounted for with a correct measurement of time, complete with a corresponding
code as to what function in your business unit you performed with that project.
A variety of codes exist corresponding with specific tasks, functions and
actions you may undertake for each project. This unholy marriage of time
tracking, and payroll grows in the back of one’s mind like a tumor. Its weight
unmistakable. Its stress unmeasurable. It throbs away. On the first day of
orientation when first introduced to this software you remember that foreboding
statement: “When at all possible, always reduce and avoid overhead.”
This has become goal and torturous mantra in your mind. To the point your quite
sure your going to have it engraved on your tombstone; which at the current
rate of you smoking will arrive at an expeditated rate; and of course, you’ll
pay extra for the italicization of the term ‘Overhead.’
If
its Monday morning though, you get to waste an hour on ‘Overhead,’ doing your
time sheet, complete with micromanaged accounting principles. Honestly the devil
really is just an accountant with horns at this point. On Monday mornings, time
is wasted on filling out the time tracking payroll time sheet, project number
by project number, code with code, function with function, and time allocated
entered each time. The pleasures of doing that over and over for each day from
the following week is a tedious waste of time, but a welcomed one. If it is not
Monday morning that routine throb in the back of the head begins its daily
drum. Time to open the e-mail and begin scanning the inboxes for work,
correspondence, any morsel to sink one’s teeth into to set the day on the right
direction. Meanwhile outside of your door and to your right you can hear the
casual talks of the ‘Office Community,’ laughing and going over their weekend
events. This is a select and secular group. You have not been invited to
participate yet, and most likely will not be invited in future. Furthermore,
you have no interest because you have nothing in common with them, so quite
your bellyaching.
The
pandemic has raged on relentlessly. The public health crisis is now deemed a
backdrop of day to day life. As cases numbers rise, deaths rise, everyone
blinks and moves on. Some have greater concerns then others. You are continually
told to be thankful you have a job. How long that job will last is still
unknown. The pandemic has caused complications across the spectrum, including
battering an already unstable and frail economy. Work is riddled with an
atmosphere of dread. There’s a desire to maintain production, while projects
begin concluding, and no further clients brought on, and no contracts signed.
The future is bleak. Layoffs continue, and when at first, they were announced
with the gravitas of mourning iron bells, the entire business has become more
rogue. Its all cloak and dagger now. One day you’re at work, the next you’ve
disappeared. When these ‘disappearances,’ happen, discussions are brought up in
hallways and common areas. After awhile human resources graces the organization
with an e-mail. Yet another boilerplate template ridden e-mail, all the
organization has done, its successes in providing a safe work environment,
followed by another reminder that the continued discussions and speculation
about employee departures does not contribute to a positive, healthy or safe
work environment and should cease immediately. Dissidence and resistance ensure
it continues. It goes without saying morale is in the shits. Of course, the
reason layoffs are happening is because there is a scant amount of work for
anyone to cling to. Those who have it are reluctant to relinquish it. How
ironic is to think that when you first started, after being recruited you were
as pumped up as a peacock. Then as the pandemic began to take hold and the new
reality set in, your once lustrous peacock spirit animal became a scavenging
hyena. While still learning your position, you worked hard to learn and improve
faster. As the pandemic raged on the scavenging hyena reduce itself to an
emaciated and mangy coyote. Now pushing a year into the position and no end in
sight with the pandemic, and no economic recovery certain on the horizon you
are forced to face the facts, all that remains of your previous ambition is
that of a tenacious cockroach. A scuttling and scurrying insect that skirts on
the edges, remains in the peripheral and seeks to survive in the most austere
landscapes. A cockroach would not be described as a beacon of hope. Its more a
reminder of abject survival. As a subject of study, survival appears heroic
even admirable in retrospect. In the present it’s a dirty business.
With
work depleted or concluding what few scraps roll down must be immediately
snatched up and held on to. Afterwards you need to ensure that the work can be
stretched out; or else its back to concerns about filling the day with
productivity, before the time tracking tattle tale time sheet snitches. This is
a dangerous game. If you take too long on a certain task questions are raised
regarding your competencies. Complete the task and work with routine
expectations and its back to the dread. A common remedy prescribed is then
create work for yourself. Make manageable tasks or micro-projects that will
benefit the company. An endearing resolution, but in this situation doomed for
failure. An organization such as this has found its success by slowly adapting
with the times and maintaining a stronghold regarding templates and predefined
notions of what it should be. There is no solicitation for imagination. Though
to be fair it has been attempted, which in the yes of the organization carried
within its sentiment the guise of revolution.
By
10:00am it’ll be time for a reprieve, in the form of another cigarette. This
short sojourn becomes a welcome refuge from sitting at the desk and waiting for
work. Afterwards it’ll be time to skirt about the office seeking out work. Like
a beggar you’ll need to seek out work from your co-workers, offering
assistance. To no surprise, your offer is politely declined. They’ve already
snatched up their own morsels of work in which to itch away at. You may be
tossed a bone or in your absence something may appear in the inbox. In the
intermediate you have the chance to talk with a co-worker. Those tangent ridden
narratives which move between topic are a welcomed distraction from the throb
in the back of your mind. Regardless you’re on a mission to find work to pad
out that time tracking time sheet software before it turns on you and states
you have a variable amount of time unaccounted for. By the time lunch hits your
more exhausted by the search for work and tasks to fill the day, then any
actual work. After lunch that ephemeral and finite intermission, the afternoon
replays the same situations from the morning. Seeking and waiting for work;
debating about talking to your immediate supervisor for work; or resigning
yourself to the indignation that your cockroach position demands. By 3:00pm
there is another reprieve for yet another cigarette, which follows the
innumerable ones burned during lunch. The final two hours of the day are the
longest. Time moves slower. It creeps along at a casual pace. The throbbing in
the back of your head has become such a constant companion throughout the day,
you’ve almost gotten used to it. When the hour strikes 5:00pm your exhausted
and distressed by the little accomplishment the day had provided, knowing full
well the following days would be a continuous chain of reoccurring events.
Thank-you
For Reading Gentle Reader
Take
Care
And
As Always
Stay
Well Read
M.
Mary
