I don’t write about my job very much. It just occurred to me that I don’t. Mostly because it’s more or less boring. It’s like brushing your teeth. You don’t talk about it. You just do it and get on to the more exciting stuff.
My official title is Advanced Support Specialist. To me this sounds like someone who makes bras. If I were a bra designer, I would probably talk more about my job. Maybe I would rate my days in terms of hooks. An easy day would be a two-hook day. A really stressful bra-making day’ that baby would need five hooks.
The guys are all scratching their heads right now. But you girls know what I’m talking about, don’t you.
I work in a cube farm. I am hooked to a phone all day. I have two computers and a phone.
On my desk, I have:
&AO8AvwC9AAk-a picture from Esteban and my wedding
&AO8AvwC9AAk-a framed picture of Donny and Marie, circa 1974
&AO8AvwC9AAk-an obligatory cup which holds many pens and my scissors and has a Dole banana sticker over my company’s insignia
&AO8AvwC9AAk-a gallon jug of drinking water
&AO8AvwC9AAk-a regular box of tissue
&AO8AvwC9AAk-a lotiony box of tissue
‘ a picture of Carissa, Penny, another girl and myself, dressed up for Halloween as the song ‘Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves’. Penny was the Gypsy, Carissa was a tramp (but she looks scarily like Twisted Sister’s Dee Snyder in her blonde wig), and I was a thief, with a Zorro eye mask, a pillowcase full of jewels, and a crowbar. The other girl joined us as an afterthought, dressed as Cher. I like this picture because it looks like an album cover.
‘ My library card, which I removed from my purse two weeks ago, trying to reserve something at the public library with my card, but it didn’t work.
&AO8AvwC9AAk-A 2002 refill for my Franklin Planner
&AO8AvwC9AAk-A teal plastic stegosaurus and a blue plastic pterodactyl
&AO8AvwC9AAk-A dried rose that looks really gross now
&AO8AvwC9AAk-A Crate & Barrel catalogue
&AO8AvwC9AAk-A pile of miscellaneous papers
&AO8AvwC9AAk-A thank you card from a coworker, thanking me for giving her all of the Harry Potter books
‘ A single champagne glass I received as a gift from a client, with the corporate logo of my company on one side and their corporate logo on the other side. They didn’t renew their contract, so they are no longer a client. It’s filled with the confetti that Mo sprinkled all over my desk on my 30th birthday.
&AO8AvwC9AAk-A Dasani bottle, half full
&AO8AvwC9AAk-A 32 oz McDonalds cup with three ounces of slightly warm Diet Coke in it
&AO8AvwC9AAk-A picture of the English village that lies outside the gates of Warwick castle.
&AO8AvwC9AAk-A picture of me with my flat mates on the cliffs of Dover, overlooking that quaint village.
&AO8AvwC9AAk-A volleyball schedule from summer (just took that down, actually).
&AO8AvwC9AAk-A blue glass paperweight that was a birthday present from Esteban a few years ago.
&AO8AvwC9AAk-A pile of papers that I need to go through
&AO8AvwC9AAk-A small container of hot pink Play-Doh
&AO8AvwC9AAk-Three pictures of my niece Abby and one of my brother Jonathon
&AO8AvwC9AAk-A Wendy Bender
My cube is the color of Silly Putty. Or oatmeal. Or aged sweat socks. It is L-shaped. Technically, it has four walls, but logistically, it has two. Any visitors are greeted with a view of my ass.
On the other side of one of my two legitimate walls, there is an empty cube. I have no complaints with this. On the other side of the wall, I have someone who talks very loudly and then very softly. This is worse than if they only talked loudly, because I know that they have the ABILITY to talk softly’ they just choose not to. But it could be worse. I could have a Bodily Function Guy like Levon or a sniffler like Unclebob.
I spend an inordinate amount of time calling the computer room to have a user’s session logged off the mainframe. I put the user on hold, call the computer room and say ‘Hi, this is Weetabix. Could you remove a user from the mainframe, please?’ as if there were a possible answer from the computer room other than ‘Sure!’ Just once, I think it would be fun for them to say ‘First you must answer a series of questions’ one’ name the seven wonders of the ancient world’ and then I’d be wracking my brain, thinking of the wonders from Civilization.
I have an earpiece instead of a phone receiver so I can type while I’m talking on the phone. It fits into my head like a hearing aid and has a microphone coming out of it. It doesn’t make me look even a tiny bit like Britney Spears. Not even if I say ‘Not that innocent’ and do that arm thing that she does. A guy came in and made a mold of my ear. Sometimes ear gunk gets in the earpiece. It’s pretty gross, actually.
Sometimes I have to solve big computer type problems. Sometimes I can’t and it makes my brain feel substandard. Sometimes I just reset someone’s password. Sometimes I surf the Internet.
Sometimes I keep emailing Chauffi at work.
Sometimes I just play with my Play-Doh and smell it, because it smells like being five years old.
Sometimes people chew their lunch while talking to me. Sometimes they have me on speakerphone and I feel as though I am talking with the Great And Powerful Oz.
I’m not complaining. I used to write code all day. I liked writing code, because it appealed to my left-brain and made me feel like a logical bad ass. Then they made me a trainer because I’m really a people person, which is corporate speak for Chatty Cathy Doll. So I juggled the code writing with teaching people how to write code. And I got involved in a bunch of extraneous projects. And it was very stressful, doing seventy hours of work in forty hours. So I moved to a different team and now have far less stress and everyone loves the crap out of me.
And no, I’m totally not using my English degree. And yes, I really wish that I would resume taking my MFA courses in Creative Writing. And no, I really don’t want to get into that right now.
We have 300 people in this office. The office used to be a bowling alley. The pin setting machine used to rack them up in the area that is now my desk. Now the outside of the building is decorated to look like a castle, with faux turrets and windows to shoot arrows at approaching hordes of villagers. There really aren’t windows up there. It’s just window shaped plywood, painted black, so you don’t have to worry about the arrow factor.
I park in the back because I work in the back. There’s nothing special about the back. There’s a truck unloading dock thing there and a bus-waiting thing for the smoking people to stand under when it’s raining.
I park in a questionable location, where we’re technically not supposed to park. Mo showed me that trick. About eight cars park there, so we’re not the only one. It’s like rock star parking or something. Don’t tell anyone.
We have a cafeteria that contains many vending machines, an ice machine, four microwaves, three refrigerators, and a popcorn machine. On Mondays and Wednesdays, sub shops come in and build subs for you from an abbreviated menu. On Tuesdays, a guy comes from Pizza Hut and sells you lukewarm slices for $1.50. We share the building and the cafeteria with a bunch of realtors and because of this, you need a security badge to get out of the cafeteria. It is possible to go out for a soda and never be able to come back. That’s just the risk you take.
There are nine women who are pregnant in the building that I know of. There used to be ten, but my friend Kathi had her baby early. Even with nine people, when you think of the odds, that’s pretty impressive.
You must dial 9 to get out of the building.
You know, this entry is the opposite of funny. You’re probably thinking ‘Man, Weetabix! I read your page to NOT think about my job! You’re bringing me down, man!’ But there it is. My job just is. It’s like a pair of clean socks’ not the first pair you take out of the drawer and not even one that matches your outfit or has adorable argyle pattern of white, gray and red diamonds. Just a pair of socks. Utilitarian. Functional. Keeps your feet warm and dry.
But I still kind of wish I looked more like Britney Spears.
I must make a decision about going to Atlanta in March. Esteban’s cousin is getting married and we’ve been invited. Ward and June are going, but apparently we didn’t tell them if we were going eight months ago, so they’ve agreed to drive down with her sister and her husband. We could very easily fly down by then we’d have to rent a car, so I’m toying with just driving the Monte down. Joel drove back from Atlanta on 9/11, so it must not be too horrible.
Does anyone live in the Atlanta area? Do you need a car to do fun stuff? Send me an email!
Esteban gave me a rather dire warning yesterday. It seems that if you do a search in Google for “Weetabix”, this page is the number one hit. The real company is number two. That will probably really piss off the Weetabix people. sigh Maybe I’ll hold a Name the Weetabix contest and let you pick my new name.
