novembre ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- oh but you do care our offices are housed at a refurbished tech-savvy warehouse loft. high ceilings with exposed beams, wooden and black iron earthquake retrofitting. walls painted bright colors. baby blue cubicles with low partitions. quotes by women painted on the walls (i base my fashion sense on what doesn't itch - gilda radner). a ping pong table. free weights. chocolate cake. a treadmill. outdated issues of harper's. the company's mission statement is painted against a white wall; in odd colors and annoyingly whimsical fonts you are reminded that policies make us nervous and we don't always wear shoes. the building used to belong to a dot com, back when the bay area was exploding electronically, and some fancy flash in the pan company spent way too much getting this space ready, only to go bankrupt before they ever moved in. there are two meeting rooms built into the center of the space, and they are small and claustrophobic despite their glass walls. the meeting rooms are cold and impersonal thanks to the nature of the meetings they hold. this is where managers converse with underlings in a more private setting; where they pull you aside and inform you that, due to your many instances of arriving late (12 times in the past three months alone), you have been placed on sudden death and will be fired if you are late or absent one more time. even if you're late by just a couple minutes, which you have been often. tears sting in your eyes even though you have no real respect for this job at all; a trained monkey could handle customer service calls, you often say. you often remind yourself that this is just a "while i'm in grad school job" but that lost its placating luster after the first month. you are good at what you do, you like being able to wear whatever the heck you want, and you're fully aware that this job is the furthest thing from any career move ever. but you need the money. you have no money. where did all your money go? you turn your back on your manager so you can wipe your face without eye contact, and you hear her trying to shut the glass door as quietly as she can behind her, but the pane shakes in its frame just as it always has. after a few mollifying seconds you look up at the quote plastered against the meeting room's one opaque wall: and you decide that it is the stupidest thing you have ever heard. if someone loses once, does that make them a lifetime loser? you are starting to get angry so you hightail it to the bathroom before spending your lunch break depositing checks and paying off parking tickets. and hours later you come back to that quote. losing is forever. maybe billie jean king meant that when you lose at something it imbeds a sort of shame in you, something you carry with you forever. akin to laboratory experiments on white mice who get shocked whenever they approach cheddar cheese. but this shame you remember and learn from, and try your damnedest to avoid in future. you are wondering why you feel such shame for mistreating a job you hate. you begin to realize that you have a certain level of pride, and that you have let yourself down. 3:50 pm - 06.29.05 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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