Culture Shock

Until a few years ago, I’d never had an office job. It was always warehouse jobs, or service industry jobs like movie projectionist or casino/hotel bellboy (no wait, bellMan!!), and I was a lab assistant for a few years too. Since landing my current job as a hospital computer guy, I’ve had a bit of culture shock adapting to this kind of environment. Here’s what I’ve noticed so far, and how I’ve adapted to it.

• I have a desk. Never had one before. What do you put in and on a desk? I mean it’s huge – just a vast expanse of Formica and beige steel. And there were a lot of empty drawers. Is it supposed to be all business like a buzz cut, or a business/fun mix like a mullet? Here’s what I ended up with after a few years (notice the plant – it’s not real – the real one died shortly after entering this work environment, as did my spirit):

Here is what I aspire to:

• There are some good people here, and there are some really freaking obnoxious people here too. For the latter, I’ve found it is best career-wise for me to bitch-slap them in my mind as opposed to physically. Some strategies I have used include ignoring them, passing gas as I walk past their cube (A.K.A: crop-dusting. There is some collateral damage with this one, but fortunately for me, most of my obnoxious people tend to sit in clusters), and my favorite: biting down hard on a Mike-N-Ike’s when they come to talk to me, pretending it is a cyanide capsule. I’ve also used one of those compressed air keyboard cleaner cans to pretend I was “Spraying for bitches”. It does help control a severe bitch infestation. All of these people are guys, so please don’t think I’m dropping the B bomb in ~that~ way, it’s just the best word to describe them.

• It’s quiet. Too quiet. I’m used to forklifts nearly running over me, or slot machines clanging, or lab instruments beeping, anything but the serene calm of the office. All I hear now is the occasional soft click of a keyboard, laser printers warming up, or a cell phone in someone’s purse playing some crappy e-jazz ringtone as their kid chain-calls them 15 times in a row while they’re hitting the vending machine in the breakroom. I put a big fan on my desk, and headphones in my ears whenever I can. I recently saw a guy who took it to a whole new level by wearing his headphones everywhere in the building, even when going to the bathroom or getting his mail, or in meetings before they start. He does not have to interact with anyone here unless he wants to. I bet their not even plugged into anything. He is a magnificent bastard.

• Sense of accomplishment. I have none. It used to be that after a day working in the warehouse, I could say wow, look at all that freight I unloaded today, or at the casino it was wow, I moved a lot of luggage today, or at the lab, wow, look at all those samples I processed today. Now I’ve been working on one project for four months and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Every day I have to fix something that broke when I fixed something else. At least with the warehouse when you fix something, it stays fixed. I’ve dealt with this by finding other goals to accomplish at work, such as getting my boss to use the word “cumquat”, or seeing how many times in a day I can get one of the afore mentioned bitches to deliver a document to me that I “accidentally” printed on their printer.

• Natural light. Warehouses are windowless dank concrete pits, as are laboratories and to a lesser extent, casinos. As such, I have rarely been exposed to natural light during my workday. I was looking forward to rejoining the top-side world with this new desk job as I now have a long row of honest-to-god windows close by. And I would have had plenty of natural light, if the lady next to me didn’t have severe light sensitivity and demand all the shades be pulled at the mere suggestion of partly sunny skies. Oh well. Baby steps I guess.

• Time off and working from home. People around here actually leave if they need to. Say they have a doctor’s appointment – no problem, they just get up and leave when they need to. They can always make it up from home later if they want to. This is unheard of in any of my previous jobs. Getting off work required one form of amputation or another, and you can’t exactly unload 20 roadway trucks from home unless you want to get arrested. I had to work with colds, flues, sprained ankles, hangovers, ear infections, headaches, toothaches, you name it. The idea that I can leave if I’m just “not feeling well” is foreign, but I can certainly get used to it!

There’s tons more (I didn’t even mention the weirdo guys who talk to you while you pee at the urinal, or worse yet, whistle or sing?! WTF?), but this is getting long and I really should get back to work. Don’t get me wrong, although this is a different sort of job for me, I do appreciate having a nice, clean, well lit and dry environment in which to sit on my butt for 9 hours a day, and I make more than I ever did before. It just takes a lot of getting used to.