On An Office of One's Own
♠.
When you’re new to office work time passes quickly, and you find a frantic pleasure in keeping on top of the ball. Multitasking is rather fun, and since you don’t know the end purposes of your various assignments, there’s a certain zing to just firing off fine work into the hands of people who seem excessively appreciative. It’s all a bit of a game, yet at the same time, it has accomplished the serious purpose of letting you live and buy a drink when you want one. Then, after a spell, it starts to get a bit tired, and you start looking around for a change. Sometimes the possibility for change comes to you, but not in the momentous form you were imagining.
One relatively recent day, about ten months after I started my first office job, I was abruptly summoned to my boss's office. Half-looking at me from across his desk in his nervous manner, he asked if I was interested in a promotion. I wasn't expecting to be presented with a promotion at all, much less as an option, as if it were not, at least in his view, inherently good—and it put me to thinking. Better late than never.
The choice was between continuing my administrative work at the front desk, which was what I was hired to do, or to become a full-fledged worker bee in our little office of a dozen people, which is itself a cog in a typical, non-finance related
As such, it was up to me to invest whatever resolution I chose with outsized personal ramification. To do so, I had to reflect on what attributes of my personality would be reinforced by either decision. In not accepting the promotion, I would be indulging my apathy, but preserving my relative independence, specifically my independence from the company apparatus. By accepting, I would be confronting stagnation and fear of change, but I would then become more important to the company, and consequently, more of the company. Admittedly, I was also cognizant of the small raise that I would receive upon accepting. Weighing the factors, I finally decided that stasis was the greater evil, familiar with it as I was. I may also have been affected by the growling in my stomach, which was grumpily reminding me of the indignities it constantly bore in the form of ramen noodles. So I accepted the promotion. The next day, taking a break from some long overdue filing work, I went in and shook my boss's hand, and he told me he thought we could really work well together. Super, great, okay.
There were “perks” to the promotion beyond the raise. I would be issued a company credit card, as well as a business card with my name embossed in an elegant font. Both of these were to be used during the important lunch meetings that lay in my future, ostensibly yet another perk. But as had been amply demonstrated during the few industry parties I’d attended, I have no clue how to behave collegially. It’s partly an attention span problem, exacerbated ten-fold by somebody blissfully discussing their job, which is invariably quite similar to mine. At least during parties, however, I could excuse myself to the bathroom frequently without anybody taking too much notice. A one-on-one meeting, with its absolute limit of two bathroom trips, seemed simply beyond the pale. Up to this point I have yet to go on a meeting, and the supposed perks remain stuffed in the back of my wallet, untried.
But there was another change coming my way: I would receive my very own office, closable door included. Unlike the cards of corporate prophecy, the office itself was a tangible improvement I expected to enjoy. No longer would I constantly answer the phone with that pleasant and assured tone that was becoming eerily natural to me. No longer could everyone easily see what I was doing, or not doing. I would have a window that looked out on the staggered staircase to the sky that was Midtown. The office was a return to privacy, and in that sense, I would be regaining some of the independence that I appeared to be sacrificing, or so my thinking went. Furthermore, I could walk into my office every morning and know that I had nestled myself into
After a couple of weeks my boss managed to hire a girl for the front desk job. I was in the clear to move into my office. That didn't prove very difficult, as I had almost nothing that I considered exclusively mine anyway. The stapler was handy to everyone who used the adjacent printer, and it was without regret that I would abandon the manuals and directories that lined the bookshelf. My new office's previous occupant had left a bevy of pens, and upon closer inspection, I learned where my preferred brand had been disappearing to. Even my sheaf of folders all related to duties of the front desk. So I just took my one, doodle-filled notebook and settled in the same day the new girl took her seat up front. I recall it was an overcast day, and my first action was to turn on the little desk lamp. No more florescent overheads for me. Then I sat down and booted the computer. Leaning back in my chair to the tune of beeps and ticks as the equipment warmed up, I wondered what other people felt when they achieved that first tangible sign of upward momentum in a company. Not much, I figured, unless their ambitions really lay in the vein they were working in. The pride of “success,” unaccompanied by emotional investment, was clearly a faint sensation indeed. It brings a smile to your face, but so does beginner’s luck for the poker initiate. Strangely, I was reminded of the forced dance lessons of my youth, of that day I drew praise as I rigidly led my more developed female partner through the fox trot. Fifteen years later, I might as well have still been wearing the clip-on tie.
Later that first morning my boss stopped by to check in on me. He immediately started laughing. Great, I thought, he's realized his mistake already. The very look of me in this office had succinctly expressed what an ill-considered idea the promotion was. He settled down and spoke: “Your have your seat lowered to the ground.” It was true. I saw that my arms were resting at sharp upward angles on the edge of my desk. Small wonder that images of childhood visits to my mother’s office were flashing through my head. Looking at my boss, I pulled the lever to my chair, and silently we observed my rise. He then left without comment, as if to indicate that we could do another take on this scene later, after I had practiced my blocking a bit more. And more practice I got, through a long morning, as a stream of coworkers paid their dues. With affected, neighborly knocks on my open door, they gauged my response to such an overwhelming adjustment, in tones varying from kindly condescension to genuine pride. The pride was the most disturbing, and it came from the financial manager. He’s a nice middle-aged man, who helps me with taxes, postage calculation and other inscrutable minutiae. Beaming, he asked me what I liked best about my new office. The view, I said, confidently. Then he left with a chuckle, and I turned my attention to mastering my newfound duties. Lately, however, it’s become a bit of problem, as he’s decided to make this Q & A a ritual, as if my office were some kind of Santa’s bag of delights. I don’t want to offend him, but as a result I've become increasingly desperate for things to be grateful for: “Not just papers but also preserved foodstuffs can go in the file cabinet!” Each time he smiles knowingly, probably thinking of the all glorious benefits that haven't yet dawned on me. For me, each of these dispiriting exchanges is like a mark on a chart, steadily tracing the diminishing returns of the one perk I looked forward to.
My father put me in charge of mowing the lawn at an age when I could barely push the clunky thing. I was a slight and often reticent boy, so it was with brimming resentment that I anticipated such a thankless, arduous task. But after I started, I had to grudgingly admit to myself that it had certain appeal. I liked making the neat rows, and I liked the small muscles that were building on my arms. For a while I appreciated my accumulating skill and strength. Then, over time, it became just mowing the lawn, exactly the dull annoyance I’d first imagined. Eventually we bought a rider, and again I found an allure in the order I was effectuating, this time in wider swaths, with smooth turns that I learned to execute without missing a blade of grass. Then it became a bumpy ride that hurt my lower back—just mowing the lawn.
And so the effects of the promotion have become subsumed into routine. Time passes, and my butt settles a deeper groove in the chair, my fingers fly comfortably across the keyboard, my eyes reflect light off the screen and take time to adjust when I look out the window. During the day, the hours go quickly if I’m working, or slowly if I’m feeling listless. Either way, they pass obscurely, like the honking and the police sirens that I can faintly hear twenty stories down. I’ve heard that one eventually tunes out the street noise altogether.
—JSL