Chicken Soup for the Cube

by Human Office Furniture (bondage reference intentional)

Like Sands in the Microsoft Hourglass

Sometimes it’s nearly tearful to pull up to work and turn off the car, killing your favorite song and leaving you alone with your dread. You stare at the building and crave a cigarette. You’re controlling your breathing and telling yourself it could be worse. You could be cleaning up after homicides. Or working at a meat-packing plant.

I turn the corner to face the painfully long hall with its painfully red carpeting. My cube is at the very end. Gulp. I repeat one thought in my head, "Please don't let anyone approach me." I used to refer to such acts of mental maintenance as "praying." But now, I'm a professional. I mean salaried.

I get smaller and weirder with each step on the insulting red carpet even though everyone's real nice. Even if they hate yer arse! Work! It's amazing! It's creepy but it’s really not that bad. I'M GRATEFUL FOR MY JOB. I'm grateful for my job i'm grateful for my job i hate my fucking job NO I DON'T I JUST HATE MY BOSS. No I don't hate my boss I just have a hard time subordinating myself to the Clueless if no sex is involved.

What I meant to say is that there are always conflicts in the workplace. NOTHING'S PERFECT. Except of course, my boss. Some people are such hard workers that they don't have to do anything! And by some management magic, the boss knows how you should do your job without the benefit of having done it him or herself.

Note to people who wants to kill their boss: Just sucker punch the bastard in the parking lot if you have to. Don't kill anyone. It's too much work.

After returning to my cube following another meeting about the CRM workflow, a customer calls to give me grief about how he can’t get onto the site and it’s somehow my fault he had the wrong URL. My favorite answer is, "In a perfect world, sir, the computer will be able to read your mind but until then, you'll have to type. I'm sorry." And I say that in my most helpful tone while grinding his dick in the dirt whew hew! I guess it ain't all bad.

The customers don't hate you, they’re just taking out their computer frustrations out on you. And who doesn't imagine giving a sleeping boss a swift kick? I mean it's really not that bad. Not once the second Xanax kicks in. So are the days of my job.

Skeletons in the Cube

How do you feel about what you just read? Do you agree with any of it or think it’s the stinking-thinking of whiner who should be lucky to have a job at all?

What you just read is the thinking of a woman in trouble: A woman who doesn’t love her job because she doesn’t love herself.

Your self-concept and job are linked. If you don’t like your job, I’m sorry, but the problem is you. You don’t like yourself and project it on to your job. The good news is, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Your attitude determines everything and that we can fix. Before you know it, you’ll be among the half of the people in this country who say they’re satisfied with their jobs. It’s all in how you look at it.

Let’s say you look at your paycheck and think it reflects how important you are to your employer. Of course you're going to feel like shit! Sure you’d be happier making more money, but do you really need it? Just because you don’t earn what you feel you deserve doesn’t mean they don’t value your contribution. Just work harder this year and confront your greed issues.

Or perhaps your bosses give you lots of direction while talking to you like you’re retarded and/or lazy. It might feel like they’re exerting power on you over a petty issue to keep you in your place, but they’re just trying to help you. And remember, if you're in Tech Support, everyone is your boss.

Or let's say management just changed the latest set of rules they inflicted on you. It's frustrating but it’s just process improvement. And if they forget to tell you about the change and yell at you for not knowing, well everyone’s human. Just apologize for not knowing. It’s easy if you love yourself.

Some people are actually afraid of doing well because they think their bosses will resent them for it which causes bosses to start nasty rumors. But you wouldn’t think so negatively if trusted yourself. As long as you do a good job, you have nothing to worry about. Everyone will respect you for it. Even if you can’t tell.

That doesn’t mean you won’t get chided for things management does without being reprimanded. You simply need to be grateful for the chance to improve yourself with advice no one else is privy to. If you like yourself, everything is an opportunity to improve.

Oh. I forgot to mention that this approach requires mad amounts of Klonopin, Xanax, Valuim etc (tranquilizers). There’s a whole class of drags to calm America down. All created because we don’t love ourselves enough.

Does Size Matter?

When we were still a small company, I was an employee. After we became a new company, I became a “resource.” Now I’m human capital. Why not just call me office equipment?

Getting a job is like being taken hostage. You eventually love your abductor but never stop planning your escape. It’s just so quiet now that we're a big company. We used to have holiday grab bags and all worked together. We weren’t sure what our titles were. We just did what we had to. If I needed a developer, I went to him and not through three layers of management to get permission.

Then came the cost centers. Public companies have amazing billing laws and those numbers mean everything because of our precious stockholders. The Puritans thought it was sinful to make money from just having money instead of working for it. If god made us have to work to eat, why isn’t that punishment dealt equally?

Memories, like the corners of my cube

There was a day we decorated our cubes - I once got a note telling me not to mix the seasons. I had a Pilgrim couple and Santa and his wife that were made out of beer bottles. We didn’t get mad, we thought it was hilarious.

I considered the people I worked with my closest friends. Something about being down on the cube farm made us funnier. We got to wear whatever we wanted and took that as far as we could. We still can dress casually but … we all toned it down without being told. It’s just one of the unfelt changes of becoming World Class. In a small company, I felt loved. Now I feel used. But look at the bright side!

No. No I fucking won't.

Everything I needed to know about business, I never learned

Okay so I don’t trust corporations. They’re there to make a profit by any means necessary, which means taking advantage of any opportunity (like prison or child labor). Well I mean not any corporation you work for, of course.

I think it’s sad and amazing that the most solid common ground we Americas share is the simple fact that most of us would do anything to get out of our jobs. Most people aren’t making much money and they’re the ones who get treated the worst. But no one talks about it. We blame ourselves for not being some “self made man” while never realizing how “they system” needs us as cheap labor so the self made man can own five homes.

NO WONDER PEOPLE PLAY THE LOTTO. You have to have some hope that there’s going to be an end to your job while you’re young and healthy enough to do the things you sacrificed for your kids and the job they chained you to.

Business … I thought the goal was to create a product or service to be proud of. To provide jobs to people who became family. And you could be proud of spreading your good fortune around. Help those who help you make the car payment. Shouldn’t business values be the same as family values? I’ll never live to see that day.

No wonder the FBI and CIA are all fucked up. Was it a surprise to learn that those entrusted to protect us were more concerned with getting promotions than doing their jobs? It was to me. I’ve always been a dreamer. Thought that if you did a great job and were dependable, that you’d be rewarded for it. Golfing with the Alpha Employees. By the time you realize that’s only true for some, you’re too old to even care.

Dead woman working

Sometimes I walk in my cube with that, “Here’s Johnny!” look Jack Nicholson had in The Shining when he was busting through the bathroom door with the ax.

Other times I love my little cube and Hello Kitty calendar and the hum of my machines. It’s amazing what one can get used to. But not for long. So I’ll go buy some book about how to make peace with my cube. Or about how to use Machiavelli’s strategy to advance at work. Maybe buy a plant.

I know I’m some old school broad, but you used to take pride in your work. But now it seems the point of business is to destroy your pride so they can convince you that you’re worth nothing which explains your paycheck. Putting you down goes a long way and getting you to do what you’re told without question.

Do not go gently into that small cube

Nothing I’m saying here is unique or directly about my company or job (I had to say that). A job is a job is a job. Work. Even the Bible defines it as a curse. Punishment designed to cause us endless suffering. Every time I open Siebel, I’m convinced.

Work and the pain of childbirth were two punishments Adam and Eve caused from their curiosity. Genesis says God cursed the ground so Adam would have to work for food and would suffer every day for the rest of his life because of it. God can seriously hold a grudge, eh? God: The Ultimate Boss.

The original word for “work” meant pain, then sorrow. But if God wanted to continue punishing us for what went wrong in Paradise, work is a great way to go. But if I keep writing stuff about my job, I guess I won't have to worry about it for long.