employablog

Today was a weird day. Everyone drifted into work full of mental fog, the kind of mental fog that settles in between your ears when you’ve too little, stuck inside during 48 straight hours of torrential rains. Call it a mass vitamin D deficiency, everyone in the office today was off, me heartily included.

But over the course of small talk it gets attributed to Monday or the weather. I won’t rant about giving Monday a break, I did that last week, and the weather seems a safe bet, grey skies = grey insides, no?

But there was something else at work today as well.

I went in and out of meetings today, I had myself together, and felt good. But the last meeting shook me a little. Not for fear, but for sadness and the bizarre timbre it cast.

My worker buddy who oriented me, and did a lot to help me settle comfortably into my new job got fired.  Everything was handled with padded walls and kid gloves, which really, is the only way to handle these sorts of things.

I feel fine about the whole thing, with a slight cast of being a leathery, salty veteran, but I also feel strange and sad. The office politics are fine, and my bosses are fine as well. But getting fired is akin to dying to a select group of people. It’s too bad, perhaps you went on to a better place, but apparently it was for the greater good.

I’m not cynical, or even upset, it’s just strange.

Coincidentally, on The Office, Roy got fired last week. But he tried to punch Jim.

So I think it has to be chalked up to coincidence.

The server where all my work is just went down. It could go up at any minute, but for now, it isn’t. Since all my work is there, that is why i am here. Server-down-day tastes sweet for the moment, but like any high-interest loan, we’ll all have to pay, and the sooner, the better.

BUT

In the meantime, I saw one of the higher ups, y’know, a guy who has not only an office, but an office with windows, walking by. I see him doing normal human things over the course of a week. Eating, getting coffee, washing his hands. He’s a normal guy, glasses, wavy short hair, mid to late 30s, but today he was doing something extraordinary.

He was wearing one of the best shirts ever. I instantly saw myself in that shirt. I was wearing my silver corduroy jacket, and a stylish hat, slightly askew. I was walking somewhere, nay — ambling. That was the kind of confidence this shirt exuded.

Or I was sipping espresso at an outdoor cafe, hiding behind a pair of aviators, reading something inspiring, like The Sound and the Fury … or Penthouse.

The shirt was bright pink, just a shade below overstated. It would never be called “pastel.” It had thin striping of a lighter shade of pink, just a shade above understated, and also definitively not pastel. Moreover, this shirt was anything but neon, rather it was classy. A cafe racer would don this shirt, he’d fucking don it with aplomb. And I want to don it too.

As I watched the boss-man swish away, I wanted to call out,

“Wait .. don’t go. Let’s talk, how are you?”

I would get him to see me as an equal, I would make small talk happen readily, dancing around the weather, Fridays and the weekend. It would be such great small talk that he would thank me before leaving and then I’d say,
“Wait … one more thing — where did you GET that shirt, I must have one.”

But it was too late. He had swished away, and with that, so had my dreams of that perfect shirt swished away like so many dried leaves on a windy November hill.

I do not hate Mondays.

I’ve also seen Office Space and refuse to become a parody of myself.

And beyond all that, hating 1/7 of all days starting at age 23, well, that gives me a long wretched span ahead of me, and I am NOT going that route. So when I go into work and get nudged into small talk while I’m washing my mug and hear it revolve around short weekends or “Monday again, you know how that goes,” I feel a pang inside.

Did she just say that? Will that be me some day?

I don’t try to be mean, but Monday-bashing smalltalk is worse than public masturbation, it’s just sad. Say what you want about Paul Reubens, but at least he went out and did something. Whining about Monday is just satirizing yourself and suddenly your life has been reduced to a sad cliché, a Dilbert cell, and there is never a good time to start doing that.