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Thursday, Oct. 30, 2003 - 10:24 p.m. THE JANITOR'S CLOSET Given that work comprises 99.999% of my life right now (the other 0.001% is comprised of eating and sleeping), I have very little to write about, unless I write about work, so I suppose that work is what I will write about. But I must be very careful about talking about my job on the Internet, otherwise I might get fired. That is the main reason why I will not tell you what I do. Not that the average Joe would understand my job anyway. There is this clause in our office’s policies and procedures manual that in summary basically states that employees represent the office at all times and must conduct themselves according to the high professional standards of the office at all times. This clause is broadly applied not only to life at work, but also is applied to employees’ personal lives, no matter how work-unrelated it might be. For instance, if I get arrested for drunk driving, I can be fired. Most people would find it hard to believe that someone’s job could be so intrusive into one’s personal affairs. However, because we are in the public eye, if I were to do something bad and my job were mentioned, my offense would be considered a mark on the office. In my case, the office especially does not tolerate when employees speak ill of it. That is why I must be careful that the Experiment remains anonymous so that I can speak freely about my job. A recent occurrence within our office shows how truly intrusive my job can be. A group of office employees that I never really knew or worked with liked to hit the town at night and go to bars. They were known for their crazy stories and adventures with women. Apparently, one of the employees had his own personal web site that showed a picture of him and a couple of drunk coworkers posing with a stripper. Someone at the office caught wind of the site and informed upper-level management. The employee who owned the web page was fired, the two coworkers were demoted, and an innocent by- standing coworker who knew about the site but did not say anything to the office was placed on probation. Keep in mind that this was a site owned and run by an employee privately and had nothing to do with the office. In fact, no one who saw the site would have known where the employee worked. I never saw the site personally, but I was told that it did not show pornography. Needless to say, I do not believe an employee should be fired for something he does legally in his private life. I do not know how the office would react to a diary such as this one. At the very least, their finding out that I am bipolar would probably ruin any chances of my advancement in the office. I have heard several stories about a bipolar woman who used to work for our office and was hospitalized for her manic depression. She could not handle her job and left our office for another state agency. She is now the constant brunt of many an office joke. My illness notwithstanding, I would also not be thrilled to let people know that I am twenty-seven years old and have never kissed a woman. In short, I would not want any of the issues in my private life ending up in the office rumor mill. I suppose I should give you a glimpse of the work environment that I live in twelve hours a day. I work in a team of eight, now temporarily grown to eighteen due to the mass of work we have and a moved-up deadline, run by who I will call the “manager” and the “over manager.” The over manager basically works in an indirect supervisory capacity over the whole team, and works as a liason between the team and upper-level management. The “manager” is basically in charge of the day-to-day operations of the team and is the one who runs the project, gives orders, etc. This year’s project is much more difficult than year’s past because of the change in under manager and promotions of old, experienced team members off the team. Last year’s manager was promoted to the over manager position, and last year’s over manager was promoted to an upper-level management position. Of last year’s core eight members, only four of us remain, those being the new over manager, a coworker who just had a kid and cannot put in the hours she used to, another coworker, and me. The rest of the team are brand new and inexperienced on the project. This inexperienced group also includes the new manager. It did not take long for the team to get to know whether they did or did not like working for this new manager. All I know is that she certainly does not like me. Actually I think her feelings for me are between strong dislike and downright hatred. She is a complete bitch to me, and I have to put up with it because I work next to her. Minute after minute, hour after hour, she is watching everything I do, and is quick to point out anything I do wrong. She talks down to me, makes borderline disrespectful remarks to me, and basically creates an uncomfortable work atmosphere for me. My coworkers, behind closed doors, of course, say they wonder how I put up with it. Any other person, they insist, would have snapped a long time ago. I have no choice but to put up with it. When she does criticize my work, her criticisms are valid. I cannot argue legitimate criticisms, no matter how excessive or picky they are. That is the nature of my work. Moreover, if she treats me like crap, I have to take it. After all, she is the boss. Any issue I take to someone higher than her regarding her management style would inevitably be turned back against me. Also, since an incident like the Rent-a-Cock happened, my undeserved office reputation would make me look like the instigator, not vice versa. I am in a lose-lose situation. All I can do is go to work and do what she says, hoping that I survive this project and will not be staffed back on it next year. The rest of my coworkers have a strong dislike for her as well. The whole team walks around with a look of exhaustion and angst that I have never seen before, praying that the project will end. Two have applied for other jobs in the middle of the project, with one landing one. Besides the exorbitant amounts of overtime, the one leaving points at the manager as her main motivation for quitting. I actually feel kind of sorry for my manager. I think she is a good person, just not a good person to work for. She is in her forties, was never married, and does nothing but work and take care of her mother. She takes all of her work personally and is stressed beyond reason when something goes wrong. I could never be that type of person. Our work conditions do not make things easy, either. The project we are working on is done on site at the agency, so we are not working in our main office. Instead, our team has been divided amongst several floors in this state office building with five employees per floor. Each group of five is crammed into an office no bigger than a janitor’s closet. Each janitor’s closet is basically lined with five desks with a small cubicle partition in-between each one. When one employee backs out a chair, it is easy for the employee to run into the back of another chair. Our floor is the absolute worst because I share the room with both the over manager and manager. So the phones are ringing off the hooks constantly and people are constantly coming in and out our closet to ask questions. Sometimes I look at the deplorable conditions and just laugh. I never see the sun unless I am fortunate to have to run an errand to the main office, first because we have no windows, second because I leave home before the sun rises, and third because I leave work after the sun has set. Amazingly, this is my third “crunch” on this project, and my illness has given me no trouble. I brazenly tell my coworkers I have absolutely no life outside of my work. In their own misery, they claim that I do, and then they project an imaginary life onto me. If I come in late in the morning, or leave slightly late in the evening, they ask: “So, who is she?” I insist that there is nobody, but they prod me even further, insisting that I have a very active social life and that I want to avoid letting them in on it. They think that I am some type of Saturday Night Fever disco kid on week-ends because I take Salsa lessons. They seem to have the impression that I am some sort of professional club-hopper that throws parties and has women staying over at his house all the time. Nothing could be further from the truth, but the more I try to convince them, the more they refuse to believe me. No wonder why I am so single. Such was the case when I said that I wanted to work only eight hours on Saturday instead of the required ten and make up the lost time later so that I could attend the Saturday night LSU football game with my old Houston roommate. Instantly, they started saying that I had a date Saturday night and that the manager should not let me off unless I told them all about it. My manager then said that I could not have it off because I was not allowed to have a life. She was joking, of course. Actually, I had a few options for this weekend. First, the singles group that I eat dinner with on Friday nights is getting together a group to go to Graham Central Station (a mega bar/club) in Lafayette on Saturday night. I was planning to go until my roommate called and invited me to go with him to the LSU game. What will be exhausting are some plans I have to go fishing outside of New Orleans with my dad and maybe my brother on Sunday morning. I have to drive to New Orleans late at night right after the game. I really would prefer fishing another weekend except for the fact that this may be the last really good fishing weekend for the rest of the year. Unfortunately, my not going to Lafayette does not help my chances of meeting any eligible women. Tomorrow night, Halloween, I have three choices for things to do, none of which I really like because they make me feel completely desperate, even though I really am. First, the college church I had been involved in is throwing some sort of Halloween dance that I could attend. Second, the dance studio where I take lessons is also throwing a Halloween dance. Lastly, the singles group is eating dinner. In options one and two, I would have no date to bring. The college church would have nothing but giddy college girls present; the dance studio would have nothing but married couples and old ladies. By default, the last option, as desperate as it may sound, may be the only one I feel comfortable choosing. What bothers me about it all is that all over the country young people in my age group will be throwing Halloween parties and I will not be going to any of them. To make matters worse, I have to be at work early the next Saturday morning. If this is not an example of a twenty-seven year-old single male with no life, I do not know what is. As a result, the stage for my Halloween has been set. I will be a vampire who lives in a janitor’s closet with four others, one of them a sadistic torturer posing as my manager. After the sun goes down, I will leave my crypt like a zombie brain-fried after my grueling day of torture. I suppose I will then go to dinner with the singles group to see if my costume scares anyone. Unfortunately, I cannot take my costume off. |