Office Space Redux

At 2:15 on Tuesday we received an e-mail from our Executive Director. It simply read, “Hello. We will have a brief team meeting at 3pm today (Tuesday) in the conference room.” This was annoying on many levels, not the least of which is that I hate (hate) parenthetical notations like that. Like when people say “I would like to order fifty-two (52) of the pike variety fish tacos.” Are we too dumb to know what fifty-two is? Or 52? Do you just like typing? It is completely antiquated in the age of emails and also it's rather snooty. The other reason this e-mail angered me is because you can’t call a meeting 45 minutes before you want it to start! It’s just disrespectful to your employees. Also, I was really into a great game of internet Scrabble.


Nonetheless, all 5 of us grudgingly converged on the conference room, employees on one side, boss on the other. Dorothy, our executive director, had written on the dry erase board, “What is AOP?” Shoot. I really don't think I know this one.

As we sat, she smiled at us in that crazy cat lady way of hers that spells doom. Dorothy has a fervor for this company that never in my life will I understand. She gets here at 6:30 every morning. She has come in every weekend for the twenty (20) plus years that she’s worked here. She personally decorated the bathroom and on occasions such as these likes to have meandering meetings on no discernable topic. I think she sees herself as a combination role model, mentor and Hilary Clinton style tough gal. Her blinking jingle bell earrings betray her.

“I called you all here because I thought that we should do some mission building,” she began. “So—what is it that we do? What are we here for?” Everyone looked down. My direct boss began to write, seemingly taking notes, but when I looked closer I could see she was doodling her name over and over again. Thankfully, Dorothy called on our Membership Director. “What do we do? What purpose do we serve?” Dorothy was leaning back in her chair now, ankle crossed over knee, fingers folded into a steeple under her chin. If she had eyebrows, I feel certain that one of them would be raised. It was like she’d seen how this was done in a movie and was thrilled to be playing the part in real life.

“Um. Generally. What I…um tell people,” stammered our poor director, “Is that we are a membership association. Dedicated to providing services. For members.” I thought that was pretty good. I certainly couldn’t do better and as I chanced a glance around the table it seemed nobody else could either.

“Excellent!” Dorothy exclaimed in an oddly triumphant manner, at which point she launched into a thirty (30) minute monologue that I’m sure she must have practiced in the shower that morning. It was meandering, nonsensical, boring and hilarious.

“I’m like a bus driver,” she began. “And when I’m driving, sometimes I forget that I can’t be a passenger and when the passengers want to go see the biggest ball of string in the world I might pull over because I don’t want to be an ogre-boss because we’re a family but also we can’t have anyone on the bus with stinky feet …”and on she went. And on, and on.

And on.

I watched her as she hit her stride, gesticulating wildly, eyes alight with a fervor born of mission building. Slowly a guilty, uncomfortable sort of feeling began creeping over me that I promptly tried to ignore. A restless, anxious feeling that had been sneaking around my cubicle for months now. I was uneasy. I work here, I like to think I do a good job, but I’m incapable of caring about it. I’ve tried to care about it. I honestly have. Dorothy certainly cares about it.

“…and if we were on a boat maybe we could go fishing but it’s also important to check your sonar and gadgets...” There was no end in sight.

It’s not unhappiness lurking around my desk, more like uncertainty. It’s my quarter life crisis. The life crisis no one tells you about because it doesn’t result in sports cars or affairs with the pool boy. It’s the period after college and before babies when you realize that you have no idea what it means to follow your bliss, even though that quote was your mantra throughout those formative years. It’s the period where you realize that maybe your parents had it right after all—perhaps a job is just a job.

“…and a copy machine that collates and staples is important but if it doesn’t work properly then it is just junk and we’d be better off with that monkey we passed…” My boss had stopped writing her name and began writing, “What the hell?” over and over in a curvy sort of script. Everyone else was glassy eyed. I tried to tune out, thinking about my dinner and what I guessed would happen next in Twilight (spoiler alert— he’s a vampire and she's an idiot) But every couple of minutes that uncomfortable pang came back to me. Maybe my mom’s desire to be a mom and my dad’s desire to provide for a family wasn’t as antiquated-child-of-the-50’s-antifeminist as I thought. Maybe the fact that a job makes the rest of your life possible is what makes it blissful and meaningful? Maybe my career isn’t where my passion lies? Maybe that’s ok.

We were in there for about an hour, treated to more road trip metaphors and assurances that we could do great and good things for the doctors of our association. Over the course of the meeting it became clear to me that not only did none of us know what our association really does, we don’t know where we fit into the umbrella association above us, nor do we know what everyone else does day-to-day. It wasn't just me that wasted hours a day taking quizzes to tell me what Harry Potter House I belong in (Hufflepuff) or which Tim Burton character I am (Ed Wood).

For a while I was buoyed up by the comforting knowledge that I’m not the only one perpetually waiting desperately for 5:00 to roll around. But that comfort has slowly evaporated and prickly questions linger. Shouldn't I just shut up and be grateful that I have a job in times such as these and that my working life makes my actual life possible? And yet, am I really paying student loans so I can procrastinate on that mailing I need to send out? It somehow feels like a waste to spending my days sending certificates to members who don’t care. But what would I do instead? Probably no one will pay me, much less give me health insurance, to plan fun things to do with my friends. There has got to be more to me than this. God, I hope so anyway.

I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. At twenty-seven, I’m told that’s a common feeling. This is a coming of age I didn’t expect. It’s a karmic kick in the pants. It’s a reminder that I still have a lot of growing up to do while the person I wanted to be and the person I am about to be duke it out. In the mean time, Dorothy is my bus driver and I have something to learn from her twenty (20) years in this association. As she so sagely wrapped our meeting, “We’re just in a tunnel, and none of us can see out of it but that’s why we have an office so we can get through the tunnel together and make sure we don’t scrape the sides of the bus too much on the way out!”