the newbie

It began as an ordinary enough day. Someone had left the shredder bag full, thus making it impossible for the next person to use it without emptying it first. There was also a sink full of dirty dishes that had been piling up since Monday. Today was now Thursday. You get the picture.

Somewhere along the timeline of a relatively ordinary put-me-out-of-my-misery-where-are-the-zombies-when-you-need-them day, someone did something to reach an entirely new level of ridiculous. That particular bar is fairly high in the world of a government office. Ridiculous goes on everyday, all day, all the time. But this was special.

I was sitting at my desk, scanning through a binder full of accounting codes in search of the one combination that would be appropriate for the item I needed to, well, account for. To give a visual representation of the type of hell I was in, let me put it this way: imagine a yourself in a large room filled with filing cabinets. Your task is:

Step one: find the right cabinet.
Step two: find the right drawer.
Step three: find the right file within that right drawer, which is within the right cabinet.
Step four: make sure you found the right cabinet.

And so, I was sitting at my desk, pouring over the various combinations of accounting codes that could represent this one invoice I needed to process. The binder is a three-inch, three-ring job that has seen better days. And it's full. Of accounting codes. Yep.

While hunched over the desk with terrible posture, I heard a cell phone ring. Our office has what are called 'pooled' cell phones; that is, no one person gets her or his own, but takes one with them if needed upon leaving the office on work-related business. Personal cell phones are rare with this lot of employees, so the sound of one generally means that it's a work phone ringing.

The soft-porn ring tone (who chooses these things?) interrupted me in my daze of numbers. I looked up to see one of our new, fresh out of university employees. She stood in front of me, held the phone out as if for me to take it, and she said the most astounding thing.

"It's ringing. What should I do?"

Ladies and gentlemen, I promise you that I'm not making this up.

I bent my head back down over my binder and replied to her in my most serious voice.

"I don't know. Maybe you should answer it?"

"Do you think so?", she asked.

"I'm not sure", I replied. "I honestly don't use those for my job."

Somewhere inside of me, a little bit of niceness wanted to lay down and die at that very moment. It was briefly taken over by a cynical, bitter old thought that wanted desperately to plant itself in the fertile soil of my generally optimistic mind.

Later that evening, I shoved the bitter thought aside and rejuvenated the optimism with a glass of wine. I thought about that young employee and what she was experiencing in this, her first professional job. At the tender age of 26. Yes. Her first actual job. How she must be so intimidated by all the trappings of office life: the copier, the fax machine...and those complicated cell phones.

I tried not to think of how I, at the age of 26, had been living on my own for eight years. I had been manager of a large retail centre with over a dozen employees. I had paid my own rent, phone and electric bills. I had cooked and cleaned for myself, with no one to do the dishes I left in the sink at night. No one but me.

Yes, it may be difficult to enter the strange world of professional work in one's late twenties. But it's also difficult for the rest of us to put up with their belated growing pains as we wait to vacate our desks in pursuit of what we truly want to do.

Somehow, we have to find a happy neutral place to work in the meantime. Perhaps the young ones, first time at the job, could do a bit more research on what it means to be a professional in an office.

I, on the other hand, will spend more time drinking wine and reviving the optimist in me. It's going to be tough, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.


~ Paige

The Vacant Desk: an introduction

Greetings to our educated masses; most of whom are my friends and the rest, well, I'm sure we'll meet over a pint or a glass of vino one day in the near future.

It's the end of another day of working for The Man. Regardless of where you work, or who you work for, those of you who have a job that's biding time until something else comes along - or you publish that winning novel - will be able to relate to working for The Man. Others may know friends or family who work for The Man. Perhaps you are currently working for The Man, but are in the denial phase. The denial phase comes right after the disaffected wanderer phase and slightly before the crestfallen idealist phase. Please check your status, and then return to reading this post.

I'm a writer. At least, that's what I tell myself. I'm happily struggling through my first novel - a fictional bit that is a little Canadiana and a little murder mystery. It's sort of like a "where's Waldo", but instead of looking for a funny fellow in a striped shirt, readers can play spot-the-Canadianism. Or they can just read a fun read. Whichever.

However, happily struggling through a first novel doesn't make a good fit should one wish to engage in regular mortgage payments and keep a balanced Canada Food Guide diet. So, I hold a job in an office. A government office at that. What an unusual world that is.

Few jobs are as transferable as that in office administration. I don't mean Administration - where people wear expensive suits, hold conferences (not meetings) and receive significantly higher salaries. No, I don't mean that - although doesn't it sound nice some days. I mean answer-the-phone-and-process-the-mail-and-sometimes-maybe-format-a-letter administration. Organization of the company paperwork, if one will. Management of rows of letters and words on reams of paper. Filing. Stationary ordering. Jane & Jack of all trades stuff.

I know there are many others like me out there, labouring in jobs taken temporarily until something better comes along or that one thing is finished/published/written/painted/sold. Maybe, like me, some of you have even had a few of these jobs, moving along the company ladder instead of up it. Just enough change in title, telephone extension and cubicle to keep you engaged for another few months, but not enough to keep you from updating your resume every week and checking out the help wanted section over your microwaved Lean Cuisine lunch.

This will be a record of our collective, ongoing, silent plight. It will capture the tales we tell to one another over coffee in environmentally friendly reusable mugs. Mugs that we have collected through years of office gifts for Administrative Professionals Week. Mugs that have happy, funny little sayings like "you don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps", or "so freakin' happy I can just scream".

Here, among the hallowed pages of the Internet (and likely owned in some way, shape or form by Google), we will share our frustrations about those who don't empty the communal shredder. We will rail against those who politely inform us that the copier needs a refill, and who then walk away. We will sneer at the person who, repeatedly, leaves the jammed stapler in the file room.

It is here that we will laugh at incorrectly addressed envelopes, gossip about someones tendency to hoard stationary and complain about the unwashed dishes left in the lunch room sink. We will find many, many other stories to share which reflect how desperately and quietly our hope, creativity & ambitions are being slowly eroded.

Think that's all The Vacant Desk will do? Please. My sense of self and stinging, wry wit hasn't completely withered up. Yet.

The Vacant Desk will be a beacon of light and hope for those working for The Man. It will help us shore up our crumbling inner self. Through the telling of tales we will remind ourselves - and each other - that we are valuable, educated and worthy of much more than a novelty mug.

Once in a while, we might be able to see that, despite the price we are paying in the interim, there is a door at the end of this long hallway. We will reach that door, turn the handle and enter the world we are meant to enter after transcending this temporary space.

We will leave behind a vacant desk, and nothing more.


~ Paige