Well, after graduating college, at least. I’d had my fair share of employment ever since I turned 15, but that wasn’t the “real world.” This was my first job ever after 16 years of education and a fancy piece of paper with my name on it in nice calligraphy. My first job as an “adult” in the “labor force,” this mythical entity that gets things done.
Bright and early at 8:45 in the morning, I arrived to the front door. It was locked. I waited. And waited. By 9:15, someone finally arrived, looking tired and groggy.
“Oh, you must be Danila,” she said, she being an attractive middle-aged woman with deep creases on a once perky face. “Well, here’s your desk. Oh, and let me show you where our kitchen is.”
Aware of the kitchen, coffee in hand, and now back at my desk, I received further instruction. “Okay, well, your duty is to answer the phone… but, we’re installing a new system now, and I don’t think that thing’s working… So, um, I’m just going to take the calls at my desk… and.. you know… you ummm… greet people as they come in the front door.” She walked off.
Yes, I was now at a desk, in the reception area of a fancy glass office, with a television cranking some business channel, and a broken phone. With the blessed duty of staring at the door and saying hi to the people that walked in, who all worked there already and knew quite well where they were going. Thankfully, I had a computer.
As had countless assistants, receptionists, secretaries and other administrative staff before me, I proceeded to pass the time. An hour on the internet. Then an hour on the internet. Another cup of coffee. Then lunch! An hour of blessed reading away from air conditioning so cold that I was soon wearing long johns and sweaters into the office in mid-August. Then an hour writing a stupid poem about the air conditioning, and of jumping out of window of the eleventh floor, which happened to be where I was. An hour on the internet. Oh yeah, and running to the bathroom every 15 minutes because that’s what four cups of coffee, then a tea or two will do to your bladder.
I was not a happy camper, but such is the life of an office temp. As I later understood, one of the administrative assistants had taken a week of vacation, and to validate her job and show that she was a necessary employee, she paid a temp agency $22 an hour to send me to sit at her desk. Of course I made half that, but what the hell. She probably made half that too.
By the end of my eight days in the office, I had broken through my initial wall of zen. In the first few days I was productive, writing a 1500-word story, applying to other jobs, and stealing pens. By the last day, I was writing letters on company letterhead to a few close friends, and acting surly to the fellows who came in and out of the office, who all seemed unequivocally stodgy. The only work-related thing I did was make one cup of coffee for a stodgy visiting business-person coming for a meeting.
This was not the happy start to a rich professional life that I deserved! I should be out in the sun, running around! I had a college degree, damn it, and I shouldn’t be forced to sit in some frigid 11th story office listening to the same commentators rehashing the same bland stories for dramatic effect!
And neither should anyone. The labor force gets things done, after all, and we’re not just monkeys.
