I should think that just about everyone reading this entry knows me a little bit better now than they did a year ago (a few fortunate souls like Josh, Carmen, and Emily are only subjected to my lunacy from afar). But if I asked you point-blank what I did at work every day, how would you answer, I wonder?
"Something in computers."
"Uh, aren't you pretty much paid to be a geek? Isn't that like Conan O'Brien being paid to be a dork? Or like Marcel, the monkey on
Friends, being paid to jump around and throw feces on the walls?"
"Each and every day, you help form the bedrock of the super-information highway." (Thanks to Dirk for that one)
"Oh, man...please don't ask me that. You know I have no idea what you do, and I'm sleepy enough as it is."
Okay, so it's a mystery. I get that last response about 90% of the time. But I know that secretly you wonder. Oh yes, you wonder. What kind of job would possess this guy to write such ridiculous posts late at night and still get up the next morning? You need to know the answers, whether you know it or not, so that's what I'm here for.
Every morning, it starts with an epic showdown between me and the alarm clock. This is where I take on the role of France in World War II. Twenty minutes later, I'm simply getting beaten in every possible aspect of the battle, and this is the point where I groggily realize that such battles are never fought in isolation. Quickly, much bigger powers are very reluctantly drawn in--Kelly and the cat. Sydney realizes that the alarm means that ol' Dad is supposed to get the hell out of bed and feed her. Kel mumbles something incoherent, but I've become educated enough to decipher as, "Get your
ass out of
bed and stop that infernal, God-awful
beeping." With all these forces working against me, I have no choice but to concede defeat yet again and start the day. Sometimes, it's just the
injustice of it all, you know?
After the quickest-possible-route-to-the-front-door-after-falling-out-of-bed sequence of events that follow, I start up the iPod and dazedly make my 35-minute commute to work. Often I look around and see the same hapless souls, zoned out on cruise control, and wonder where it is that they work. The Wrangler jeans building? Krispy Kreme? The exotic car wash? I suppose I'll never know. If I listen to my Mom, half of them will probably die in horrific, mangled interstate accidents before they get to where they're going, anyway.
But as always, I safely arrive at my destination, a beautiful but secluded eight-story parking deck on Elm Street. Four hundred thirty-eight half turns later, I've found an open parking spot on the sixth floor and proceed to the elevators. Everything is feeling good until my elevator stops on the fifth floor, the door opens, and I see a guy walking the opposite direction to get on the
other elevator. I know immediately that he hit both of the buttons on that floor to see which elevator came the fastest, so I give his back my ever-ineffective death stare and continue downward after the standard wait of 12.6 seconds. I feel my pride starting to push forward, but I push it back down: not today, my friend. There's no room for pride on this day.
I cross the street and go through the too-small revolving door. We're not allowed to use the traditional doors because the first-floor bank employees get cold if we do--and we'd never want to disrupt the warmth we
usually feel in a bank. At any rate, I then take another thirteen-floor flight to the 14th floor. For those of you not used to corporate life, you need to know that you can
never name a floor the 13th floor. It's like inviting the hand of God to come down and crush you like the tiny, insignificant being that you are. Because somewhere, someplace, the number 13 really made one of the boys upstairs very angry. Maybe the archangels sat around eating donuts and the poor guy who drew #13 was always the first one shafted.
So after using a special security card to enter my side of the "14th" floor (access to mortgage insurance information must be guarded at all costs), I head over to my cubicle. When I first arrived at UG, I was greeted by three vacant walls that could only be described as that color of peanut butter that somehow survived the dishwasher. Since that day, I have covered these walls with every piece of paper imaginable: posters from
Despair.com, any award I've received (no matter how silly), commercial advertisements, pictures of cousins (yes, Amber, congratulations), marketing materials, textbooks, anything with pretty colors (I don't know what half of it says), a big white board, the plastic miniature water cooler that my Aunt Cindy gave me, and even a full collection of semi-stolen nametags of all the people that once worked on my floor but have since quit, been fired, or just let go. Most people give these nametags a strange look, but for the most part no one asks questions.
So I sit down, and the day begins. I check my voicemail messages by hitting about twenty keystrokes to access the one feature I use 98% of the time. I sift through about 25 unread e-mail messages, ten or so of those spam. Our company spam filter catches half of the e-mails I send from my home account, but often misses those asking me to enlarge my breasts for a relatively cheap price. After making sure there are no pressing emergencies, I usually start the process of creating a report that goes to about 70 employees each morning. This report is part of my job as assistant Incident Manager, which includes coordinating and responding to all of the system outages we have as a company (web applications, database, networks, phone system, you name it). This is a critical job but not one that's all that much fun to do. Anyway, the report I send out every day provides updates and communication regarding all unresolved system outages. Trying to put an entertaining spin on these updates, however, is like trying to maintain a straight face while calling
Lost In Translation a "hilarious" movie. Both of these have been done with a very low degree of success.
After the majority of the report is done, I work on various web applications that form the backbone of our company. No one cares about what I do as long it's done right, certainly myself included. Lunchtime finally hits and I often walk down the street to a local restaurant with Dirk, Kevin, Cliff, and/or Jan, and then come back to the office for more work. But alas, in between all of the desk work, we have meetings. The one true savior of corporate business.
Meetings begin when lower-level employees need to discuss something and none of them have an office. This is roughly the same problem as playing a four-player game of Mario Kart in a narrow, cramped dorm room, but doing so with people that you usually don't want to be close to. So rather than crowd into a cubicle, you find a meeting room and send out an invite. Everyone checks schedules, gives the go-ahead, and the real work begins.
A meeting is like a party in only one aspect--most of the people arrive there fashionably late. For the first ten minutes, you make awkward conversation about the weather, the latest TPS report, the strange lines appearing on the 10th floor copier, whatever. You'd like to sleep but there's always
someone who inexplicably thinks that's less productive. Finally, after everyone arrives, you hammer out a couple of action items (I'm not making this up), and adjourn fifty minutes later. Back at my desk, I find 25 more unread e-mails and repeat the morning sequence--this time a random e-mail advertises that my sex life could be much better with the help of a new miracle-working drug. I take a couple minutes to find the most appropriate person to forward this on to, then get back to work.
Repeat this for roughly three meetings a day, and ladies and gentlemen, you've just made some money in the corporate world.
But finally, and perhaps the best part of all, is the safety you find working in a corporation. This is because you only have to worry about making three types of decisions:
- When to go to the restroom
- When to take the stairs versus the elevator
- Where to go for lunch
All other decisions are run by management--it's magical! The way I see it, I'm just a few diapers, a lunch box, and a stairmaster away from a decision-free life. Ah, the serenity of it all. :)
The sequence begins anew in only seven hours...want to come along for the ride?
