StreetWorthy

Working Girl: A 9:00-5:00 Coming of Age

For the bi-annual all-staff meeting – the 1st I’ve attended – my boss thought it would be cute, and a great bonding activity, to take photographs of staff members’ faces, crop out everything but their mouths, and then hold a game wherein participants from various departments have to guess-who. Some celebrities were thrown in for extra zaniness.

It was a nice idea, but there were some problems with the execution. Time was an issue. The game was difficult, everyone had a full 30 seconds to guess, there were about 15 players, and quite a few pictures. Furthermore, what had looked presentable enough on a standard-sized monitor was brutally detailed when projected onto an eight by ten foot screen. A mature man’s beard and teeth at that size were horrifying – the beard unkempt, flowing like a raging waterfall, the teeth slimy and yellowed. Half the people’s pores looked wide as manholes, and more oily complexions slick with moisture.

Sometimes the crowd couldn’t help but gasp – cry out, even. The more attractive mouths had people naming the prettier of the young women – though not with great success - and some pictures were too non-descript to place at all. The real low point involved the cheerful, boyishly cute Sue-Yun, who works on my floor. Her face is pale, but on screen, so much so that her numerous pores appeared blue. She had some stray hairs which are probably never visible under normal circumstances, but on screen this was confusing, and most people were guessing men. The discomfort thickened as the gender boundaries blurred. No one was guessing correctly and Grant, the manic Community Liaison, had had it with people not adhering to the timing parameters. Sue-Yun’s name was announced, and an embarrassed silence came over the group, although everyone tried hard to look really casual about it.

“That’s messed up,” whispered Julia, a graceful young Case Manager.

Activities like the mouth photo guessing game are a regular feature in office culture, and I wonder why it would seem desirable to highlight how little we know of each other - even visually. Would it make Barret feel good to know that out of the context of his badly-lit office, without his bulging gut and spreading bald spot, he is a stranger to us? Do the powers that be on whatever planning committee think these games will inspire us to reach out to each other, so that we're intimate enough to spot each other by our nostrils alone?

The truth is, most of us cannot be our true selves in a professional or semi-professional setting, not unless there's not much more to you than an affinity for chinos and a bottomless fixation with the weather. Rules of appropriate conduct force us to edit ourselves constantly, not to mention power dynamics and the Pandora’s box of political identity issues that shape our daily interactions. I learned about all these "isms" in college, wrote entire papers on such things. Intro to Psych is also pretty fresh in my memory, where I learned about the formation of the self, and how strongly it is reinforced by those that surround you. I thought that by recognizing oppression one would somehow be automatically above it, able to demand respect - granted you're not dealing with a Klansman. I didn't realize that asserting one's human dignity might get you fired - or on someone's shit list - that the self could be threatened with suffocation, or fragmented into irreconcilable shards of being.

I work at a Bay Area non-profit, which sounded just fine straight out of college - especially because I am a "Communications Assistant" and technically get paid to write (Mostly the hokey little staff newsletter, but still.) Not only is it roughly in my field, but it's a non-profit! I'll be gaining experience and resisting the Man!

I don't know what I expected, exactly. Looking for a job, I thought it might come to food service and retail, and all I was really concerned about was paying the rent and surviving in one of the world's most expensive cities. This job was better than I imagined for myself, and I began with sincere enthusiasm and even a degree of formality.

But a job is a job, and a full time office-job is something that nothing could have prepared me for.

"We're like a family here," says the Executive Director, at an obligatory farewell potluck for the retiring Director of Administration. Managers the world over are fond of reminding their underlings of this. She may have expected some sympathetic nods or a colorful call and response chorus, but most people suddenly found renewed interest in their plastic cutlery, which seems an accurate enough representation of home life to me. I've seen movies and TV shows where upper management remind their underlings of this bond, and I wonder how many other people in this room couldn't wait to leave home when they were young. Workplaces do take on a family-like dynamic, if only for the reason that these are people you did not choose, who you end up spending a lot of time with. It's fine for the Directors, who are basically in charge of things. They get to play adult roles in this household parody. The rest of us find ourselves in varying states of human development, and being young, female, and with the word "assistant" in my title, it's no wonder I feel like a child so much of the time.

The instinct to reject authority is still strong in me. There was a brief period of time when I was around 14 or so when my mother, hoping to create a healthy home togetherness between me, her, and her now ex-husband who I despised, insisted that I come out of my room after dinner to spend time with the two of them. I hadn't lived with her steadily in three years, and I resented what I understood as her ignorance of family life. Make a teenager come out of her room in the evenings? Are you kidding me? Not even over a movie, but just to talk? I had a million legitimate reasons to keep to myself in the evenings, as I almost always did at my dad's house. I had phone calls to make, homework to do or pretend to do, boys to fantasize about and music to blast. I had hours and hours of thinking and staring in the mirror to do, getting to know myself better. Playing the bratty stepdaughter - which is what I would invariably become in their presence - did not interest me, and willful young thing that I was, I stayed in my room that night. I even explained to my mother the error in her thinking. It's not that I wanted to disobey her, it was that she was asking something impossible for me to deliver.

Individuality requires a certain amount of privacy, and in my current position, I have none. My desk is in the fourth floor lobby without so much as a cubicle wall to shield a frank expression. Most people can put on a good face and have a place to brood later if need be, but I've got to stay in character. I find myself playing off others a lot, for better or for worse. On any given day, I can easily play a dozen roles. With the Executive Director, I can be the happy servant who makes you copies and coffee with a smile. With Dan, an accountant who's always asking me to scan forms for him, I'm the surly intern who's tardy and forever gmail chatting. In a committee meeting that involves political advocacy and my written contributions to a new newsletter, I'm the ambitious upstart with ideas, initiative and intelligence. On a bad day with my sympathetic manager, I can be the absent-minded depressive who spelled the governor's name wrong on the website and feels really guilty about it. With the couple of married flirts that give my computer monitor a playful tap every time they pass (it gets really old really fast) I'm the reluctant sex object with large breasts and vaguely hostile comments. Left alone on a slow day, I'm the would-be artist who spends too much time watering the plants and doodling. At any random moment to myself, I'm suddenly the subversive commie, using company time and resources to write and print her little indie magazine. This is just a sampling.

The point is that by the end of the day, I'll often want to act out the way children too young for unsupervised play do, which is to say bizarrely, with all the autistic mannerisms where I'm rolling my eyes back because it feels good and making strange new sounds with my vocal chords, shaking my head so hard my glasses fly off, being bawdy and naughty and starting every sentence in the same tone that kids use when they say "Guess what!!" to announce their ump-teenth non sequitur. That's my warm-up. Later in the evening, my tendencies turn adolescent, and I might want to drink, play my music loud, go out late or sleep with someone not right for me, just for the sheer defiance. At work the next day, I'll smile smugly at my desk, relishing the fact that no one here has any idea what I've been up to. "Good morning!" I'll say to the Director of Finance, smiling so hard I squint. Sucker.

There is a strategic policy specialist who sits on the other side of a cubicle wall from me. He's worked there for a while, and only needs to speak when he has something to accomplish by it. Or when others seek him out, which is often. For the longest time, I didn't get it, why others seemed to want his approval so much. It's true that he is young, attractive, and male in an agency with a population dominated by women with a stable of gay men and a handful of married ones. Still, though, he hardly speaks, hardly smiles! And yet there's always someone popping in with a jovial shouting of his last name.

Then I noticed that I wanted his approval, too. I'd laugh at someone's stupid joke or participate in a conversation about hair care, and I'd imagine him around the bend, inwardly groaning, putting on his headphones and pressing 'play' on his ipod with a decided motion. I'd say something funny and hope that he'd heard. I'd worry that he thought terrible things about me, that he hated me and thought I was the most despicable, phony brown-noser. Everything I said I put to the test, measuring it against what I guessed his reaction might be. I didn't know what to make of myself from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm, but I thought he might.

If I'm the child under everyone's nose and feet, he is the cool older brother who's saving up to move out. Of all the people in the building, he is the only one who seeks neither approval nor affection. He lives free of scrutiny, and while he demands his independence as any healthy young man would, his solitude is rarely taken an insult. Approval from many people here might mean little more than that I’m an adequate servant, but respect from this hip young guy means something. He can reject the parts of you that you wish you could but can’t afford to, and his approval would mean that you’re constructing an OK composite self. But while everyone would like a nod of recognition from him, you can't talk to this guy about the weather. Oh no. You have to earn his attention, and so far we’ve never spoken.

I recently met up with my real-life brother after work for a drink at a downtown bar. It was a place I'd been to before once or twice, to see someone's band. The bar was all polished mahogany, with mirrors and red lighting over the carved wooden booths. Art students from the nearby academy clustered here and there. Two girls wore dresses made of paper - probably fresh from presenting a project, enjoying a triumphant beer.

"So... how was work?" I asked once we had settled in.

"Oh...fine. You know... OK." He paused, his eyes shifting to the pin ball machines in the corner. "I don't really like talking about my job. It's not really my thing."

I nodded and smiled, wishing I could justifiably say the same. In addition to working full time, my brother crams every spare moment full of much more interesting commitments, i.e. playing in (really good) bands, writing plays which are actually produced, not to mention going out, dating, etc. Work, for him, is the second least demanding of his activities, the first being sleep.

I’ve tried to make distinctions between myself and my job, but mostly through subject pronoun use, which in my mind reveals a lot about one’s level of commitment. Do "they" provide such-and-such service, or do "we?" Do "we" perform these tasks, or do "I?" There is a poster on the second floor that reads "Teamwork means more 'we' and less 'me.'" Not surprisingly, I favor "I" and "they" over "we" in most cases. As in "I" would rather be doing something different. "I" have other plans. "I" will not turn myself into a representation of a company. One use of "we" and I start feeling like a cult member, or like the business students I remember from college who would go to class in suits, who couldn't wait to give up everything unusual about themselves for the non-personality of the moderately successful American.

The problem with "I" is that "I" really do spend many hours at this place every week. "I" wake up Monday through Friday and go straight there, "I" send and receive a dozen or more emails a day, all signed "Rita Sapunor/ Communications Assistant/ Anonymous Organization." I have a mailbox there with my name on it, a door code, a personalized workspace, and a direct line and a self-recorded voice message that would inform callers, even at 2:00 a.m., that "I" am away from my desk right now.

Even more telling is that at the end of the day, while my brother wants to change the conversation, I want to talk about it. Maybe I just want to complain about how someone swiped my post-its without even asking (“I would have lent it to him, but can’t you at least ask?”) how some people use my personal trash can under my desk without a word, or about some passive-aggressive asshole who keeps giving me advice about how to do my job even though he’s not even in this department. But I also might mention how I get to interview a city politician who I voted for, or how I wrote a story in the staff newsletter that people really liked. And then there’s what happened on the elevator today.

“I’m sorry to keep talking about my job, it’s just that… well, I’m there all day!”

“Don’t apologize. I wanna hear!” my brother affirms me, taking a sip of his Guinness.

Here’s my story. I was coming back from my morning break, and I walked up to the elevator and saw Josh – the strategic policy specialist – standing there waiting, which is unusual because he almost always takes the stairs (I would, but I still don’t have a key. Anyways.) I glance back as if I could escape from this situation or go back in time and space, and I think he noticed my distress. Mind you, we’ve never spoken. And the elevator comes and I wonder if we’re honestly going to ride up in complete silence or if he’ll stoop so low as to comment on the weather. I’ve resolved not to initiate any conversation.

We board. Then, just as the doors are closing, Olga, the Administration Manager, calls out to hold the doors. Both Josh and I bolt our arms out, relieved by this godsend of a woman. Always a Chatty Kathy, she immediately starts talking his ear off about some frivolous project she has planned for her department and if he could possibly have some hand in its unfolding. She mostly fills any air in the conversation (so much so that I find it difficult to breathe in such a confined space) whereas he responds with minimal nods and affirmative, though non-committal replies. She gets off on her floor, bubbling with excitement until the doors close shut. We only have one floor left to go, which isn’t that much time to go in silence, so I’m pretty relaxed, prepared to go the distance. But immediately after we begin our final ascent, he speaks!

“Yeah… I don’t care,” he says, and I never imagined candor could be so gently expressed. I laughed.

“Yeah, I picked up on that a bit,” I said. “I know all about that…” I was hoping that might explain any conversation I’ve ever had with my obnoxious boss Brenda that he might have overheard.

The doors opened, and out we walked, now, finally, on speaking terms. A few hours later, he walked by my desk on his way to his mailbox, grabbed the copy of the newsletter that I’d recently delivered, and started reading as he went out for his break. Not only am I cool enough to be an audience for his honest cynicism, my writing is fit to pass a coffee break! It’s been my highest moment of professional fulfillment to date. Let’s just hope he doesn’t throw it out in my own trashcan on his way back, I mused.

When you're in school, you can define yourself by what you study - some vast, expansive subject larger than you'll ever be, and by the dream you saw of your future, or the dream of the dream, your beatnik-like confusion. Once you leave that stage, you define yourself primarily in the present tense. You can still talk about the future, but in a much more grounded way, which is to say you talk about your plans. I'm lucky enough to see my current job as part of my plans. Otherwise, I'd just be the woman who keeps her job, but hates it, and at my income level that would be pretty sad. I am not a Communications Assistant. I work in communications. That transition from noun to verb could not be more vital to my self esteem.

Of course my life is my responsibility, and family dynamic aside, my superiors don’t have the same hold on me that my parents did when I was still a minor. If I want to quit, I can, and the only one keeping me here is myself. Being young and restless, I can’t imagine how anyone stays a year anywhere. Relevant to my plans or no, I’m impatient to move on, even as I fear the uncertainty of change, a fear which deepens with craigslist ad viewings that call for web writers to create up-to-the-minute fashion and media blogs and proofreaders to identify formatting inconsistencies in technical manuals.

For the time-being, I keep the job, although I fantasize about leaving them all behind me in one glorious exit from time to time (especially the day back after the New Year, when the first email in my inbox was from an upper level executive I can't stand, sent at 6:55 that morning, which consisted of a detailed sandwich order for a meeting three days away. And could I call so-and-so at such-and-such company to see what she will have? I was glad the data analyst had changed offices so he would not witness that humiliating telephone conversation. "What are your options? Um... turkey, liverwurst, prosciutto...") On days like that, I stay for the same reason that grown adults live at home with their parents - because it could be worse, because they have to survive, and because it's cold Out There.

Growing up, I often had fantasies that someone would whirl into my junior high economics class, for example, and demand that someone deliver a stunning rendition of say, "Baby I Love You" by Aretha Franklin. I was never sure who or what this mysterious demander of soul classics was (although I'm visualizing a cape, maybe a royal scepter. The ghost of James Brown crossed with the P.E. teacher.) The important thing, the thing that would excuse the unorthodox interruption to class and the bizarre stranger altogether, was that I would knock their socks off. The fantasy ended with the immediate aftermath - the class's slack-jawed amazement, the teacher's loud and open praise. Whatever gorgeous boy with a band who'd ask me out later never really entered the picture. What really mattered was that in that moment, I would suddenly be revealed as brilliant.

I've noticed a resurgence of these fantasies lately. They often take a more plausible setting of happy hour with the coworkers, one that we are surprised to hear features karaoke. Sometimes I've chosen something and ascend to stage with the quiet poise of a seasoned pro, other times someone has signed me up without my knowledge and I have to be coaxed onstage with encouraging clapping and cheers. Either way, I shine in a way that I usually can't around these people. The women scream gleefully, the men have goofy smiles and discreet erections. Everyone wonders why someone like me has the job that I have. In my fantasy, they blame themselves.