Introducing Angela

First and last days at work are related in that neither is very productive. The morning before my first day at the job was one that started early. I spent over an hour wondering what attire would really be appropriate. I settled on the white demi and button up shirt with the same pants I would wear every night waitressing at my second job. I say "settled" because looking back...it was probably my only choice. My other choices were shirts that still reeked of garlic and ranch; that all too familiar smell that only a restaurant worker would know.


Garlic and ranch were just about as hard to get out of my clothes as the sour milk stench left over from Starbucks. Here again is another perfect metaphor for the working life. Everyone wants to work at Starbucks because they daydream about coming home smelling of coffee and caramel. "Life would be good, if only I could come home smelling of coffee and caramel." Instead, you find out quickly that coffee and caramel were high hopes. You might have had to work in a store where the drain in the floor was located at the highest elevation possible. If you know anything about physics, you know that water likes to take the route with the least resistance, . . . that means that a drain located at the TOP of a slope rarely gets utilized to it's full potential. Water does not flow uphill, no instead it wicks itself up the unsuspecting pant leg. How this works is puzzling to me. Water won't take a slight incline to the nearest drain but would much rather take the straight vertical route up your pants, soaking you to the knees.

Or you might have had the day at work where you finally did have clean clothes, all bleached and ready. Oh, that white shirt was pristine until you were holding a 5 gallon tub of pre-made, chilled coffee close to your chest and someone carelessly bumped into you. It didn't help that the tub was fixed with a lid so that even the slightest nudge would send the liquid up and out onto that beautiful newly starched, tucked-in polo that fit every dress code standard. Soon the dreams of being the crisp, clean and cheery barista fade into beige. Beige, because beige blends quite well with sticky coffee stains and because beige smells just as bad as white or black does, and beige because beige was one of the acceptable dress code colors. If there's one thing I've learned about dressing for work, it's this. If it's boring, it's dress code. And if beige is anything...it's boring.

Back to the white demi and button up. With one last adjustment my clothes and I were ready to face our first day at "not-Starbucks" and I was stoked. The first thing on the agenda of non-productiveness was the "Intro" which is NOT to be taken lightly. First impressions are everything and they are nothing at the same time.

I'd like to pause there for a second and bring up the inspiration for this memoir. I'm sure I'm not the only one working in an office who feels as if they're in some parallel universe to the show, "The Office." If you know anything about the show and its characters, you'll know more about the people I work with. The similarities I've seen are not almost scary...no, they're terrifying. The first similarity is Angela, the accountant.

Angela the accountant is cold, judgmental, and uptight. Anything inappropriate is given an open and public frown. She is an artist at shifting blame and pairing it with insult and of all of the people in the office, you know very soon that you don't mess with her. Even if you were fortunate enough to come to work dressed appropriately enough for her, it would all be forgotten the day you wore a color as "whorish" as green or orange. This lady is the epitome of "hard to please." And if I've learned anything in my early years of being cooped up by strict judgmental rules, the ones with the turtlenecks are the ones with the dirtiest secrets.

Angela has her fair share of dirty secrets as well, which become more apparent as the show goes on, but for now, we'll keep her where she wants to be. . .elevated above all others, poised, perfect, at fault for nothing, and definitely...DEFINITELY better than you.

My assigned introduction-ist was a mirrored reflection to Angela and for this reason, I will refer to her as Angela (because if this blog is anything, it's seeing the humor in situations, not smearing the names of actual coworkers). Soon I was being paraded around the office as the new salesGIRL emphasis on the “girl” because turns out, I was the only salesGIRL. This was made obvious to me when all of the sales recording documents had to be changed. Instead of saying "Salesman" everywhere, everything was unisexed to "Salesperson."

Being that I've been fooled by first introductions before, I was determined not to be affected by the comments made under Angela's breath about each person I shook hands with. "This is Meredith, our receptionist," she would say with a smile, and then when she was sure we were out of earshot she finished her statement with, "We just hired her, I'm not sure she'll make it much longer."

One by one each person was introduced to me and I tried my hardest just to listen to the introductions given to me in public, not the ones shared between her and I in private. "Not this time, not this job!" I would say in my head. "This time I'm going to like everyone I work with, I won't allow these negative thoughts about people to infect my---"

Angela interrupted my inner dialogue. "And this is Michael as you already know." Of course I already knew, Michael was the boss, the same guy that asked if I was single at the interview. "Watch out for him," Angela said, "He's a creeper."

"Suuuuure he is," I thought, "she's just saying that because he's overweight and easy to pick on." I tried my best to forget that comment, but it was soon burned into my brain.

After intro's it was time for a one on one meeting with Michael, the boss, in the conference room. Yes, we have conference rooms just like "The Office." They're identical. They have large picture windows so everyone can see what's going on inside but only speculate as to what's actually being said. And yes, we have silly meetings in there, just like "The Office" where Michael does his best to slaughter things like diversity, respect, and sexual harassment policies. And now that we're on the topic of sexual harassment, let's press our ears against the walls of this conference room and listen in to the conversation.

"I'd like to welcome you to the company Amanda," said Michael.

"Thanks," I replied as I sat there with perfect posture.

Any woman with breasts has an inner sensor that goes off when someone is "sneaking a peek." I imagine it is similar to the built in timer in a bird's head that tells them when it's time to fly south for the winter. Normally, when a woman feels this glare her first instinct, or my first instinct at least, is to make sure I'm covered. So, without thought, I take my right hand and pull up the white demi shirt, just in case the cup overfloweth.

Michael stopped mid-sentence. "You can't do that," he said.

"Can't do what?" I asked innocently, as the pulling up of the shirt was purely automatic and not something I actually thought about.

"You can't pull up your shirt like that, it's distracting."

There I sat with red-cheeks, first day on the job already wishing for the second time that I was holding a recording device under the table.

"Sure thing." I answered, embarrassed.

And the conversation just ended. Michael didn't even try to finish the sentence he left in mid-air. He really was distracted. Fortunately for me, the meeting ended there and I walked to my new desk, head down, shirt buttoned all the way up to my neck. Suddenly Angela's turtlenecks were sounding more and more “appropriate.”

First Day Jitters

It's been two years, seven months, and twenty-one days since I lay on my futon mattress without a frame, crying with tears of joy. A stranger looking in on me might wonder what could make this girl in her early twenties so happy.

Looking in from the outside, this girl had hit rock bottom. Newly divorced, up to her eyeballs in debt, the owner of a lovely black lab that had only one aspiration which was chewing the crotch out of every pair of pants she owned. A quick inventory of the drab one bedroom apartment and its cupboards would result in 2 mugs, a plate, a few pieces of silverware probably stolen from the restaurant which employed her, and a pot "borrowed" from her neighbor which she had accidentally and permanently burned beyond repair at an attempt to cook rice. The stained burber carpet was disintegrating with each step weighed upon it, the damages would surely be taken from her deposit at the end of her lease. The stained burber carpet was a perfect metaphor for her life at that time, life was falling apart with each heavy, exhausted step. And don't forget the futon mattress which acted as bed, dog bed, couch, and clean laundry spot.

Normally, when the phone rang it was a collector. Someone needing money immediately, money they deserved and money she didn't have. If you were a waitress that had to come up with $4,000 a month to keep the creditors happy, you'd have collectors calling you too. So that's why when the phone rang this time, it seemed as if I had finally gotten my break.

It was an employer calling to let me know I got the job despite all circumstances. I arrived at the interview late, sweaty, and smelling of sour milk. The sour milk was residuals from the second job I held at Starbucks. 80 hour work weeks were killing me and almost sabotaged my attempt get getting this new job; the job to end all jobs.

Three days prior to this phone call, a man sat at the other end of a table eyeing me skeptically. "Could this girl in her early twenties, flush cheeks from the hurried bike ride over, really keep it together in this office environment?" Then came the first inappropriate question, "Are you single?"

"Am I single??" From my previous management training at Starbucks I knew this interview question was perfectly illegal. I remember thinking, "it sure would be great if I had a recording device right now, because if I don't get this job, I can sue their asses for discrimination." Little did I know, that would not be the last time I wished I had a recording device in my pocket.

"I just need to know that you wont meet some guy in Iraq and get married in the next few years, I'm looking for someone long term." Again, this statement seemed highly inappropriate. But when you're desperate for the job to end all jobs you'll ignore all of that stuff.

Sadly, I was single, I had no time for a relationship. I used that to my advantage and somehow, despite all odds, the phone was ringing in my depressing apartment to let me know that I had landed the job. It was the perfect job. Monday-Friday; 8-5, salary plus commish, create my own schedule, no cold-calling, gas mileage paid, paid vacation, ahhhh the warm tears of joy were really flowing now.

Immediately I called Starbucks to put in my two weeks notice, no more 4:00am shifts for me, and the waitress job? Within a few months I would quit there too.

Little did I know that there were people here in the office we shall name "Hotel California" who were frantically trying to warn me. If only they had known my phone number, or my address, they would have told me not to check in, to look patiently for the next "vacancy" sign. But they were too late.

Don't worry though, for this story is not a tragedy. This story is a dark comedy. A story of a young girl who's found herself surrounded by people more than twice her age, all prisoners of the office, all victims of the camp of concentration. The movie, "Life is Beautiful" comes to mind, where the main character must use humor and imagination to protect his son in the concentration camps of the holocaust. Here, in the office, we too use humor and imagination, for it is the only way to survive.

The following entries are memoirs of the past 2.642 years delightfully paired with the coping skills I've learned from one of my favorite shows, "The Office." Without the help of characters like Jim Halpert, Michael Scott and even Dwight Shrute, I could not be writing this, for my arms would be strapped behind me in a straightjacket and the padded walls of my cell would not be a very reliable writing surface.