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.”
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