Office Space

I haven’t written you much about the quirkiness of office life lately, but on a Monday when I’m feeling slightly uncreative, I think it’s time to tell you some of what’s been going on.

• Many of you know of my displeasure at being surrounded by a department full of loud people. Please don’t read this as me disliking the loud people. They are all perfectly nice. It’s just that their jobs are very different than ours and sometimes that makes doing our work difficult. A few weeks ago, after they had presumedly been told once again to remember to keep it down because we’re editorial and their jobs are more relational, they presumedly got tired of the warning. Or were mad at one of us. I don’t know. What I do know is that when they got loud in the hallway, then they started saying things (loudly) like: Shh! We have to be quiet! They’re editors! (please say the word editors with a condescending voice) or You better be quiet! They’ll get mad. OK, we get that this situation is as hard on you as it is on us. No sense being so junior high about it. I’ve decided to battle the problem by being kind to these people. So far, it seems to be working. Or my attitude is changing. Or I’m getting used to the loudness.

• We have a printer/copier/etc. machine that was supposed to be amazing and do so many amazing things. (Some of the things that were told to me: It makes PDFs! I wanted to point out I could do that on my computer. It has this private function where things won’t print until you get to the machine and push in the code! I would like to point out that that function doesn’t seem to work for me. It can be used as a printer! But the copies aren’t that great—because they’re basically photocopies.) We still have one black and white laser printer for the whole floor (and we’re a department of editorial folk who print A LOT, along with the other department on the floor who travel and train and therefore, print A LOT), one color printer that’s way fancy and I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to use it, ever. And then there’s our printer/copier. Let me just say this: I understand why we went down to one printer. I really do. It’s just that these printers are going to get a lot of wear and tear and a printer/copier can’t serve as our primary printer because it probably won’t last. And now they’re located really far away from many of our offices, so most of the time, print-outs lie there forgotten until we walk by and notice the sheef of papers towering precariously on top of the printer.

• There’s some shifting in offices going on. In the shuffle, the Juan Valdez room (which is what we called our “break” room—the room with fridges, toasters, etc.) moved across the hall. And it’s now in a room with the shared Mac (for interns or people who need InDesign when it’s not loaded on their computers). Let’s think on this: fridges, toasters, microwave, drinks, food, and high-dollar computer equipment and the fancy color printer. I just fear something really bad is going to happen. And that I’ll be the one to spill Powerade all over the computer.

• In our revised dress code, denim skirts are off-limits. I’m really not sure why unless someone wore a really short one or if someone has a deep-seeded hatred for denim below the waist, as jeans are never allowed. Ever. Denim jackets are OK, but not jeans or denim skirts. So in the past month or so, I’ve seen two or more women wearing denim skirts. Because my department has been very stringent about obeying the dress code, I was surprised. And wondered if they’d gotten in trouble. And then, wanted to report the violation to someone, anyone, because I’m apparently mean-spirited.

I’m sure more random things will happen soon. I’ll let you know when I spill something in the Techno/Juan Room. Because it’s really just bound to happen. I did destroy the electric hole puncher when I first started in this department. But now, I should probably hike over to the printer room and see if I’ve left any copies sitting there unclaimed over the weekend.