Diary of a Day in The Cell
It’s Monday morning and I am full of life! The weekend is over, I am rested, and ready to jump right into the pile of work I left at my cubicle on Friday. “Rejuvenated” is my middle name as I take a deep breath of exhaust-filled air in the parking lot, heave my stained Discovery Channel book bag over shoulder, and head down the ramp whistling in the morning air. That’s right! I’m the best looking gal in the world!
I flip my ID badge with confidence at the Nazi security guard, as if to say, “Hey, Nazi Security guard! You don’t have to worry about me. I’m one of the good guys!” Life is good as I skip past the line of people hesitating at the full elevator, afraid that they might be the one to take it over its weight limit, but I fear not! If we crash, we crash happy! My goliath bag nearly knocks over an accountant, but fortunately he only suffers until the fourth floor where I depart with a spring in a step and a twinkle in my eye. Life is good and I am walkin’ on sunshine! As I near my aisle, I pass the boss’s boss. I say to him “Hi, Tom, how are you?” and he answers back “Faaaan-tastic!’ And you know what, Mr. Bossman? Today I’m feeling it too!
Then something happens and darkness falls as I turn the corner and catch site of that most evil of places where I sit for 8 hours a day. Suddenly time slows down as if I am caught in a White Rabbit hallucination from 1969. Somewhere in the distance all noise fades into a tin tunnel except for the haunting, faraway call of Jefferson Airplane telling me that the dormouse said to feed your head. Feed your head. That might be difficult because my head is growing heavy and full as I approach that gut-wrenching place…that dungeon of duty…that prison of project management…the cubicle of daily horror which I call….The Cell.
There is a reason Mondays have such a bad reputation.
With a panic attack brewing I slump into the supposedly ergonomic chair and hear my back cracking. As my eyes begin to roll back into my head I drop my stained Discovery bag and stifle a sob. The red devil eye is staring up at me from the phone. I briefly pray to Hecate, Greek goddess of the Underworld in which I am working, asking her to please let it be a message from Ed McMahon, or better yet, the Jury Duty people. But being that I am on-call this week (and generally cursed), I know it will be someone with a big problem, so I ignore its desperate plea for now.
Before diving into the pile of notes and papers heaped on my desk - which I keep there, by the way, because Bob Markiewicz says that a messy desk says to the outside world “I’m busy” even if I’m not, so I can always keep up the illusion - as I was saying, before diving into the pile of notes and papers on my desk, I pause to inhale an odor, and no my friends, this is not a good odor. No, it is a very bad odor. It isn’t foul like passing gas or raw sewage, but more sour like my dad’s feet. But I am unable to find the source so I rub a little Vicks on my upper lip like cops do when they find a dead person and move on.
I login to my workstation and find to my horror that my password has expired. Silently, I curse the Sarbanes-Oxley gods and pull out a page-long checklist from my file cabinet. All of my passwords are synchronized to expire on the same day each month, so this might take all morning. I check off “Windows” and find my way to the desktop. Before all my applications have finished loading, I open Internet Explorer and minimize to a five-millimeter window at the bottom of the screen. Yes, it’s the Yahoo home page! Okay, sure, one might argue that “My Yahoo” is not a necessary element to either A) Small Project Management or B) Software Development. But I would say to “one” that I am on the distribution list for “Future Project Managers of America” AND “Software Developers News.” Email. Newsletter thingy. So there.
Mere minutes into the morning I down my first bottle of water because I know the excess fluid will help me kill at least 5 minutes of time on the grump stump later in the afternoon. That’s the thing about life in The Cell. It’s feast or famine, sometimes all in one day, and you just never know. Right now though, I sense a feast approaching as I remember the list I left myself last Friday when I fled the building like a bat out of hell. I finally succumb to the evil red phone eye and dial my voice mail. I soon discover that Marty Moe in Bad Axe is experiencing slow printing and Barbie Blow from Pontiac can’t login to her Work Management system. I ponder the decisions: Should I tell Marty that his printing delays are normal for a Monday, and that perhaps if he hadn’t re-submitted the request 1432 times, the print queue would be just a SKOSHE less jammed? Or should I tell him this is a very serious ID.10-T error caused by termites eating through the LAN circuit, but if he could hold on for an hour or so, I will drop everything, rewire the circuit, and get him his critical Materials Report ASAP?
Should I tell Barbie to reboot, or should I contact Workstation Support and have her computer completely reloaded? That’s why they pay me the big bucks. It’s system-critical decisions like this that equal Job Security.
I decide to tell Marty and Barbie the truth, and also send Marty a note telling him to check here for YES and here for NO to indicate “do you like Barbie? She likes you.”
Nine o’clock, time for my first taste of coffee. I grab my cup and discover the source of the funky odor. Apparently, hot cocoa plus cheap coffee plus 48 hours equals my dad’s feet. Mental note to wash cup before leaving this evening. Just as the coffee is down to a mere caffeine skidmark on bottom of my cup, I start my next descent into hell trying to concentrate as my neighbor converses loudly with one of our clients. Will they fire me if I scream, “USE THE INDOOR VOICE!!!” But I am too nice and besides, it’s time for my second bottle of water.
After an hour or so of I.T. Anorexia, the tasks begin piling up again for the binge. I am suddenly overwhelmingly busy for the rest of the morning, during which time of COURSE everyone and their sister has a question about the project I am working on. Does anyone not care that I have 23 documents that need to be updated and two pages of emails unanswered? Though I thrive on multi-tasking, if the caffeine hits at just the right moment, I turn into a rat. A snarly, gnarly rat with big sharp fangs and beady eyes. I look like an innocent analyst from the back, but on the umpteenth time that I hear the patented metal TAP TAP TAP on the file cabinet is about the time it takes all of the years of Mother/Daughter discipline to keep myself in check. TAP TAP TAP and I take a deep breath, grit my teeth firmly and turn around in my Cell.
“Yeeesss?” I inquire (breathe deeply, in, out)
When the caffeine wears off, I mentally apologize to Abbie and continue with my work. I take heart in knowing that soon my daily trip to the Porcelain Altar will give me just enough time to decompress while I read about how to best organize my small spaces for $100 or less, and get the latest on Brad and Angelina.
At noon, after waiting in line for eons for the microwave, I devour my frozen dinner in record time and get back to my pile. Though I have JUST eaten lunch, I find it increasingly difficult to resist yet another Hershey’s Kiss from my neighbor’s built-in candy store. So I don’t, and for a while the sugar gives me the energy level of a three-year old, diving into my documents as if they were…well, Hershey’s kisses. But then the crash. As quickly as I peak, I plummet and crawl to the coffee machine to see if anyone might have made a fresh pot within the last four hours. The black murk seems not entirely lethal, so I pour a second cup and return to the Cell. Unfortunately, the java has about as much effect on my energy level as a nice, soft couch and I willingly succumb to the afternoon sleepies. I attempt to position myself so that it appears from behind that I am concentrating intensely on a document. Granted, the same page of a document for 40 minutes, but still. After years of practice, I have been able to arrange myself perfectly so as to avoid the embarrassing head-bobbing that occurs when one’s elbows buckle out from beneath one’s chin. Strictly amateur.
Mid-afternoon, with the sugar wearing off and the coffee finally kicking in, I open up a document and attempt to align several graphical boxes precisely, a function of Power Point which apparently the Microsoft billionaires have not yet perfected. So I continue to struggle with the document zoomed in at 400%, leaning into the monitor like Mr. Magoo reading the directions on a bottle of Bayer.
The day wears on and I continue to drink, because water is good for you. One hour before quitting time I put a packet of Crystal Lite Sugar-Free Low-Cal flavoring in my bottle of water and begin to shake, forgetting to secure the top. No problem, I tell coworkers it is “Grandma Hazel” week and I am engaging in the ancient art of spillage in her honor. The important thing to note here is that I kill a record 8.2 minutes ridding my body of the excess fluid.
Five minutes to freedom and I get the dreaded “last-minute” on-call dilemma. It’s Gracie Grow who apparently didn’t heed the four warning messages imploring that she not do what she ultimately did and now her Work Management application is frozen. I bite my tongue so hard it begins to bleed. Gracie Grow is the lead actress in our On-Call Theater. Last week she contacted us because her screen saver “broke.” High priority stuff. At least this week her problem involves an application we actually support. I call Gracie and quickly begin to feel a growing tension as the seconds pass, knowing that by all rights I should conduct a detailed interview, observe the steps she took to get to her computer bog, log the events, and instruct her in the proper way to process her request. But it’s almost quitting time! I listen to the deafening chomping of gum coming through the phone as Gracie tries again and again to shut down her application. My eyes flip back and forth from my computer screen clock to the phone, to the computer, the phone, and back again until finally the pressure builds, the second round of caffeine hits, and the digital clock flips to “5-OH-OH” like a bolt of lightening. In desperation I yell “REBOOOOOOT” into the phone and blink twice. Thank the gods. It worked.
My computer gets turned off, the drawers get locked, and I make a conscious decision to delay washing my coffee cup until tomorrow even if it does smell like my dad’s toe jam. The oily Discovery bag goes up to my shoulder, ID badge in my purse, and I’m headed toward the elevator by 5:05. Life is GREAT! Rejuvenated is my middle name as I enter the elevator whistling. Once outside I breathe in the ozone-action air and skip through the summer haze with a spring in my step and a twinkle in my eye. That’s right! I’m the best looking gal in the world!
I flip my ID badge with confidence at the Nazi security guard, as if to say, “Hey, Nazi Security guard! You don’t have to worry about me. I’m one of the good guys!” Life is good as I skip past the line of people hesitating at the full elevator, afraid that they might be the one to take it over its weight limit, but I fear not! If we crash, we crash happy! My goliath bag nearly knocks over an accountant, but fortunately he only suffers until the fourth floor where I depart with a spring in a step and a twinkle in my eye. Life is good and I am walkin’ on sunshine! As I near my aisle, I pass the boss’s boss. I say to him “Hi, Tom, how are you?” and he answers back “Faaaan-tastic!’ And you know what, Mr. Bossman? Today I’m feeling it too!
Then something happens and darkness falls as I turn the corner and catch site of that most evil of places where I sit for 8 hours a day. Suddenly time slows down as if I am caught in a White Rabbit hallucination from 1969. Somewhere in the distance all noise fades into a tin tunnel except for the haunting, faraway call of Jefferson Airplane telling me that the dormouse said to feed your head. Feed your head. That might be difficult because my head is growing heavy and full as I approach that gut-wrenching place…that dungeon of duty…that prison of project management…the cubicle of daily horror which I call….The Cell.
There is a reason Mondays have such a bad reputation.
With a panic attack brewing I slump into the supposedly ergonomic chair and hear my back cracking. As my eyes begin to roll back into my head I drop my stained Discovery bag and stifle a sob. The red devil eye is staring up at me from the phone. I briefly pray to Hecate, Greek goddess of the Underworld in which I am working, asking her to please let it be a message from Ed McMahon, or better yet, the Jury Duty people. But being that I am on-call this week (and generally cursed), I know it will be someone with a big problem, so I ignore its desperate plea for now.
Before diving into the pile of notes and papers heaped on my desk - which I keep there, by the way, because Bob Markiewicz says that a messy desk says to the outside world “I’m busy” even if I’m not, so I can always keep up the illusion - as I was saying, before diving into the pile of notes and papers on my desk, I pause to inhale an odor, and no my friends, this is not a good odor. No, it is a very bad odor. It isn’t foul like passing gas or raw sewage, but more sour like my dad’s feet. But I am unable to find the source so I rub a little Vicks on my upper lip like cops do when they find a dead person and move on.
I login to my workstation and find to my horror that my password has expired. Silently, I curse the Sarbanes-Oxley gods and pull out a page-long checklist from my file cabinet. All of my passwords are synchronized to expire on the same day each month, so this might take all morning. I check off “Windows” and find my way to the desktop. Before all my applications have finished loading, I open Internet Explorer and minimize to a five-millimeter window at the bottom of the screen. Yes, it’s the Yahoo home page! Okay, sure, one might argue that “My Yahoo” is not a necessary element to either A) Small Project Management or B) Software Development. But I would say to “one” that I am on the distribution list for “Future Project Managers of America” AND “Software Developers News.” Email. Newsletter thingy. So there.
Mere minutes into the morning I down my first bottle of water because I know the excess fluid will help me kill at least 5 minutes of time on the grump stump later in the afternoon. That’s the thing about life in The Cell. It’s feast or famine, sometimes all in one day, and you just never know. Right now though, I sense a feast approaching as I remember the list I left myself last Friday when I fled the building like a bat out of hell. I finally succumb to the evil red phone eye and dial my voice mail. I soon discover that Marty Moe in Bad Axe is experiencing slow printing and Barbie Blow from Pontiac can’t login to her Work Management system. I ponder the decisions: Should I tell Marty that his printing delays are normal for a Monday, and that perhaps if he hadn’t re-submitted the request 1432 times, the print queue would be just a SKOSHE less jammed? Or should I tell him this is a very serious ID.10-T error caused by termites eating through the LAN circuit, but if he could hold on for an hour or so, I will drop everything, rewire the circuit, and get him his critical Materials Report ASAP?
Should I tell Barbie to reboot, or should I contact Workstation Support and have her computer completely reloaded? That’s why they pay me the big bucks. It’s system-critical decisions like this that equal Job Security.
I decide to tell Marty and Barbie the truth, and also send Marty a note telling him to check here for YES and here for NO to indicate “do you like Barbie? She likes you.”
Nine o’clock, time for my first taste of coffee. I grab my cup and discover the source of the funky odor. Apparently, hot cocoa plus cheap coffee plus 48 hours equals my dad’s feet. Mental note to wash cup before leaving this evening. Just as the coffee is down to a mere caffeine skidmark on bottom of my cup, I start my next descent into hell trying to concentrate as my neighbor converses loudly with one of our clients. Will they fire me if I scream, “USE THE INDOOR VOICE!!!” But I am too nice and besides, it’s time for my second bottle of water.
After an hour or so of I.T. Anorexia, the tasks begin piling up again for the binge. I am suddenly overwhelmingly busy for the rest of the morning, during which time of COURSE everyone and their sister has a question about the project I am working on. Does anyone not care that I have 23 documents that need to be updated and two pages of emails unanswered? Though I thrive on multi-tasking, if the caffeine hits at just the right moment, I turn into a rat. A snarly, gnarly rat with big sharp fangs and beady eyes. I look like an innocent analyst from the back, but on the umpteenth time that I hear the patented metal TAP TAP TAP on the file cabinet is about the time it takes all of the years of Mother/Daughter discipline to keep myself in check. TAP TAP TAP and I take a deep breath, grit my teeth firmly and turn around in my Cell.
“Yeeesss?” I inquire (breathe deeply, in, out)
When the caffeine wears off, I mentally apologize to Abbie and continue with my work. I take heart in knowing that soon my daily trip to the Porcelain Altar will give me just enough time to decompress while I read about how to best organize my small spaces for $100 or less, and get the latest on Brad and Angelina.
At noon, after waiting in line for eons for the microwave, I devour my frozen dinner in record time and get back to my pile. Though I have JUST eaten lunch, I find it increasingly difficult to resist yet another Hershey’s Kiss from my neighbor’s built-in candy store. So I don’t, and for a while the sugar gives me the energy level of a three-year old, diving into my documents as if they were…well, Hershey’s kisses. But then the crash. As quickly as I peak, I plummet and crawl to the coffee machine to see if anyone might have made a fresh pot within the last four hours. The black murk seems not entirely lethal, so I pour a second cup and return to the Cell. Unfortunately, the java has about as much effect on my energy level as a nice, soft couch and I willingly succumb to the afternoon sleepies. I attempt to position myself so that it appears from behind that I am concentrating intensely on a document. Granted, the same page of a document for 40 minutes, but still. After years of practice, I have been able to arrange myself perfectly so as to avoid the embarrassing head-bobbing that occurs when one’s elbows buckle out from beneath one’s chin. Strictly amateur.
Mid-afternoon, with the sugar wearing off and the coffee finally kicking in, I open up a document and attempt to align several graphical boxes precisely, a function of Power Point which apparently the Microsoft billionaires have not yet perfected. So I continue to struggle with the document zoomed in at 400%, leaning into the monitor like Mr. Magoo reading the directions on a bottle of Bayer.
The day wears on and I continue to drink, because water is good for you. One hour before quitting time I put a packet of Crystal Lite Sugar-Free Low-Cal flavoring in my bottle of water and begin to shake, forgetting to secure the top. No problem, I tell coworkers it is “Grandma Hazel” week and I am engaging in the ancient art of spillage in her honor. The important thing to note here is that I kill a record 8.2 minutes ridding my body of the excess fluid.
Five minutes to freedom and I get the dreaded “last-minute” on-call dilemma. It’s Gracie Grow who apparently didn’t heed the four warning messages imploring that she not do what she ultimately did and now her Work Management application is frozen. I bite my tongue so hard it begins to bleed. Gracie Grow is the lead actress in our On-Call Theater. Last week she contacted us because her screen saver “broke.” High priority stuff. At least this week her problem involves an application we actually support. I call Gracie and quickly begin to feel a growing tension as the seconds pass, knowing that by all rights I should conduct a detailed interview, observe the steps she took to get to her computer bog, log the events, and instruct her in the proper way to process her request. But it’s almost quitting time! I listen to the deafening chomping of gum coming through the phone as Gracie tries again and again to shut down her application. My eyes flip back and forth from my computer screen clock to the phone, to the computer, the phone, and back again until finally the pressure builds, the second round of caffeine hits, and the digital clock flips to “5-OH-OH” like a bolt of lightening. In desperation I yell “REBOOOOOOT” into the phone and blink twice. Thank the gods. It worked.
My computer gets turned off, the drawers get locked, and I make a conscious decision to delay washing my coffee cup until tomorrow even if it does smell like my dad’s toe jam. The oily Discovery bag goes up to my shoulder, ID badge in my purse, and I’m headed toward the elevator by 5:05. Life is GREAT! Rejuvenated is my middle name as I enter the elevator whistling. Once outside I breathe in the ozone-action air and skip through the summer haze with a spring in my step and a twinkle in my eye. That’s right! I’m the best looking gal in the world!
posted by thebeann | 12:49 PM
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