My meteoric rise in direct marketing is officially over. What remains is a sizable hole in the ground and a rapidly cooling rock.
No, I haven't been fired. And I haven't quit either. I've been ousted from my office and forced to work amongst the common folk.
I'm typing this eulogy from my new cube, which is actually more of a cubicle, but is so small that a passing GCD labeled it a "cubiclet." It's little more than a bit of L-shaped desk space situated in the hallway of a darkened corner of floor 14. If I drilled a hole in the floor beneath my feet, I'd have a top-down view of the cubicle where I sat as a freelancer three years ago today.
If only I could drop a message down to that young go-getter, something to the effect of: "Get out now."
I wasn't a freelancer for long. I accepted a full-time position three months after I began, and was relocated in a slightly cozier hallway on 15. Then I joined a new group and was promoted to a small office, which became a larger office and then a larger office still.
Then we got a new creative head who got into his creative head a creative new seating structure that would revitalize creative: put everyone in cubes. A few understandalbe grumbles aside, I had no problem with the idea. But me and my art director were placed in the abolute worst two cubes ever created. The guys who made these cubes had to be laughing when they made them. It's like when a slum lord bisects a closet with a hunk of drywall and advertises a cozy two bedroom apartment.
I feel like a private who worked his way up to captain, only to have his medals and stripes ripped off so they don't get in the way of his new potato-peeling assignment.
Worst of all is that I'm aware of how petty this sort of grumbling is. This is what corporate life does to you, friends: One day you're a semi-idealistic college graduate full of ideas and bullshit, and the next you're a graying copy-monkey, beating your little chest over the injustice of having no door.
I finally get Les Nessman. I hear you, brother.
