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.
6 comments:
I extend your pity and share your frustration. At the end of the day today, I mewled out to a co-worker as my feet extended to the exit before me, "I can't be a human being and work at this place; I have to choose one or the other."
Where are the benfactors of old? The true philanthropists of literature and art? I keep dreaming the cubicle will at least generate golden pages of literature, but I think it might just be the Post-its (whose surfaces hold unmarketable routines of madness)!
Anyway, happy holidays!
lets see a pic!
Things could be worse. There was a time when I shared an office with a lady who went on to be a best selling author. Today, I share an office with three other people...all guys...with no prospects for a best selling book.
: P
That looks just like your old cube.
I feel for your lack of privacy. But then again, I work on the street.
Article on the origins of the cubicle. Very interesting:
http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/09/magazines/fortune/cubicle_howiwork_fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes
Welcome to the world of account management Mr. Big-Shot Creative!
Dan X.
(Jon & Mark's friend)
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