Meanwhile, on the nosebleed floor of a skyscraper in downtown Minneapolis, life has changed
for Little Miss I’ve-Got-A-Desk-by-a-Window.
With the purchase of our company by a much larger company,
there has been much movement. Those that
had offices – some are now in cubes.
Those that had cubes are sharing cubes.
And those of us who once shared cubes?
Welcome. Come in,
won’t you? It’s ever so lovely in here. Welcome to the room at the center of the
building. Don’t worry – your eyes will
adjust to the darkness.
What? What’s that?
The roaring fan overhead? Oh, you’ll get used to that. Comforting, actually, listening to the white
noise. If you let your mind go all soft
and fuzzy, you can hear words.
Shh. Did you catch
that?
It’s not too late
to take up subsistence farming… It’s not
too late to take up subsistence farming…
Dang fan.
It’s been two days since being assigned a corner in The
Cave.
New names for this particular room, this experiment in
communal living, by the way, are still being taken. The Cave, The Sarcophagus (a favorite of
mine), and The Vault are being considered.
My suggestions of “The Heart of Darkness”, “The Dance
Floor”, and “The Second Reason Pearl Drinks”, however, have gotten me nothing
but suspicious looks.
Not all is lost, of course. Why, the woman who sits next to me, a lovely person
who has been at this very location for almost three years and whom I shall
refer to as She Who Has Been Infringed Upon, or, perhaps, “Marsha”, seems to be
practically normal, despite the fan’s whispered suggestions.
We'll probably become best friends, her and I. We’ll probably rent a cabin together later
this summer, share bottles of expensive wines while we work up our manifesto,
the one in which demand natural light and a fan with a more positive outlook on
life.
I shall be happy here.
I believe that.
I shall be happy here.
Come back tomorrow
to hear my plans for how The Cave plans to celebrate Naked America!, ie, The
Day Minneapolis Hits 50 Degrees.
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38 comments:
Sounds horrible - the Tombs. But glad you like Marsha.
Your writing is so dynamic Pearl, that I'm not sure if you actually work in a company like this, or not. I also now believe that cats smoke and drink, altho I've suspected that for some time.
i don't know, sugar. that marsha sounds a bit dangerous ;) xoxoxox
Good luck the adjustment. I had a 9-5, in office job twice in my life. Both times, when I was denied access to natural light during the day I started clawing at windows whenever I happened walk by one. It was in everyone's best interest that I found other employment.
Our distant ancestors whiled away their times in caves with painting on the walls. Perhaps you and Marsha could decorate the walls of your cave with cryptic paintings of paleo-modern office dwellers.
So sorry about the windowless part. That would nutsify me.
Peggy Pearl Gollum?
Nah.
I love Shelly's suggestion of decorating the walls with cryptic paleo cave paintings. Of course, it could also land you a one way walk down the hall for a brief discussion with the head of security before being led out of the building by your elbows, but what the heck. Live it up.
All of this sounds good to me. It's been a long time since I painted on walls or was frog-marched out of a building...
And yes. I really am in an interior room, a room without pity. Please send chocolate and liquor.
Pearl
Hari OM
In OZ we have a name for small dark rooms. THE DUNNY. Usually they are outside and require fighting one's way through bindii (nasty foot-seeking thorny things), constant swatting whilst squatting (of mozzies and like pests) and a double checking of the rim to ensure no red-backed spiders are lurking ready to bite ya in the bumb.
Now there is nothing to say that all this couldn't happen on the INSIDE too... As long as Marsha has no red spot at the back of her neck, you're quids in!
Happy cocooning. YAM xoxoxo
So you've been entombed in the catacombs. Well look at it this way..no nasty windows to take your attention away from your work, no sounds from outside penetrating your thought processes. You know the ones I mean..."Let me out of here". Those. Yes. Do you at least have an electrical outlet to plug in your fan and lamp? You are going to have to create your own environment and it is NOT going to include live plants.
Office windows are PRECIOUS! So sorry. Maybe your eyes will grow big and bulgy and you'll acquire a creepy little voice which you can use to argue with yourself in amusing ways.
(SHUT-UP!)
This will help you get a mega-paying job in one of those Hobbit sequels. Just don't go for LOTR parts. They don't end well for Gollums.
Why am I suddenly thinking about sweatshops ...
Good luck, sweetie. At least Marsha is a nice gal. Maybe it could be worse. She might be the sort of person who has never used soap.
I suggest compensating with extra-bright clothing and hair colour. Maybe not the hair colour. Maybe nail polish. Experiment.
Do you at least get a 10 minute gruel break?
I didn't know anybody else heard voices in white noise! Thanks for including that. It makes me feel almost...what's the word? I'll go ask the refrigerator. Ah, normal!
The fan may have personality problems, possibly a chemical imbalance that leads it to dark thoughts - get the PH filter checked, worked for my mom's hot tub - but at least it's vocabulary is well-developed!
There's talk of us moving to an open floor plan next year in our new building. I'm terrified. I need my walls and my window, dammit. I'm not a zoo exhibit.
Just coming back to ask (because of that last line) - is there no air conditioning??
It could be worse; it could be The Catacombs.
Catacombs. I like that.
And who knows about airconditioning? Apparently we're on a never-ending winter over here (shades of Game of Thrones), having by-passed spring and headed straight into another winter.
I need banana bread. And SLABS of butter. Oooh, and wine. STAT.
I can hardly wait to hear your plans!!
the cave. the tomb. the morgue. lol. i would spend way too much time trying to come up with the best/worst name!
i work at a space that is approximately 5 feet away from my boss' office. there is a window in his office that faces my desk area. so my boss gets to stare at me like a mental patient whenever he feels like it. i hate it. i want to put curtains over the window so that it looks like we are about to have a puppet show. lol. oh well. whaddya gonna do.
My daughter just installed a system in her attic that is a right angled skylight. Any chance you can siphon light that way. Any chance for a promotion to a window.
Everyone seems to have missed the problem. You did not do a proper sacrifice to Dog with the last intern. Let her off scot free if I recall. So now you pay the price.
Somehow I cannot imagine you working in a place like that. Your writing is so sunny and light that I don't see it having anything to do with a cave.
You know "they" say that change is good....but somehow it seems that change usually isn't made with "us" in mind.
An inside room, you'll be sage in tornado season and somewhat safer durning North Korea missile season...
Your predicament sounds suspiciously like a bad episode of MTV's The Real World. But hey, as long as you're not playing the part of Puck your job is safe.
50 degrees, or 50 inches of new snow?
Head slap here - vanilla's comment made me realize you meant 50 degrees Fahrenheit, not Centigrade. I was picturing your cave in the high heat of summer. I know it doesn't get to 59 degrees F outside. But inside? without air con? and all that body heat?
Wait, I don't think this is making you feel better ...
50 degrees, dammit, not 59!
Signing off, now.
And what would Gollum do, my precious?
Poor girl....sounds dreadful to me. Glad you have a workmate that seems nice.
Dear Gollum,
I was saddened to hear that you have prematurely been consigned to the ossuary.
No doubt escape plans are being drawn up even as I type.
Use the 'precious' carefully!
Your friend
Bolbo Biggins
It could be theor way of weeding you all out. They're betting on who will go over the edge first from being in the dungeon with lack of natural light. Don;t let 'em get to you.
In that case, can I come up there and call you my precious???
I think "The Cave" is an excellent name. You can be cave women and when the boss asks why the work isn't completed, you can tell him as cave women you are waiting for someone to invent the typewriter.
I work in a room called the "Fishbowl" because three of the walls are almost entirely glass. We think it was done this way so that the owner of the company could keep an eye on the rabble rousers known to exist in the design group.
Hmm. Do you have to wear one of those miner's hats with the light on it to get your work done? I have my own office, but there are no windows in it, so it is somewhat cave-like. The only advice I can give you is watch out for the bats!
You should go with "The Crypt". Then, someone of a scatological bent could be said to have "crept into the crypt, crapped and crept out again."
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