There is something about these past few weeks, even months, that is just so radically different from what I am accustomed to at work. I know work is work and it is not supposed to really be fun per say, but work for me used to be fun. It was always busy and fast-paced, but I was surrounded by people that I enjoyed being around. People that made me laugh and always made "work" seem a little less like work.
I have been lucky I guess, so I will take my lumps as they come now. I only had one job that was so unbearable it was in retrospect, amusing. I can say that now as I have over ten years of distance from it. It was in a company that was like an MTV but on college campuses.
I worked as the Executive Assistant to the President who was a transplanted Southern man as the corporate headquarters was based down south. He and his wife (no kids) relocated to New York City so he could run the company and in between his rollerblading lessons in Central Park (dork) he tried to do just that.
This fine gentleman would use this southern accent of his and would be all, "c'mon daaarrlling, you can do it. What is the right answer? Come on baby girl, what is it?" I mean this New York City CEO would talk to his employees as if he were out on the golf course or flipping burgers over the BBQ in his backyard.
Whenever I didn't know the answer to something he would start in, "c’mon baby girl, you can do it, c'mon darrrlling I know you can do it. What is the right answer?" I always wanted to reply, "I don't know the answer you fool, but here is a question for you sir, who the fuck talks like that in midtown Manhattan?"
This gem would pull up a chair and take residence in my cube on a daily basis. As a New Yorker, a lack of personal space is not entirely unusual to me. It is just part of the allure (kidding) of the City and most New Yorkers are quite adept at dealing with it.
What I was not adept at dealing with was this so-called CEO pulling a chair into my already crowded cubical on a daily basis to go over my work with me. We would update Excel spreadsheets with information and he felt it necessary to sit right next to me while we did this.
This freaky whack-a-do would make me cry all the time even though I tried like hell not too. But I was just a kid in one of my first jobs in the big city and this guy was just off his rocker. I have been very lucky since leaving that place to have met and worked with genuinely great people. Executives at much higher levels than him in companies far greater than his, have always been respectful and full of good old fashioned New York manners, and no that is not an oxymoron, people in New York do have manners.
The world is changing and people are so scared of losing their jobs and their livelihoods that they don’t really have fun at work anymore. I don’t blame them at all in fact I am one of them, I am just melancholy for the old days when I could do my job but also laugh all day.
I will close with a shout out to all my old work peeps, all you ladies out there, you know who you are and you know how much I miss working with you, you DAARRLINGS......!
