jobs and things

My new job will be working as a secretary, oh sorry, an "administrative assistant" at a computer company in Kansas. Good times. I'll be living in KC though, on the good side, the Missouri side (eh, Cowboy?!). I start on the 15th of August, and I've committed myself for an entire year. I'm going to make a calendar of 365 days in which I can rip off the number of days until it's over. I've done secretary work before, and it's not my cup of tea, or even my cup of coffee, both of which sound good right now. I had "Prince of Wales" tea this morning. Quite good. Anyways, I'm not much for sitting in front of a computer all day and answering phones. I really don't like to talk on the phone, unlike the majority of my gender.

I'm a phone snob and screen my calls like no other. I feel that just because I have a cell phone, does not mean that anyone can reach me at anytime, 24-7. Think of the days when we just had land lines. People could only reach you when you were at home. Now, somehow we feel that we have to carry our phones wherever we go and answer them whenever they ring. Not me!

So that's my new job. I will be entering the buisness realm, which I somewhat dispise. I was taken out to lunch during my interview and reintroduced to this different world. It is a world of business lunches, power ties, and eating so fast you don't even enjoy what you are consuming. It is a world where people leave their phones on all the time and answer them immediately if they ring. A world of handshakes, fake smiles, and briefcases filled with papers that couldn't stay on the office desk unattended for an hour.

We went to Applebee's and the feel there was so different. We went at the prime "power/business" lunch time, from 11-1. People filed in in their suits and power ties. I observed the man who answered his phone every five minutes and whose conversation was filled with "go for it" "let's do it" "can we get it?" Do it!" A man who barely even looked the waitress in the eye when she came by; a group of people who waited patiently for the third person in their party and when he showed up, it turns out he was a friend of the man who was introducing him to his friend. Ah...networking, connections. It is an atmosphere of power and control, yet the power and control is often fleeting and false, and yet people try and grasp it for just a moment. An atmosphere of competitiveness that never takes a break for lunch. Lunch is a time to impress, to win hearts and minds through food. An atmosphere of getting to the top no matter the cost. I can see it in their smiles and firm handshakes. They smile politely and warmly, but behind the smile, I can sense a determindness that says, "I'm going to the top, don't get in my way." A smile that doesn't quite meet the eyes, as if there's something more at work. I see people as pawns, mere players in this world of business. I know that not all people in this world are like this, but it's a totally different feel. They aren't there to eat and enjoy, they are there to work and satisfy a need for food, not savor it. Yes, I join the world of those who will get in their cars every morning, wait in lines of traffic to be herded into offices with small cubes and cells, and then join the rush back home again to sigh and start it all over tomorrow.

Good times! So there you go. I hope to bring something different to this world, something off-beat, away from the norm. Shake things up a bit. We'll see what happens. It could be fun.