What it is to be lost.

Monday was a fun day. It was fun because I had work which in and of itself was a surprise since the client I have been working with extended me for a week (although it looks like that could change) but I went in and did a few hours and then was able to leave early.

They were concerned about me leaving early but there was nothing to do and I really didn’t mind because it gave me the chance to do some of the things I hadn’t gotten to over the weekend.

The weekend came and I found myself alternately sleeping and watching TV. When I think about it, that sounds like a pretty crappy way to spend a weekend. Considering how precious time is...

This is a draft I started a few weeks back. I had been working and it was good because I hadn’t been working for a couple of months but somehow I’ve grown increasingly aware of the precious nature of time and being in an office, sedentary in one spot for hours on end and then trying to look busy on top of it because you are out in the open and there isn’t a modicum of privacy proves to be wildly unappealing.

I long once more for the days when I had my own office. It was a brief period but a wonderful one indeed. If someone offered me a job with a window and a door I could close they would have my undying loyalty to be sure.

In this instance the client cut me loose early and then a day later cut me loose even though they had booked me for the week. I was more than a little annoyed at that.

It wasn’t just the loss of income that bothered me but it was the situation overall. There is the office politic that I can’t find myself appreciating because it has so much to do with other people’s insecurities and their own desires to get to some destination they have set for themselves.

In this last office, they did the open office thing so you had about 60 plus people in a very big room with long desks and on either side of those desks people facing each other.

Uggghhhhh.

Sometimes, frankly I just need to pick my nose. It’s disgusting I know but there are certain maintenance issues that occur from time to time and excuse me if I really don’t want an audience of want to take a break and walk all the way over to the other side of the floor and lock myself in a stall in the men’s room so I can dig for buried treasure.

Plus they had the monitors placed in such a way that every time I looked over to the left side of my screen I wound up looking more or less in the direction of the asst for the department who was very much a preening gay man.

I  guess because I’m an old straight bear I shouldn’t speak out of school but the show was on all day every day and I didn’t want to feed into the cult of personality. It was already bad enough I wasn’t part of the club which involved the other two freelancers who had started a week to a few weeks before I did and who knew each other from working together in other shops. This meant they went out to lunch together every day.

Again, more uggggghhhhhh.

The other staffer who was down at the other end of the long table (with someone between him and I) seemed on the outside of that particular triangle as well and one day when everyone but he and I seemed to all disappear with some purposeful intent I mentioned I didn’t think I was part of the club to which he replied he didn’t feel like he was part of the club either.

So I had finished up this thing I was working on, this project where I wasn’t getting much direction but you got the sense the idea was it was my fault somehow people weren’t seeing what they wanted. You really have to love those moments in this business.

Then when I did start to get a little more direction for once and it appeared the results were more pleasing there was this surprise. It’s a moment when you feel like turning around, looking at someone and going, ‘Really? Are you kidding? Do you think I’m fucking Kreskin here?’

The thing I was doing wrapped and there was a lull but instead of involving me in other work, the Director foisted it off on the Asst to pass along something for me to help out with and I knew I was done.

Like I said, not that I cared other than the loss of income since I wasn’t a part of the club anyway.

But to turn that around, that’s really bad management.

I know where I’m weak and I know where I’m strong but I’m past the point of busting my ass trying to convince someone who has already made up their mind about me.

Besides, it’s their loss. Really. Big news on that front but let’s leave that for another day.