No internet. No computer. No window. Just a desk, an adding machine, a phone and some office supplies. Just waiting for the telephone to ring and learning a lot about the inside of my mind.
And for some forsaken reason I did this temp job for a month.
I remembered that I wrote an entry about that, way, way back when. Let's revisit it.
Things To Do At Work When You Hate Your Job and Are More Or Less Chained to the Phone
October 9, 2002
- Give yourself white out manicures.
- Realize that the white out manicure always comes out too bumpy and scrape it off.
- Give yourself white-out tape manicures.
- Scrape them off.
- Remove your contact, claim it fell out and waste five minutes in the bathroom putting it back in.
- Doodle with white out on colored post-it notes.
- Use tape to exfoliate your face.
- Call roommate and beg her to put the phone near the television during your soap.
- Color in all the boxes and images on the desk calendar.
- Reorganize the desk drawers.
- See how long you can pay attention to the seconds clicking by on the clock.
- Synchronize the telephone clock and the calculator clock. Think of how handy that will be when they go out to solve crimes at night when the office is closed. Imagine a whole cartoon based around this premise.
- See how fast you have to spin the rolodex to make something fly out.
- Arrange to play the hold music from the speaker on the telephone. Get very excited and turn it up loud when a really "great" easy listening song comes on.
- Wonder if the people responsible for selecting the hold music take requests and who you'd have to contact about that.
- Try to decipher a pattern in the hold music. Does it get peppier at lunchtime? Quieter in the morning?
- Attempt to use tape to make origami.
- Create a series of drawings on post-it notes which attempt to abstractly express your wish to be anywhere else in the world.
- Create a series of pencil drawings on post-it notes which attempt to abstractly express your desire for a cigarette.
- Envision a world in which you are a very respected corporate post-it note abstract artist.
- Using a stamp pad, spit and an eraser, upgrade from pencils to almost India Ink paintings which attempt to abstractly convey your desire to be smoking anywhere else in the world.
- Decide that the people constantly stealing your white-out are aware of just how much time you spend using it as a nail polish and art supply.
- Try to meditate. Get mad when the phone wrecks your concentration.
- Play with the calculator and your budget.
- Spin around a lot in your desk chair. Watch the calculator clock and see how long you can keep going.
- Examine your hair strand by strand for split ends. Cut off any you find.
- Attempt to create discernible images by dripping coffee on your post-it notes.
- Wonder how roommates feel about the fact that you bring home a million pieces of post it note art every evening.
- Realize that perhaps the world doesn't know just exactly how bored you are by your job and create a list like this to post on the internet.
That's what I do during the seven hours a day that I stare at the telephone.