Simplicity Made Less Simple

I’ve completed my first week of work at Acme, Corp. and am struck by so many different things. Sights, sounds, emotions, etc…I’m on sensory overload. I’m in culture shock. The strangest thing is…in a way; this is how I always imagined it would be!

How to explain?

When I was about 7 or 8 years old and imagined what it would be like to “have a job,” THIS is what I pictured!

The whole experience of elementary school (bell ringing, clearly defined tasks, etc) along with stories my Mom told, the books I read, photos I viewed and episodes of The Flintstones and other sit-coms I watched were all preparing me for THIS.

I’m not sure if it’s an East vs. West Cost thing, or a corporate vs. nonprofit thing, or an hourly vs. salaried thing?

I think in a way, we’re pretty much raised by our parents and teachers to be successful in the world THEY dealt with, as they became adults and entered the workforce. In my case this was the 40’s and 50’s. I was groomed to function well in a 1950’s office setting and wow, I’ve found it!

Although I’m officially a part of the HR Department, most of what I do is administer programs for the Acme, Corp. Foundation. Coming from the begging position, it’s a real pleasure to be on the giving end for a change. I’m an hourly drone, yet those development directors and VP’s of fundraising have to be super polite to me ha ha! Retribution!

I work in a sea of cubicles and am strictly on the clock. I didn’t know I had it in me. In California (in the nonprofit scene at least), working hours were a vague sort of thing. Meetings were unfortunately the same way. Meetings on the West coast used to take up so much of my time, I cringe thinking about it! Everyone showed up somewhere around the meeting time (give or take 15 minutes) then there were the obligatory last cell phone calls, final trips to the restroom and the inevitable posturing and elbowing before the lowest person on the totem pole of meeting attendees had to make the fresh pot of coffee. (One time, I ended up low man on the totem pole. I delighted in handing our overpaid consultant her fresh cup of coffee saying “Here, don’t spill it”).

In my new position, meetings go off like clock-work. I was informed that associates meet every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8:45 a.m. “Oh no!” I thought, how am I supposed to get any work done…but much to my surprise, everyone marched into the conference room at 8:44 and marched out at 9:00. We also clock in no more than 7 minutes prior to our shift and clock out no later than 1 minute past our shift. I didn’t know this was even possible, prior to last week, now I’m surprised that I like it as much as I do.

Most of all I LOVE leaving it all behind at precisely 5:00 pm.! I go home and think entire of my own stuff. I drive into work singing along to the local rock station (as opposed to grinding my teeth and living out each possible thing that could go wrong that day).

Our headquarters and distribution center look like they were built in the 50’s (although they were really built in the early 90’s). Even the corporate logo has this old fashioned (Acme Corp. goes WAY back) sensibility.

I don't actually have to use a typewriter like the one in the picture above. We use PC's...although some of the database software is shall we say vintage.