Working Stiff

So, I’m sitting here at my desk, wrapping up my first week of work. To be honest, it’s been a long week, but a good week, nonetheless. Since starting, I’ve been filled with a sense of self-importance and self-worth that I’m sure will fade as my unpaid internship drives on. After a few months of boredom and inaction, in the past week I’ve noticed and learned a lot of things about being active and "employed" -- at least in some sense of the word. Here's a list of the most important:

• At 8am, the temperature outside is much colder than the one in your bed, under the covers.

• The newspaper is incredibly boring if you've already read the news the day before.

• Even if my iPod has no batteries left, I pop in my headphones to seem preoccupied like everybody else I encounter on my commute. When my iPod is working, however, I sometimes get lost in my own world and forget that just because I can’t hear anyone doesn’t mean that they can’t hear and see me. No, you’re not cute, but yeah, I guess I was kinda staring.

• In the sport of staying awake at the office, coffee should be considered a performance-enhancing drug. I prefer more natural methods, like drinking large amounts of water. Having to pee really badly makes falling asleep much more difficult, but also makes the consequences of doing so much more catastrophic.

• Though reading about politics all day can make me feel knowledgeable and well connected, it can get depressing. Reading Sarah Palin quotes, news about the “Tea Party” movement, and reporting on gloomy public opinion polls makes me to hope that I don’t live to see a 2012 Palin-Cheney ticket.

• FOX News really is not the answer to “liberal media bias,” which I will admit exists. Misinformation and untruths are not appropriate alternatives to slanted analysis of accurate news.

• As far as I can tell, very few people work in this 12-story office building. It’s possible that this misperception is furthered by the fact that the building’s excessive six elevators create an environment where you rarely have to share an awkward ride to your floor. It’s nice, but I can’t imagine its very energy efficient. Furthermore, I always forget which side of the building my elevator is on, meaning that I often feel like a jackass when I get out and walk toward a dead end or the wrong office. Luckily nobody sees.

• The human barrenness of the place is apparent in the bathrooms too, which are immaculately clean, almost always unoccupied and smell like a perfume that girls used to wear in middle school. Sometimes I sneak away and play a game of Word Mole by the sink when I get really bored. Nobody will ever know.

• When I get hungry and my stomach starts to growl, does the girl next to me think I’m just letting it rip? If so, she handles it pretty well.

• If I take a few wrong turns trying to leave my building, I somehow end up in the kitchen of the Exchange Sports Bar. Seriously.

• Though there is very little actual difference between the approximately 196 sandwich shops within a block of my building, I plan on trying all of them…just to make sure.

• If I work for the company that is posting “not safe for work” pictures, are they still not safe for work? It would be like getting a job with Playboy and only being allowed to view the editorial content at work.

• Just when I start to wonder if I’m ever going to get any sort of compensation for my work, my boss walks up with a case of ice-cold beer at 5pm on a Friday. This wasn’t any old beer. This…was PBR. I’ll take my payment in frat-soda any day. It’s also nice to know that drinking on the job is not only accepted, but also encouraged. Whiskey in my coffee on Monday morning?