Corporate Haiku

large, black rectangle
I report to work today
elevator up

a true fax

a true fax, originally uploaded by basest.

Let me start by saying that while I continue to be a little bit skeptical about the benefits of the slogans and platitudes that my current pseudoemployer displays to motivate it's workers, it is generally a decent place to work. I've had no complaints thus far. (Give me time, I'm sure I'll come up with something...)

Not everybody is as pleased with Office Max as I am. Much to my amusement, I found the above fax transmission that had somehow ended up at the fax machine on my floor.

I don't know how it ended up there. I don't believe there are customer service people on my floor.

And I don't really know what happened to this person to make them so angry. What kind of speech could Office Max possibly try to be silencing?

I do know that someone with access to a fax machine at the offices of Pacific Gas and Electric is very angry. I hope he has a better day tomorrow.

today's report from the workplace

My status as an employee of the Company where I work is a little bit strange. I am not a true employee, as my paychecks come from a placement service, not the Large Office Supply Corporation where I work. This has its advantages and disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage is that I can't be sure whether or not I will have a job from week to week, or even day to day. A smaller inconvenience is that I am not allowed directly into the building, but rather have to login to a security computer every day and print out a new identification card that says "VISITOR", clearly signifying to anyone who might care to look at my badge that I don't genuinely belong. (I suppose this is a step up from high school, where my fellow students didn't need any sort of identification. They assumed that I didn't belong.)

The upside to this is that even though I otherwise function as a full-time employee, I feel free to park my car in the spaces reserved for visitors. It's the perk I give myself as a pseudoemployee.

This morning, the gentleman in front of me was having some difficulty logging in as a visitor. As it happens, he wasn't a freelancer like me... more of an actual "visitor". Visiting. And it had been some time since his last visit, so his information was no longer active in the database. If I saved any time by parking in the visitor spaces this morning, I lost it because I was waiting for this guy to be processed.

This gave me some time to glance around the building some. I actually like the building, but find some aspects of it unsettling. It's five floors, not including the basement, which houses the cafeteria. The office spaces are all centered around an atrium, so there is a lot of open space in the building. There's also a hole cut out of the lobby floor to expose parts of the eating area of the cafeteria. This creates a strange sense of space that I'm sure the architects designed to make the interior of the building even larger than it is, but in me manages to induce a slight sense of vertigo. I avoid walking to close to the edge of the walkway. Even though there's a 40inch glass wall to keep me safe, I imagine myself plummeting to my death and really spoiling someone's lunch.

The Company sends mixed messages to it's employees in the form of slogans applied in large vinyl appliqué letters applied to various glass surfaces throughout the building. From my side of the building, I can see the tagline "passionate | innovative | fun" repeated in a friendly font along a whimsical curvy path. This is on the windows on the third floor. If my work area was located on the other side of the office, the direction from which I was looking this morning, standing by the security station, I would get a completely different message.

Those on the South side of the building enjoy a different kind of inspiration. If your perspective finds you facing north, you will read five different phrases:

focus & discipline
sense of urgency
think company & customer first
teamwork & trust
integrity & accountability

Instead of following a curved path in a light typeface, these messages are bold and straight. Less friendly. At least they're lower case, otherwise, it would be a really aggressive use of type.

So today I count myself lucky that while I work I'm reminded to be passionate, innovative and fun. Or...at worst, to work on my enilpicsid & sucof.

sketch of the day

snow-beach, originally uploaded by basest.

nothing really to say about this. just a random sketch done at work while waiting for a really giant file to save. I wasn't even doing anything to the file, just saving it in two variable press-ready formats. The whole process took me about 1 1/2 hours. The sketch didn't take that long. I'm slow...but not that slow.

East of Scranton

I'm at work.

I've been at work since 8:30. Okay...more like 8:37, and by the time I checked in through security and got up to my "cubicle" on the 4th floor, it was closer to 8:45. It's 9:35 now. Do you want to know how much work I've done?

none

not one bit

This wouldn't be a problem if I wasn't freelancing. I want to appear to be valuable to this company so that they keep me.

But it's been a while since I wrote about work, so you may be confused. You may recall that the last time I wrote about work, I was working on the catalog for a medical supply company. At the time, I called it a short-term assignment. I think when I wrote that, I believed short-term meant 1-2 weeks. I was wrong. I suspect that if I had been happy with the hourly rate there, I would still be working there. When I finally found better paying and more interesting work through a different placement service, I was told repeatedly that I would be welcome back any time. Unlike my former employer, these people seemed to think that I was actually a valuable asset to a company. Then again, they weren't paying me as much...

Anyhow, I got the chance to leave that job for a more interesting one that was closer to home and paid better. It was supposed to be a week, with the possibility for extension. They were a packaging design company. I worked on a bag of Easter Eggs for Tootsie Roll (coming to a WalMart near you this spring) and some boxes for solar path lighting. My favourite was the color changing ones. You can get these lights that are ugly enough during the day, but at night, they harness the power of the sun that they've been soaking up all day to create a disco-esque atmosphere of light that changes from blue to green to red and back again. Groovy!

So that job went on for a week, and they were really happy with me. And I really liked it there. The commute was reasonable, and the work was almost fun. By Wednesday, I was told that they wanted to keep me, probably for six more months. On Friday, I was told that they wouldn't need me the following week, but if I could return on the week after that, then they'd need me for six more months. My representative from my placement service called me on my way home and told me that they wanted to know if I'd be willing to work for a little bit less, if they could guarantee a longer term assignment. I said I had to think about it.

This is the problem with working for a small company. Their budgets are too tight. A large corporation where one can become faceless is starting to look good, if I want to make a decent living.

By Tuesday of the following week, I was talking to a variety of reps from the same agency about three different jobs. Technically, I was still in the mix to come back for the packaging job, but they seemed really interested in getting a better deal. And they couldn't commit to bringing me back when they had agreed to do so. The big project that they wanted me for was taking a little bit longer to get started. It was a bad omen, anyhow, when I heard who the client was, as they were also a client of my previous employer--one of the projects that I was accused of mismanaging when I was fired. (It was my boss' client. He was on vacation during a crucial point in the project. This was my fault, apparently).

Anyhow, it appears that since I was such a hit at my first assignment for this particular placement service, the reps actually tried to get me placed elsewhere. On Thursday of that week, at 9am, I found myself navigating the byzantine security procedures of the corporate headquarters of Office Max.

Once I was photographed, fingerprinted and frisked, I was given a visitor pass and allowed to wait in the designated waiting area. A woman sat opposite me with two large road cases--I told her that I had chosen to travel light that day. It got a laugh. When I was single, it would have been a nice opening to conversation with this desirable specimen of the opposite sex. When I was single, I would probably not have been able to get the words out. Funny how easy it is to speak with people when there's nothing at stake. Two quick sketches later, I was greeted by a guy about my age who introduced himself as "not Eugene." Eugene was the guy to whom I was supposed to report. I soon discovered that one doesn't get to speak to Eugene for very long. He runs around a lot and attends many meetings. I don't envy his job.

On the way up to the fourth floor, "not Eugene" told me his name was actually Scott Swan. We made a little small talk about traffic and he showed me to my work area. In the first paragraph, I referred to my "cubicle". I put it in quotation marks, as I have again here. The reason is that they seem to have run out of space, and so I'm really sort of just out in an open area. It's a bit weird. Better than a broom closet, though. And I have a really nice view out some really big windows.

Scott told me that he didn't know what I'd be working on, but that Dwight, who was in a meeting but would be out shortly would be responsible for giving me work.

That's right. I work for an office supply company, and one of the guys who I work for is called Dwight. If you don't watch the US version of The Office, this might mean nothing to you, but if you do, you will understand why I am amused every time I think of this.

Dwight's last name is Darling. I began to worry that I did not have an appropriate name to work here, but it turns out that so far, Scott and Dwight are the only two alliterative names that I have encountered here at Office Max.

So anyhow, Dwight took me around and showed me examples of what the creative department did at Office Max, and then threw a little assignment at me.

I've been working for a long time in situations that require extremely quick turnaround. I think Dwight didn't expect me to finish as quickly as I did. I now know that he was impressed with my speed and thought the end result was good. But for the first few couple days, I was sort of left to flounder. I like to distinguish myself quickly as a valuable asset. It wasn't until the middle of the second week that I began to understand that I was allowed to take more time with things. Not that I need it.

Which is why I find myself sitting here getting paid to write my blog. Oh wait...looks like someone has something for me. Off to earn my keep.

Diversity is the Spice of Life

Hello blogreader. Welcome back. Hopefully the handful of regulars haven't deserted me. My abstract, digital love for you is your reward. Since my last post I have traveled across the country in search of Peace and Love, created a piece of art and had fun doing it, been honored for my contribution to the population, witnessed (via just about every media outlet) the transformation of a celebutante into--momentarily--a real human being, visited a pig farm in a too-brief flirtation with rock stardom (sort of) and spent my first night in a girl's dorm. It's every bit as thrilling as it sounds.

...That's what I was going to write to you, way back in semi-early July. I had all sorts of plans to fill you in on my adventures. I had stories to tell. The world was ripe with topics--glistening, low-hanging fruit for me to pick and share with you.

And then...

...I was fired. Canned. Let go. Asked to leave. Given a pink slip. Discharged. That last one's my favourite. It's what the Illinois Department of Employment Security calls it. Sounds like an unpleasant secretion associated with some sort of disease common to women of ill repute. And sailors.

So anyhow, for the first time in my life, I involuntarily lost my job. I would have felt worse about it if I had liked the job at all. I had worked there almost three years--I started on July 30 of 2004. I was fired on July 10. I'll spare you the details of that day...they're really mostly dull, as the job had been, for the most part. I was at lunch, working at my desk on a side project, and my boss asked if we could talk in his office for a minute. It took him less than a minute to let me know why I was there.

I disagree with his assessment of my skills, abilities and work ethic, as he laid it out for me. Any reviews of my work prior to this have been essentially positive. Even when he had criticism for me, or asked me to improve in some area, he told me that I was "the best person he's had in my postion." But, somehow, on this particular day, he felt the need to tell me that I worked poorly with others, my work was "slapdash" and "not very creative", and that the sales people were unmotivated to pursue the creative work from their clients because they didn't have confidence that I could deliver.

He also told me that he felt there was no point in asking me to improve, because knowing what he knows about me, he didn't think that I would try to work on those issues.

He is, apparently, a very insightful person.

Anyhow, I respectfully informed him that I belived he was wrong, and that I had been set up to fail. But in the end, I told him that I suppose he should do what he felt he had to do. And then I packed up my things and left, before anyone else came back from lunch.

So, what followed next was several weeks of unemployment. I filed an unemployment insurance claim. I sent a bunch of resumés out. I spent some time updating my portfolio website. I went on a few job interviews. I don't really like job interviews. I have a hard time conveying to people just how awesome my talent and skills truly are, due to equal parts humility and social awkwardness. None of the interviews have panned out.

So, I've listed with four different placement agencies. Finally, one of those agencies did get me work. This short-term assignment doesn't pay as well as I need it to, but it pays better than unemployment insurance does. The downside is I actually have to go to work.

It isn't all bad. At least there's stuff to laugh at. In fact, I find a lot of humour at my current assignment. It's a company that sells medical supplies and equipment. I'm helping layout the catalog. Most of this involves copying information from the old catalog, and pasting it into the correct page of the new catalog. If a dolphin had opposable thumbs, it could probably do the work. Except the computer would probably be destroyed by the water. And the dolphin might get electrocuted. So they hired me. And I get to read descriptions of medical products like "It's the helmet that kids and adults love to wear!" So I laugh cruelly at the misfortune of the models who have to pretend to be disabled or retarded for the catalog (I hope they aren't really disabled...then I'd feel bad about the laughing). And then I start to think of how lucky I am that my three children are healthy and intellegent and have no special needs.

So I need something new to laugh at. Fortunately, like any large company, the people in the HR department need to do something to keep themselves occupied between processing new hires and chastising employees caught in the broom closet together. So they have to take up "initiatives." In my experience, HR "initiatives" tend to take the shape of some sort of seminar, followed up by some sort of signage posted in common areas of the office to reinforce whatever topic was covered in the seminar. The image below is of a poster that I found in the cafeteria. I liked it so much, I hunted it down online, so that you could have a nice image for your viewing pleasure.


Go on...click on it, so you can get a better view. I'll wait.

I'm not sure I get the "diner" theme. I mean...I understand it in the context of diversity "feeding" the competitive edge. But is it suggesting that we should consider those who are different than us our adversaries? Oh well...they probably covered it in the seminar.

I'm also not sure what we're supposed to make of the guy behind the counter who is leacherously oogling the balding fellow. I suppose he's supposed to represent gay people. I wonder why he's in the position of serving the others. Is this a subtle prejudice on the part of the poster's designer? And why isn't he looking at the black guy. Of the two men on the "straight" side of the counter, I think all my gay friends would choose black fellow instead. He's appears to be in better shape. Plus, it would add another layer of diversity to the poster if the suggestion of interracial romance were introduced.

There was another poster in the series. It depicted a similar set of multi-culti people sitting in a booth at the diner, as if some kids from those Benetton ads in the '80's had grown up, gone to work at the same company, and then went to lunch at the same diner. It was called "Diversity is the Spice of Life." I didn't like it as well, but I did like the description that was there to coax the HR representative to purcase it:

Hang this poster in your facility to remind employees that when differences are accepted and valued, discrimination decreases and productivity increases.

I'm not sure how you measure that, but there was a 15 day/100% satisfaction, money-back guarantee. I don't know if they were thinking that somehow you could measure a decrease in discrimination and a subsequent productivity increase in as little as 15 days. But if I was an HR person, I'd want my money back.

A heckuva job...or, I want to work for George W. Bush

I don't want to get too political here. I'm really writing about my job. The thing is, I don't really care for my job. I don't like what I do. I just happen to, I think, do it well. And there are people willing to pay me to do it. There are not too many people willing to pay me to paint self-indulgent pictures of whatever might strike my fancy, or to play my bass, or act in plays or drink mojitos by the pool. These are all things I would rather do than go to work every day. I'd also rather play with my kids, read books, learn to play the piano and watch movies. In fact, it's very easy for me to come up with a list of things I'd rather do than my job. Right now, I'm writing in the blog, rather than do my job.

I happen to be the Art Director of a trade show display company. Art Director sounds like a nice title. In this context, it doesn't mean much. Technically, if there was much "art" to direct, I would direct it. But that's not the case. When I first came to work here, I was asked what I wanted my title to be. I thought Art Director sounded more impressive than "Graphics Manager" so I had them put that on my business cards. Often, when speaking with clients or vendors on the phone, I tell them I'm the Graphics Manager. It's more descriptive of what I really do...and it seems to put them at ease. They must be intimidated by "Art Director".

Anyhow, I think I do a pretty good job...because I have to. I'm willing to bet that if my administrative technique was on par with some of the men who have held jobs that are, in the greater scheme of things, much more important than mine is, I wouldn't even have the stinky soul-sucking job that I do have.

Michael Brown botches the rescue/recovery efforts in New Orleans. He's doing a "heck of a job." Donald Rumsfeld spends much of the Iraq war with his head in the sand (American sand, of course..the sand in Iraq is dangerous!), completely out of touch with reality. He has "made the world safer" and his reforms "will enhance the security of the American people for decades to come." Alberto Gonzales' piss-poor performance in front of Congress a few days ago in which he apparently couldn't recall his own damn name has increased the President's confidence in him.

Damn.

I do a good job every week. Nobody gets killed. Nobody loses property. Nobody gets tortured. All I get is a paycheck. W, if you need someone to fill just about any position...I'm pretty sure you know where to find me. I could use a little raise, and I'm willing to bet that I could do a pretty good job (acceptable to you, anyhow) and still have time to drink mojitos. I'll even tear up the picture of you and your "enhancement" that I drew.