Tuesday, January 26

A maze ing




My job is so easy they could have a monkey do it, except that it would cost more to feed it.
One thing, other than answering the phone, I have in my description is deliveries.  I don't hate to do these deliveries always, but mostly. It is nice to be able to get out of the office for awhile and drive around, more so in the summer but; out of the office is, out of the office. I also don't understand why I need to do these deliveries, at all. When everyone is so concerned with their carbon footprint, why are we (my work and those we do business with) adding to it so erroneously?   
I mean do we really need to take a set of drawings to an architect downtown every single day? Why can't we simply email it to them and have them print it? It makes no sense to me, and it seems wrong.
Having said that, I had to do a delivery today. We do a lot of work with the state. Therefore we have a lot of hoops to jump through and lots of documents to be signed. I had to get some of these such documents signed. So this morning I had haul my tail to the Utah Department of Transportation. I was told the office I was searching for was on the second floor, and to keep following the signs that read "Maintenance Planning."
I have done this enough to know that it is always wise to follow directions, no matter how little sense they make. Because I am following the signs and therefore my directions, as closely as possible, I am not paying much attention to my surroundings. It isn't until I weave my way through, turning left, then right ,then right, then left and come to my destination, do I stop and take it in. It is nothing really, except and endless sea of cubicles. All the same height, all the exact same shade of a yellowed cream. That sounds nice, but essentially they look as though they were white at one point, but someone left them in the sun too long. Now they reek of a jaundice melancholy of desperation and despair. Not only that, but even though I am completely surrounded on all sides by these death boxes, there is no one to be found. All the chairs are empty, yet somehow clinging to ghostly whiffs of the people who occupy them. A cup of coffee that is steaming but untouched. Belongings propped up at attention as if to say this person existed at one point, and I am proof.
It was eerie and I was having trouble remembering if that memo I got about the end of the world had actually been dated: 01-26-2010.

2 comments:

  1. I bet they hate their jobs more than you hate yours. But that's just a hunch. Even the monkeys there all take breaks at once.

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  2. That was really poetic and...eerie. I would hate to work in a dingy box smelling of jaundiced meloncholy. I also love the Twillight Zone feeling of abandonment. You are awesome.

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