Moisturization is Critical to the Development of the Seedling

So I’m sitting at my desk in cubicle land earlier today when my boss oh-too-casually saunters up to my desk and asks me if I “have a minute.”

Well, of course I have a minute. 1) You know how much work I have to do today and it’s not like I can lie and say it’s a giant assload. To be quite honest, we both know I’ll be surfing the net come 6 o’clock. 2) You’re my boss. I can no more say ‘no’ to you than a crack whore can say no to one more line of oblivion.

So with trepidation in my heart and vomit rising in my throat, I roll back my chair and manage to stand on my suddenly jell-o-esque legs. I follow him into the hallway where he asks me which interview room I’d like, pointing to two small available rooms both furnished with equally uncomfortable chairs and a table. I point to my left and take a seat inside while my boss quietly shuts the door behind us and places a manila folder on the desk.

“This is your 90-day review,” he says.

My gut clenches in fear. I mentally flip through everything I’ve said to anyone in our department, catalog every email I’ve ever sent for inappropriateness and, most importantly, review every car deal I’ve ever funded, checking for mistakes and errors that could potentially be job-threatening because of my lack of ‘detail-orientedness’ or some such rot.

So my boss pulls out a meager four sheets of paper, all with my name emblazoned in bold at the very tippy top of each one. He hands me two pieces and keeps two for himself. I can feel my left eyeball starting to twitch, as it does when I am tense, and I can’t force myself to focus on the paper less than one foot from my retina. He begins to read from the top but my ears are only focused on my inner monologue, chattering away at full speed, alerting me to each and every fault and vice I’ve exhibited in the last quarter-century of my life.

And then I hear the words:

“Overall, we think you’ve done an outstanding job.”

Head snaps up in Linda Blair fashion.

What? What’s that you say?

You like me?

You really like me?

I had to fight the urge to get up and hug the man, I was that overcome with relief.

He then goes on to tell me how impressed he was at how quickly I caught on and how appreciative he was of my attention to detail. He told me that HIS supervisor had noticed that the new girl held a number-two spot on the audit scores and was usually in the top two spots for same-day-funding. (All work lingo, which I hate, but I’m bragging about myself, so CAN IT, SLUT) He marks on his little currently non-threatening pieces of paper that I have met or exceeded expectations and that my score more than guarantees me a permanent place with the company.

HOLY CRAP. I recant every bad word I have every thought or uttered concerning cubicle land before entering into this company. Cubicle land is the equivalent of going to heaven and being presented with 99 virgins. Though, personally, I’m not really that turned on by boy-virgins. There’s nothing worse than two incompetents going at it and pretending to enjoy it. Well, the boy’s going to “enjoy” it, but the girl is probably going to fake it just to get him to stop thrusting away.

But I digress.

I AM SO RELIEVED! To use my much over-used expression: I almost peed down both legs!

Please understand, before you think I am a TOTAL ninny, that I have never had a peaceful job. Ever. And this job is just ever so peaceful and calm, the thought of having to give it up and face unemployment again or even (gasp!) a mall job, was enough to make me come within a hairsbreadth of vomiting up my roast beef and pepperjack sandwich.
For the first time I’m not:
*Working 80 hours a week with the police scanner glued to my ear 24/7, living in fear of missing the big story and seeing “that look” on my news directors face. Remember when the bridge collapsed in Oklahoma? Yeah. I didn’t get to leave the newsroom for 48 hours. Me, the one who had to drag my news director out of bed at 8am on a Sunday morning to beg for a helicopter to take our reporter to the scene. The same news director who tells the station owner he had to call me at work to tell me to hire a helicopter to get our reporter to the scene and that there’s really too much work to be done for me to go home quite yet—could I stay until after the furor dies down? 37 cut-ins and 6 full newscasts later, I go home to shower. And sleep. Did I mention sleep? (TV news job)
*Being promoted into a position that only one person knows how to do and given 2 days to train with departing employee. Who’d only been working there 3 months and didn’t really know what she was doing. At my 30-day review my boss tells me that I won’t be eligible for my pay increase because there was some accounting work I was supposed to be doing but had failed to show the initiative to ask about. Pardon me, bitch, while I shove my fist into your anus. Do you like that? SUCK IT. Need I mention that there had been no whisper of this work by either my boss – with whom I shared an office – or by the accounting team. Oh, the irony. I quit six months later and moved home to Little Rock. (New York job in postproduction)
*Again, being promoted into a position that only one person knew how to do. Unfortunately, my coked-up boss dallied around so long with threats of firing then-current employee that said employee just one day up and quit. SURPRISE! So the morning after ex-employee vacated, he plops my plump ass into the large windowless office at the back of the building and tells me it’s “pretty self explanatory.” Right. Which TOTALLY explains the company wide hate email the ex-employee sent out detailing the unfairness of shoving a three-person workload onto an individual and expecting him to keep his sanity. Right On. 6 months later I told my boss to go Fuck Himself and left. They hired two people to replace me.
*Not running my ass off getting a size 8, no, wait, maybe a size 8 and a half. Darn, that’s too small to… Could I get a 9? Selling Shoes. My very own personal hell. Why, you ask? Feet smell. They sweat. It’s sick. I used so much hand sanitizer when I worked there that the webbing in between my fingers started to crack and bleed. And I just ADORE working weekends.

So yeah. Cubicle-land is awesome. God bless it. May it flower and bloom for all eternity. My supply of Rolaids thanks you.