2005-09-30 - 10:40 a.m.
The word of the day is AWKWARD
Last day in cubesville. I am psyched to be out of here. I want a paycheck, of course, but I despise being here and it has been increasingly awkward this week. That�s really saying something.
That�s the summation of all things corporate: the awkwardness.
Two days ago, one of my friends here, who knew she�d be away on my last day, left me a giant mum plant on my chair. That was very nice of her, but it started a gigantic wave of well-wishing and curiosity that has made me want to hide under my desk. Suddenly, people with whom I have no rapport wanted to take me out to lunch and sit and chat awkwardly at a chain restaurant.
And awkwardly they do chat.
They didn�t realize that I was leaving, chastised me for not telling them, and then scrambled to put together an outing of people who really have no attachment to me but somehow feel obliged. They took me out to lunch yesterday, and someone picked up my tab. They sat and ate and made jokes that weren�t funny and talked about my life here in the cubes.
This morning�s status meeting? I wanted to be swallowed up by the conference table. They gave me a card and referred to everything as being Prix�s last such and such (insert highly dramatized fake sobby sound). So much for my plan for slipping out unnoticed.
People who I don�t really know (and who honestly don�t give a shit about me) are telling me how much I�ll be missed. I think there�s a conversational formula that is emailed out to these people. It�s always the exact same phrasing.
Big Poppa is working to make it all even more uncomfortable as well as hilarious. He makes the faces and gives commentary and emails me with narrative when people stop by the cube to confirm the rumors that I AM LEAVING. (Hard to believe, but true!)
People seem uncomfortable that I didn�t advertise my departure. They want to have closure and look back on the good times and sign my yearbook and keep in touch with me, their BFF! (Wait, who the hell are you? Aren�t you the chick from one row over who calculates Weigh Watchers points out loud and announces to the general public how many carbs you are still allotted today?)
They make the awkward conversation that is so painful I feel embarrassment for them. It�s not that it�s any different than usual, except that I�m the focus of the attention now. They also want to convince me that things will probably pick up soon and I�ll be back on another contract in no time.
Please, please, don�t curse me that way. I hope I don�t have to come back here, though you never know. It�s a popular gig. People return all the time.
When you leave a job without somewhere to go, people treat you like you have a terminal illness. �She�s gone, really? Cause I just saw her in the galley yesterday ... We never got a chance to go over those specs. I�ll never know what could have been ...�
So the past three days have been some level of Dante�s inferno where one is pummeled for eternity with email chains regarding process, Fox news and words like transparent, robust and high-level. I don�t know what I did to deserve it, but the corporate gods were evidently terribly displeased with me.
Sometimes I wonder where they found some of the people who work here. Were they originally socially inept, or were they carefully cultivated to be that way? It�s an art form, the awkwardness that abounds.
The scene which I am leaving is dusted with the office girls that follow the fashion sense of the OC, who do provide a heck of a lot of awkward conversations on their own, but there is also the guy who is completely inept and says things that are not funny but rehearsed in his head and wears his pants so high that he suffers from whatever you would call the male version of camel toe. Big Poppa and I call him The Wedge. In honor of his pants. He must have the sperm count of zero.
The Wedge will try to chat you up about whomever he considers the office �eye candy� while shifting his pants up further and further, lest his genitals actually get some breathing room.
Another weird thing that the office folk do: they hear something they think is funny and then they repeat it in a meeting to polite laughter and then they�ll tell you where they heard it and that they knew they had to use it. The Wedge, for example said something like, �Sounds like you could use some retail therapy!� and then proceeded to tell everybody he heard it wherever and just knew he had repeat it at some point. Thankfully the moment presented itself.
Sometimes I feel like Dian Fossey studying the Peons in the Mist.
Care to do your own research? Big Poppa recommends this resource for footnotes.
