lady, he's a sandwich

the title of this post is one of my favourite sex and the city lines. miranda has walked past a man in a sandwich suit handing out flyers accompanied by "eat me" which she finds harassing to women. so she walks in and complains to the manager who tells her, "lady, he's a sandwich". and in response to her continued complaints, he responds, "but lady, he's a sandwich."

which is how i'm feeling right now after day one at le job. i woke up early and successfully got out of bed (thoughts of my brother and mom saying "two feet on the floor" propelled me to accomplish just that), had a wonderful morning complete with latte, and then strutted my ass down to the skytrain and did the morning commute. a lot of people do the morning commute, and after watching copious amounts of sex and the city, i felt like maybe, just maybe, i was in new york.

and then i got to work, met with my manager and then had a team meeting. the people are so nice and everyone seems really targeted to their jobs and seem pretty great. i had meetings with a bunch of different people with different roles and had a tour of the building (showers upstairs in case i ride to work) and got up close and personal with my cubicle.

my cubicle is nice enough, but it's a cubicle. i used to think that dilbert was a funny commentary on corporate america and that the office was priceless comedy, but now i am feeling how strongly rooted the comedy is in the daily lived experience of being under fluorescent bulbs with no windows. if i brought a plant into work it would die (unless it was a cactus - thank you lisa for the suggestion). if something's gotta give, first thing is going to be your sanity.

but i digress. my office has people in it - 18 more than my previous office - that's right, it's an office of 19. and it has a kitchen with plates and a dishwasher and an espresso machine and fridges and tables where people can eat. and when i was chatting with my manager about personnel policies and contracts, she actually said that they were trying to create an environment where people felt safe and respected. i nearly cried.

and this is where i wander into my wishy washy miranda anger. because after today (and i fully admit that i am tired and therefore not overly rational) i feel angry. angry that noone told me that this is what work should actually be like, that there are places where there are pre-existing systems that you don't have to worry about inventing, or creating time to invent them, and where people are nice and concerned for your well-being. this place stands in such sharp contrast to some of my previous workplaces where the people are concerned for the well-being of society, but exploit your passion for humankind in the interest of their workplace budgets. and that is bullshit. (i also take responsibility for letting them exploit me and for being so passionate, but still, these are older professionals who have jobs where they are safe and respected and know better, and still knowingly take advantage of people). i keep thinking: egregious, egregious, egregious behaviour.

so i just remember my high school french teacher who told me that i have to control my passion. she didn't mean this in a limiting, derisive way, but instead out of love, told me that i need to reign in my passion and remain objective about my work and my subject matter. objectivity created better work - she was perhaps my first yoga teacher. go inside yourself to go outside yourself and detach, detach, detach.

like padmini and the sandwich manager would say, "lady, it's only a job". and a good one at that.