Confessions of A Naughty Girl

Le Bureau of Important Affairs Says...Well, I'm Important

In spite of missing my alarm - and thus, the gym - this morning (because whose body clock wakes them up at 6 am, honestly?), I managed to recover quite well. I strolled into work on time this morning, albeit sleepy due to lack of exercise and consumption of Large Iced Cold Press courtesy of Caribou Coffee, and promptly packed my things up and left. Oh yes, you heard me.

Today, friends, I moved into my office ("Le bureau" for you French-speaking readers). Last week, I got the fabulous news that after four years of slaving away in cubicles, I was getting my own office - with a door, thank you very much. Nevermind that the door is currently broken and will lock me into the office if shut all the way. But hey, that's getting fixed.

So while any normal person would act cool about the George and Weezy pilgrimage to the Upper Side of the office, I decided to indulge myself and act every bit of excited as I was. For the past week, I've been practicing expressions in the mirror: expressions of concern (while saying to myself, "I'm a little concerned...why don't we discuss this in my office"), expressions of pensiveness (while saying, "Hmm...let's discuss this in my office"), and even expressions of nonchalance (while saying breezily, "Yes, I'm about to head back into my office to make the call"). And believe you me, this has been hard work. Faking nonchalance is a motherf*cker!

Most of my morning was spent happily transferring the manila folders that serve to document my productivity, as well as all of my "toys" and various knicknacks from networks and magazines over the years. (And yes, my sparkle lava lamp made the trip just fine - thank goodness no use for the "what to do if you come into contact with the liquid" instructions).

I spent two painstaking hours getting everything just right, and feigning ignorance to anything that landed in my inbox. I mean, priorities, right? This is my office. I have one chance to get it right and just the way I want it before it starts to overload with media kits, magazines, DVDs, and all the paperwork my vision can handle. This is the cleanest day of my little office's life! I had to make it good.

Once I ensured that my stapler and tape dispenser were perfectly aligned to my compulsive liking, I sat down in my new office to work. And then, basically, I couldn't. I couldn't work! I needed time to adjust to my surroundings and admire the view of the filing cabinets. I needed time to go online and find just the right framed fine print of the Chicago skyline and the Andy Warhol "Lifesavers" ad from 1984 that I've been dreaming of hanging in my office, if I ever got one. I needed just a little more time to make sure that my Juniper Breeze hand sanitizer was in the right drawer, and that the pictures on my bulletin board that prove that despite working 12 hour days, yes I do have a social life - featured pictures of people I was still friends with and not the few token arm-around-arm pictures with ex-boyfriends or love affairs that dried as quickly as the correction fluid on a contract.

So I did. I did all of those things and then some. I admired the filing cabinets, but spent way too much time getting annoyed at how messy my predecessors had left them and ultimately decided to move on before I had the frenzied urge to organize them. I went online and searched for my prints, ultimately deciding to buy them later in a shopping spree mood, because I realized that moving office did not equate to a raise of any sort and my cheap conscience couldn't handle the expense of fine art at the moment. And by the way, there were some of those pictures. Most of them didn't go into the trash, but knowing myself the way I do, went into safekeeping in case I hit any of those guys up again and felt bad having thrown our pictures away.

And to cap it off, I sent off an email to any and all frequent daytime visitors, informing them of my promotion in the world. I was tempted to send to my "person of interest" too, but then realized that this would sound entirely too cocky and perhaps a secondhand rumor about my move would do the trick. After all, who wouldn't want to make sweet love to a yuppie chick like me? We could easily do it...in my office.

posted by KA @ 7:12 PM