A Blessing in Disguise (or, The Bloggings of an Insomniac at Three o'Clock in the Morning)

In January, I got fired from my job. I had never been fired from a job before, but to be quite honest, I wasn't all that upset. I hated my job. I was an administrative assistant-slash-receptionist, the lowest rung on the ladder in a completely dysfunctional office. Just like Pam, from The Office (or Dawn, in the British version - both brilliant shows), but without the humor. Quite a cast of characters my co-workers were, too. (Again, like The Office,...). The dragon lady of an office manager was a bully who came from an extremely dysfunctional family. She felt she had something to prove because she didn't have the education or qualifications someone in her position would normally have. She managed to manipulate the partners of the firm every time she wanted things her way, usually by threatening to quit. But she never would. Frankly, I think she knew she wouldn't have it as good anywhere else as she had it at this job, hence her fierce determination to preserve her own standing in the company.

Then there were the partners who constantly pulled the "I'm working at home today" b.s. They barely put in a 9-to-5 work week, especially the one who would come in at 9:30 and leave at 4:45 every day because he had a "long commute." Except that the work week at this place was supposed to be 9-to-6, just to squeeze that extra hour of work each day from people without going over the 40-hour-a-week limit before being required to pay overtime. But the partners would all leave at 5 anyway. Yet they wanted the extra phone coverage during that last hour, so of course I got stuck staying until 6 every night. But the extra hour of work didn't make any sense. If anyone had called for the partners between 5 and 6 o'clock, (which no one did because everyone else in the entire city leaves work at 5), they wouldn't have been able to talk to them anyway because they had already gone home. Even when the office upgraded to a new voice mail system, I still ended up staying later than almost everyone else.

Then there was the Director of Marketing. What a freak! An aging hippie who prided himself on being liberal, he was an extremely repulsive little man with a Napoleon complex. He would walk around the office in his dirty old socks like the free spirit he pretended to be. He had b.o. and the vilest breath imaginable. And worst of all, he would fart whenever he felt like it and then act like nothing happened. He was also a creep. He leered at the women in the office. He would say the most inappropriate things in staff meetings. Whenever he spoke to me, his eyes would always dart down to my bust. He lived two hours away by train from his job so he routinely came in to work at 11:00 am and left at 3:00 pm, except for Wednesdays when he, too, pulled the "working at home" crap. Because he put in so little time at the office, he was always behind in his work. I guess "working at home" wasn't particularly effective for him, especially the days that I'd call him at home about something, only to be told that he was out riding his bike. Because he fell behind in his work all the time, I was given marketing tasks well beyond my job description, often working through lunch or past quitting time. In one case, I put together an entire proposal by myself for a major potential client, and the firm was awarded the job. I always held out hope that by doing the extra work, they would realize they needed another marketing person and promote me. But I never got a promotion. All I got was taken advantage of, in terms of my time and skills. Then one day, about a month before they let me go, they asked me to type up a classified ad they wanted to put in the newspaper - an ad for another marketing person. By that time, I didn't want to be promoted anymore, because it would have meant working directly for that repulsive little man. No thank you!

When the day came that I was called into the office of one of the partners and told that "there is no longer a place for you with the firm" (one week after returning from Christmas break), I was happy. I had been praying that I would get fired so that I could leave this job without having to give two weeks notice and train a replacement. And the day before I was let go, I had been in church again. An answer to my prayers, literally. I had been in therapy because of that job. Of course, getting fired meant I lost my insurance and was unable to continue with therapy. Then again, getting fired alleviated 99% of the problems that made me seek out a therapist in the first place. Over dinner one night after work with the only co-worker that I considered a friend, I confided in her that I was in therapy because of this job. My friend, who also hated her job at this place, then told me that she was also in therapy because of her job. I think we both took comfort in the fact that the other was in therapy too. It meant that it wasn't us, that we weren't crazy or unable to do our jobs. It validated our feelings that there was something wrong with that office and the people we worked for. "What is is about that place that made two nice girls go into therapy?" my friend asked. She ended up quitting her job two weeks after I got fired.

So now I find myself unemployed, and wondering whether I really want to take another office job. I'm gunshy about taking another secretarial job that will probably not lead to anything except more dashed hopes and unrealized ambitions. I shudder when I read the classifieds, and avoid all ads that say "Must be able to multi-task in a fast-paced environment." I am seriously considering taking a job in a tea shop, or a bookstore. Something that I enjoy, and that won't subject me to the corporate bullshit office dynamic. I just want a job with less stress. I derived no personal fulfillment or joy from my last job. Just let me go to work without crying on the bus, have a relatively easy day, come home, do a little writing, and then go to bed. I've come to the conclusion that I'm just not cut out for an office job. Maybe I'm just the "creative type." I once read an interview with the ceramic artist and interior designer Jonathan Adler. He said that he was almost fired from every single job he'd ever had. But once he quit the corporate world and began making his own pottery designs, he became successful. I remind myself of this every time I ponder whether I should take a job that has a certain level of security and pay, or do something that will make me happy. I'm leaning towards Happy. The world is my oyster, as the saying goes.

Does anyone else have any job-related horror stories they want to share?

By the way, if any of you fellow office slaves haven't seen the film "Clockwatchers" with Toni Collette and Lisa Kudrow, you totally should! Especially if you've ever been a temp (guilty!). The person who wrote the screenplay must have been a temp at some point (but ultimately went on to become a screenwriter - see, there is life after Corporate). The film captures spot-on the invisibility, dreariness, and lack of appreciation that goes along with the territory of being a temp in the corporate office environment.

And on a completely unrelated note before I'm off to bed:

Separated at birth?