Look Back in Anarchy

A great photo retrospective on the Hulton Getty archive site today. A Look Back at Punk collects 49 images from 1976 to 1986 for an at-a-glance overview of the punk rock movement. It features photos of the infamous (Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious, Billy Idol, and Joe Strummer), as well as the unfamous (punk kids with their spiked hair and wild makeup). Hard to believe punk is over thirty years old.

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?

Support Your Local Bookstore

A Missouri bookstore owner held his own bookburning yesterday. It was not, as one might imagine, a Bible-Belt protest against questionable content or subject matter of the books themselves. Tom Wayne burned his overstock of used books as a protest against what he sees as society's decline in interest in reading. This after he discovered that he was unable to give away his overstock to local libraries and thrift stores. He called his bookburning "A funeral pyre for thought in America today." His bonfire blazed for about 50 minutes before the fire department came and put it out because he didn't have a permit. But he intends to get one and to hold monthly bonfires until his overstock of about 20,000 books is gone.

Despite dozens of people showing up to purchase books at the last minute to save them from the bonfire, the majority of fiction, art, history, children's literature, and even antiquarian books are ultimately headed for a fiery demise. Mr. Wayne pointed to a 2002 study by the National Endowment for the Arts that found that less than half of adult respondents reported reading for pleasure, down from almost 57 percent in 1982. He cites the Internet, with its easy access to information, as one cause of declining readership. And the trickle-down effect of dwindling sales in his own store has led to his overstock situation.

It's unfortuante that local institutions in Mr. Wayne's area were unable to acquire his overstock. Perhaps the national publicity Mr. Wayne's story is generating will help rescue the remainder of his overstock from suffering the same fate as yesterday's batch of books. Surely there must be schools, homeless shelters, hospices, nursing homes, etc. across the country that would welcome a large supply of books? Maybe we'll see a follow-up story to this, one in which more of his books will find good homes. I certainly hope so.

Job Insecurity

What workplace environment wouldn't be complete without motivational posters? First there was "Hang in There, Baby" -- who could forget the image of that cat hanging by its front paws for dear life from a tree limb? Today, a new generation of truly inspirational posters offers a more sophisticated way of decorating that cubicle, water cooler area, or break room. Demotivators from Despair, Inc. offer no less than eighty-six different truisms. No matter what your issues are, they've got you covered.

Worried about not climbing the corporate ladder fast enough? Slow down, you'll get there. In the meantime, let this poster (below) remind you of what's really important in life - staying under the radar.



Need a Secret Santa gift for the office Christmas party? Might I suggest this elegant framed desk topper (below)?



It's especially apropos for Christmas, with the beautiful winter landscape, complete with evergreen tree, and is sure to make the recipient's holiday season that much merrier and brighter (It's quite alright, no need to thank me).

Demotivators are available in a variety of products, including posters, notecards, calendars, mugs, screensavers, and desktoppers. Because everyone needs a little demotivation.

10 Things I Should Be Doing Instead of Blogging

1. Look for a job
2. Read a book
3. Take a walk in the fresh air and sunshine
4. Get together with friends I haven't seen in a while
5. Take a pottery/yoga/swing dancing class
6. Finish that sweater I've been knitting since January
7. Get some sleep
8. See a movie
9. Go to the beach and eat fried seafood
10. Find a boyfriend

Okie Dokie Pig in a Pokie

If you've ever seen The League of Gentlemen, a twisted but really rather funny British sketch comedy show from a few years back, you'll understand the title of this post. If you haven't, allow me to explain.

One of the recurring sketches in TLOG takes place at the "New Deal Job Seekers Club," an unemployment program in the fictional and very bizarre town in which all of the characters of the show reside. Pauline, the Restart Officer (above), starts class every time with a cheery "Okie dokie pig in a pokie" before proceeding to insult and undermine the "dole scum" she is supposed to be helping. It's funnier than I'm making it sound, believe me. The reason why I mention this is that presently I find myself in the same situation as the Job Seekers (though I'd hardly call myself "scum"!). And today, I've just received an email rejection letter for a job that I applied for but didn't really want. And they never even called me in for an interview.

It's particularly galling to be rejected for a job that one was merely "settling" for.

Beachcombing

The New England town in which I live has a rich maritime history. Two hundred years ago, ships departed the harbor for The Orient (as Asia was then called), and returned with spices, teas, and porcelain. The Chinese invented the process of making porcelain and rather selfishly wouldn't share the recipe with anyone. They did, however, do a brisk trade in it with Europe and America. Porcelain brought back from China was called "Chinese export porcelain." It was expensive and highly coveted, a status symbol among the wealthy in Europe. It took Europeans about a couple of hundred years to finally figure out how to duplicate it, though in the meantime they came up with a reasonable alternative, one that was softer than the Chinese stuff and was called "soft-paste" porcelain (as opposed to the Chinese "hard-paste"). Blue and white hand-painted porcelain was ubiquitous in China, and was the most prevalent type of Chinese export porcelain in the 18th century.

Some people like to collect shells when they go to the beach, others beach glass. When I go beachcombing, I like to collect pottery shards. The beach along the harbor in town is a great source for them, especially at low tide. Although the wharves are long gone, I can imagine ships docking at them on their return from Asia and Europe, the crews unloading crates of imported goods and storing them at the Customs House across the street. The two shards above were both recovered from the harbor in my town. They're in the style of Chinese export porcelain but are probably European. I know the second one is definitely English because the back of the shard partially reveals the manufacturer's name on it, and the word "Ltd." which indicates it was a British manufacturer. It's a great example of transferware, a process of decoration not dissimilar to those rub-off transfers used to decorate Easter eggs. Although transferware was invented in the mid-18th century, the increased sophistication and fine detail of this design dates it to the 19th century. Before transferware, 18th century porcelain was hand-painted, with broad brushstrokes and not as much detail. How do I know all this? I used to work for a British woman who was a European pottery and porcelain curator at a museum. She was as mad as a March hare, walking around the office looking for her glasses when all the time they were perched on her forehead. But by God, she knew her porcelain! She could look at a teapot and tell you it was late-18th century English Staffordshire lustreware, and that the coat of arms on it were of King George IV of England while he was still Prince of Wales.

Pottery shards leave so much to the imagination. Who had them last, when they were intact dishes or teacups? How did they get into the sea? Were they thrown overboard because they had broken during the voyage back to America? Were they from a shipwreck? Did they take 200 years to wash up onto the shore? Are my hands the first to touch them in centuries? These pottery shards are a connection to the past. I keep them on my dresser in a pottery dish with a mermaid on it, new pottery holding old pottery. As though things have come full circle.