Chicago -
By J. Bird
Today was the breaking point. I couldn’t get out of bed until quarter to three, and I never got out of my pajamas. And for those of you with inquiring minds, no, I don’t mean cute little jammies covered with sheep jumping over clouds. I mean baggy old cotton pants and a ragged out long-sleeved t-shirt. Sheesh.
Posted on September 19, 2006
By J. Bird
I think it’s Day Three without a reason to set the alarm, grumble about having to roll out of bed, dress up, and make my way downtown – but I’m not really sure. Unemployment It’s taking its toll already. I’ve lost the ability to distinguish between weekday and weekend.
Posted on September 18, 2006
By J. Bird
I’m not really sure how to classify today. Yesterday I had that “get-up-n-go” attitude, but that might have had something to do with needing to get downtown and collect my pay. Today – Day Two of Life (Not) at Work – I didn’t.
Posted on September 15, 2006
By J. Bird
After originally saying I would work through my severance period, I came to my senses and realized that I damn well deserved a couple of days off to mope, and a couple of weeks off to look for a new job. In a short while, I will go in to collect my severance check, which will hopefully pay a few bills.
I have, to date, sent out more than a dozen resumes online, but I’ve heard these online resume dealies don’t often come through. It’s all about networking, and, being a total introvert, I may be screwed. I know about 15 people in the City of Chicago, and I’m related to seven of those. Maybe I should have attended some of those alumni events after all.
Posted on September 14, 2006
By J. Bird
Okay, Bird’s in a real pickle. While your feathered friend didn’t get “fired” or “terminated” (the boss’ words), I will, in the shortly forseeable future, be forced to find other employment, mainly due to not being the “right fit”.
This could be a marvelous thing. On some levels, I’m elated. But on the levels that have to do things like pay the bills, and find a new job, and so forth, I’m definitely saying “Oh, fuck.”
Posted on September 13, 2006
Life at work sucked today. J. Bird will return Wednesday if sufficiently recovered.
In the meantime, catch up with the Life at Work archive.
Posted on September 12, 2006
By J. Bird
The Bird felt like total crap at 5:30 in the morning today, which isn’t totally unusual, except for the scratchy throat and coughing up of nasty goop. One look at the weather confirmed it. Bird was not going to work today.
The Boss was not happy. He believes Bird gets sick too often. But Bird’s thought is that it is better to stay home and take care of oneself one day than come to work and feel sick for days at a time until Bird has to stay in the nest for numerous days, plus pay for a visit to the doctor and take nasty antibiotics.
Posted on September 11, 2006
By J. Bird
Okay, I’ve finally found something that’s more frustrating than a boss in a shitty mood, a co-worker who listens to Enya, and a busybody office manager, and it’s something that – unless you’re one of the powerful few in IT – you have absolutely no control over. You can avoid your boss, throw Enya in the shredder, and ignore the office manager, but you can’t do a goddamn thing when your office’s Internet goes down.
Posted on September 8, 2006
By J. Bird
I was pretty stoked for today’s column til today turned out to be one of those days that just hammers away at you from the minute you walk in the door til the minute your boss says “Sayonara” and there’s only an hour left in the day, and your “IN” box is still piled high.
All the same, I think today’s topic is a pretty important one that impacts most of us in the working world, so I’m going to take a few minutes to address it.
Work has turned us all into schizophrenics. No, I’m not talking about clinically diagnosable mentally ill people, and I don’t want to use the term lightly, but working in an office, unless it brings more meaning to your life than it does to most people’s, forces you to split and splinter your personality until you don’t really know who you are or who you’re supposed to be.
Posted on September 7, 2006
By J. Bird
For once, the boss is behaving in a reasonable manner toward me (“Pat” is getting the brunt of his moody weirdness today) – he even bought me lunch! So I can’t gripe too much about him, and I’ve been cranking through my workload at a steady pace, so I’m in a nice space right now. Earlier, I got to be Delivery Bird, which was extremely cool – getting outside on a beautiful day like today is always a treat, and a rare one, at that. I’m sure such errands will suck in February, but for now, I’ll take Delivery Duty any day.
The quirky thing that I’ve noticed about today’s swarm of office workers is that it is almost unilaterally blue shirt and yellow tie day downtown today. Nobody sent me the memo, but that’s just fine – I’ve never been a bandwagoneer. But I was on the elevator earlier and there were four guys on there in grey pants, blue shirts, and yellow ties. The guy in the grey pants, blue shirt, and red tie stuck out like a sore thumb. I like to think I was a vision of “fashion forward” in my black suit and shirt, but they were probably whispering about me as soon as I stepped off.
Posted on September 6, 2006
