New Job Part Two: Lunch hour

“A dream is a wish your heart makes.”

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t enjoy what I do—for several reasons. If I had my way, I’d drop the media buying and focus solely on doing creative work. But in business, they don’t give you a job unless you already know how to do it, and since I didn’t have enough luck to get accepted for the creative track at BYU, I’ve never learned the programs I’d need for it. So, I’ve accepted that moving over to creative is just a dream, and I might as well become very accustomed to media buying, because that’s probably what I’ll be doing for the next long while.

“You mean I get to come away with you in your starship?”

Remember all those hollow promises my manager made me months ago about my moving to the creative department. Well, the company finally made good on them. As of today, I am no longer a media buyer and I couldn’t be happier about it. My new assignments include print advertising layout and trafficking newspaper and radio ads—and they’re even willing to let me learn all the programs as I go along!

“Well, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”

Unfortunately, to make the position available, they had to give a lady at the office the pink slip, but then, I don’t blame them for doing it. In fact, she kind of did it to herself. She’s a “king mixer” and she’s always complaining about something.

“Now listen carefully. Lord Denethor is Boromir's father. To give him news of his beloved son's death would be most unwise... And do not mention Frodo, or the Ring... And say nothing of Aragorn, either... In fact, it's better if you don't speak at all.”

We had a meeting last week where the owners asked that we spend less personal time on the internet and that there be no more computer games played during the work day. She got really defensive about it (mostly because the requests which were made generally were pretty much meant just for her) and made the argument, “well I don’t even have anything to do until Thursday!”

So, now she’s gone, and I do creative work Monday through Wednesday and her job Thursday and Friday.

This “promotion” comes with a whole slew of plusses for me. 1.) I get to learn all the creative programs on the computer—so instead of blowing a couple of G’s on an additional degree from a technical school to learn these things, I’m getting on the job training from people who’ve been doing it for longer than I’ve been alive. 2.) Jean was a decent human being, but she really grossed me out. Whenever she was out on vacation, I had to cover for her. So I’d sit at her desk some days, and the place was discusting: foundation make-up caked onto the phone, coffee mugs tattooed with excess lipstick scattered about, loose hair and dandruff peppered the work area, and the mouse and keyboard were sticky with dried hand lotion. I won’t mind not dealing with that any more. 3.) Perhaps the most welcomed change of all is that I’ll no longer have Andrew as a manager.

“When do we eat?
“When do we eat?
“When do we eat?
“When do we eat?”

I tell enough stories to my old roommates about Andrew that they mostly just know him as “The Tool.” I won’t go too much into ALL the reasons why I don’t like him, but here’s a short example. He insists that one of the buyers be in the office at all times (including during lunch). There were only three of us, so that meant that someone had to either go to lunch an hour early or an hour late. He and the other buyer were making a big deal out of it concerning who would go late which days of the week. Neither of them wanted to give ground, so I just said that they could both take lunch whenever they wanted, and I would just wait to take my lunch until one of them got back.

“To govern, you need say only one of two things:

‘That’s a splendid idea, I’m glad I thought of it,’ and ‘Guards, seize him!’”

A few months down the road Andrew was mentioning how flexible of a manager he is, citing “allowing” me to take a later lunch as evidence of his grace and understanding. That, plus other self promoting comments he’s made makes me think that he must be pretty insecure about himself, because not since Hitler have I seen someone in leadership do so much campaigning for a position he already holds.

So, even now that I’m no longer required to alternate my lunch hour with the other media buyers’, and even though I’m always starving by noon, I still wait until after one to take my lunch. Not because I need to, but because I prefer to spend as much of my day without those guys as possible. So waiting an hour is no big deal because by waiting its like I take my one Andrew free hour that I have for lunch and stretch it to two.

It’s not that I dislike them, sometimes they’re a lot of fun to joke around with, but I’m just so often annoyed by them that the less time I spend with them the better. After all, I’m on contract to spend 8 hours a day sitting within 20 feet of them, so any chance I get to provide some distance there, I take it.

Sometimes I wish I were the one who went at noon and they left when I got back, not because I want to be the first one to eat, but because EVERY day Andrew sits at his desk and laments how boring lunches are. He mopes about how he can’t decide where to go, and when I try to advise him on eating here, or doing this he ALWAYS has some kind of complaint as to why that won’t work for him. His traditional lunch includes a sack lunch that he eats in the break room for 15 minutes, then he comes back to his desk, plops down in his chair and sighs about how boring lunches are.

My lunches, on the other hand rock the freakin’ house! Sometimes I decide to walk home—that takes me about a half hour round trip, but its very relaxing and provides a good change of pace to all the sitting that I do all day. Other days I drive home and enjoy an entire hour to do whatever. Sometimes I read, sometimes I watch a movie, sometimes I nap, sometimes I play Xbox, every time I eat. And even the days when I walk I have a half hour at home and that gives me plenty of time to mix up a fun combination of the above activities.

“When I grow up and get married, I’m living alone.”

In this life, with work, and church, and chores, and (for some people) family, we only have so much discretionary time and I don’t understand why some people dread facing those moments alone. If I ever get married, I hope its to a girl who loves the time she spends by herself enough to allow herself time away from me and allow me a portion that I can spend on my own too.