Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here

Peter Gibbons: So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.
Dr. Swanson: What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah.
Dr. Swanson: Wow, that's messed up.

-- Office Space

Who designed the office? What sadist, his mind bustling with twisted and subtle forms of degradation and humiliation, created the horrific arrangement within which I now find myself trapped? Like Foucault's Panopticon, the Office exists as a man made torture device in which our physical bodies are confined, but it's truly our spiritual selves which suffer the most.

I worked in another office for a year. Perhaps it was the fact that there was a view (a spectacular view including the Brooklyn Bridge and the South Street Seaport and the not-as hipstery-from-a-distance-Brooklyn), or that there were people who spoke to me there, or that there was work BESIDES data entry for me to do -- whatever the reason, my last office experience did not prepare me for this tenth circle of hell in which I'm temping.

Firstly, the set up: I am in a very narrow strip of hallway in a large office at a rather distinguished university. Behind me are large file cabinets, which are slowly being emptied as the contents are archived. To the left of me is another work station, which currently lies empty as the student worker who uses it is not in today. So far I've met two of the student workers, one of which can't believe that I'm not a student (which I believe speaks more to the lowly nature of my task and less to my youthful appearance. Le sigh.), and the other who refuses to talk to me. To the right of me sits boxes piled high with files that don't seem to have been disturbed for many years, stranded in the Seti Alpha 6 that is my work area. Also of note is that my entire workspace, including my keyboard and monitor, takes up about 3.5' x 2.5'. I'm a large man so basically this whole set up is designed to look like some weird scene in an episode of Mr. Bean.

Oh! I almost forgot. The printer.

The office printer lies directly to my left, establishing my western border to the Pile Mountains eastern bloc. This is where everyone prints their documents, so therefore it provides some possibility for human interaction. Unfortunately, as is often with my life, potential does not translate into reality. People grab their papers without saying so much as a word. Maybe a quick twitter or grunt, or a concerned look as if they are faced with an unruly retarded child who rages about the lack of peanut butter pie in his all Lego diet. They shuffle back to their desks, and I remain faced against my mortal foe: A Giant Excel Spreadsheet. But I like to give these people the benefit of the doubt. I am only temporary. Perhaps they all fell in love with another worker, a darling human being who made great quips, and was always there for a laugh. First one in, last one to leave - this guy was amazing. And then, suddenly, he was gone. Off to go work in another office with some other, luckier people. Such is the life of the Temporary Worker. But what of those people he left behind? Brokenhearted and desperately pining for their missing Temporary Love. And here I come, another temporary worker. Dare they get attached only to feel that harsh burn of separation once more? Can they let themselves get hurt again? Unfortunately, they are afraid to open their hearts up, the pain too fresh, and so they shun me like Michael Richards at a Public Enemy concert (topical!).

Sweet JESUS is data entry boring. I tend to enjoy Zen like monotony; I can wash dishes until my fingers are reduced to bloody stubs scraping food leavins off the plates. I normally don't find anything more relaxing, or helpful with my noisy mind, than mowing the lawn with its endless, repetitive pacing. But data entry is horrible. I look like I've been jerking off for 50 years and am still waiting to cum. My eyes are bloodshot, my face is quite pallid, my brain slow and angry. Remember that (SPOILER ALERT) last scene in Being John Malkovich? When John Cusack's character is stuck in the little girl and is forced to watch his former lovers Lezz out? That's how I feel doing this work. Like there's a tiny me trapped inside, banging his itty bitty head against the walls, trying desperately to break out, or affect some change so this soulcrushing monotony will end.

"Some sources attribute the introduction of the cubicle desk to the computer chip manufacturer Intel Inc. During the 1960s. Its creation is generally attributed to Robert Propst, a designer from Colorado who worked for Herman Miller Inc., a major manufacturer of office furniture. It was based on a 1965 prototype and named the Action Office, made up of modular units with an open plan, an entirely novel system for the time."

Go fuck yourself, Mr. Propst. The cubicle is nothing more than a playpen for the unimaginative. Sure there's no ceiling, and a little open slit of a doorway to make one feel like he could leave at any moment - but you're not going anywhere. You're trapped in there. But at least a cubicle limits the number of people who walk behind you, so you're free to IM, or surf the net, or, say, update your not so popular blog. Here in this little place I like to call Thunder Alley, I'm wide open so I'm constantly looking over my shoulder like Bowie on cocaine - convinced that there are people watching me check my Gmail.

This new job is slowly getting to me. And I know that "what you do" shouldn't equal "who you are". But, to some effect, it does help define you. We spend more time at work than we do with our loved ones, friends, and family. We are surrounded by people with whom we didn't choose to associate, doing something that is usually not what we dream about doing. Oh, there are some of us that have our dream jobs - a few astronauts, a couple of really enthused lawyers, a handful of dedicated Pirate Detectives. But for most of us, what we are doing is either all we could find, simply what pays the bills, a stepping stone to another career, or some other choice that merely satisfies one aspect of our life while flying in defiance of all the others.

And I've done more than my share of menial work. I've worked in kitchens at hospitals and country clubs. I've jockeyed a cash register at convenience stores, cafes, and book stores. I've been customer service. I've been a waiter. I've logged files, inputted information, designed spreadsheets and mailings. I've even been a roofer. But nothing is as altogether depressing and soulnumbing as data entry and officework. The muted tones and subdued colors of the walls and cubicles, the drab tints of folders and other dreary forms of stationary all conspire to slowly drag us into a state devoid of creativity or emotion. The humming, blaring, putrid fluorescent lights beam down on all of us, bathing workers in a horrible glow that reveals every possible imperfection on our faces. There's little talking or social interaction, as walls and offices have been erected to segregate us from each other - lest some seditionary speak begin and talk of revolution could spread amongst us in these bureaucratic bastilles.

Have you ever watched an episode of Survivor? Have you ever noticed how ecstatic those people are at the prospect of eating food? Whenever the host says that the winner of a competition gets a cracker with some cheese whiz, they all become wide eyed and eager, willing to saw off their own limbs just for the possibility to smell some food. Well that attitude is also evident in an office environment. Food becomes the number one reward. Lunch becomes a huge thing as everyone discusses where they wish to go for lunch, what to get, what did you get?, how was the line?, what do I feel like having, etc. etc.. And if there's ever any sweets or little treats brought in for an occasion or even left over from some meeting, then office workers begin to swarm on the plate of free food like those avian assassins attacking the phone booth in The Birds.

And this isn't a new sentiment, this hatred and distrust of offices.

Behold the story of Bartleby!

Herman Melville knew that the office was a horrible place. But he also knew it was a Hell of our own making. It's a place where everyone tacitly (or in terms of OSHA, various laws and contracts, explicitly) agrees to go along with the system. We all dress up in clothes that we hate to do jobs that we don't love in a place that is designed to be efficient and conformist. So when one man decides that he simply doesn't want to do that, he's seen as crazy and weird. Another really great bit about Bartleby's story is that the Boss simply can't fathom that someone wouldn't want to do work. There must be something amiss. There has to be a deeper reason than someone simply not caring to do inane office work. Right?

We all know life's not fair. We all know that we gotta get these jobs done. As horrible as it is, as painful and soulcrushing as all of these jobs are, data needs to be updated. But it doesn't have to be done in such a manner as to actually make it worse. We don't have to surround ourselves in tope and beige, strangle ourselves with ties or suits, bleach out our brains with fluorescent lights, or refuse to interact with each other on a very basic and human level. But no one wants to be the first person to simply say "I would prefer not to."

RANDOM OFFICE FACTS:

• The very word stems from the Latin officium (see that article), as its equivalents in various (mainly romance) languages. Interestingly, this was not necessarily a place, but rather an (often mobile) 'bureau' in the sense of a human staff or even the abstract notion of a formal position (such as a magistrature). Rome can be considered the first society which, mainly because of the rule of law, developed a relatively elaborate bureaucracy, which would not be equaled for centuries in the West after the fall of Rome, even partially reverting to illiteracy, while the east preserved a more sophisticated administrative culture, both under Byzantium and under Islam.
• Offices in classical antiquity were often part of a palace complex or a large temple. There was usually a room where scrolls were kept and scribes did their work. Ancient texts mentioning the work of scribes allude to the existence of such "offices". These rooms are sometimes called "libraries" by some archaeologists and the general press because one often associates scrolls with literature. In fact they were true offices since the scrolls were meant for record keeping and other management functions such as treaties and edicts, and not for writing or keeping poetry or other works of fiction.
• The medieval chancery was usually the place where most government letters were written and were laws were copied in the administration of a kingdom. The rooms of the chancery often had walls full of pigeonholes, constructed to hold rolled up pieces of parchment for safekeeping or ready reference (a precursor to the book shelf). The introduction of printing during the Renaissance did not change these early government offices much.
• Pre-industrial illustrations such as paintings or tapestries often show us personalities or eponyms in their private offices, handling record keeping books or writing on scrolls of parchment. All kinds of writings seemed to be mixed in these early forms of offices. Before the invention of the printing press and its distribution there was often a very thin line between a private office and a private library since books were read or written in the same space at the same desk or table, and general accounting and personal or private letters were also done there.