With barely a minute to spare, I slid into my cubicle chair at 8:30am exactly. My hair was still wet from my quick shower and as usual I wasn’t exactly happy with my chosen outfit for the day. I promised myself I’d do better tomorrow. Tomorrow I would get up early, run a six minute mile with Jen, shower, apply every beauty product in my cabinet expertly and descend from my clean apartment perfectly clad in my office attire. Tomorrow.
For the remainder of the morning it was work as usual, with frequent coffee breaks and trips to the bathroom to pass the time. I really do appreciate my job, I really do. My cousin got me the entry level job at the advertising firm as a favor to my mom. Since that day about 2 years ago, I’ve been plugging away at the office trying to accomplish whatever it is that we do here. Recently I sat in on a pivotal meeting in which the background color of an advertisement was discussed. Should we use use mint green or sea foam green? What does each color say to our target audience. All I could think was, “are you kidding me with this?!” I thought they were kidding until we started a conference call with our sister office in Toronto. I guess I have a lot to learn about the world of advertising.
Of course, I never set out to be a girl in a cubicle. College was a great experience for me. So great in fact, that I stayed for a extra year much to my parents dismay. I walked away with a degree in finance that I am pretty darn proud of. After a few temp jobs, I decided to move from Peoria the windy city to pursue a dream job and settled for the ad firm. I can’t say I don’t enjoy working downtown, although I always feel like a stranger in a strange land.
At lunch, I had to go out to forage for food since I rarely remembered to pack a lunch. In my quest for something semi-healthy I ran in to Jen and her cubicle neighbor Tonya on the way to the elevator. Tonya was a sweet, rather timid red-head that reminded me of a scared bunny. She rarely seemed to do anything without Jen’s approval and today proved no exception.
“Jen was telling me about this great Thai place in the food court that has low carbs meals, it’s that perfect?” Tonya rattled. Great, another days of quasi starvation.
