2014-10-20

That Cubicle Life

I started watching another boy full-time, because we have gotten ourselves used to the cushy American lifestyle of eating every day. Lately while I'm waiting to adjust to the *new* new schedule, I can't help but pontificate about all the things that are different from this job than my past jobs.

Both involved working with children, but in an office situation you get lulled into a false sense of adult security by all the computers, uncomfortable business attire and coffee breath. But then before 10am, you've been called away from the nearly impossible billing magic trick you're trying to pull of, just to watch freaking cat videos and break up a fight about marked or unmarked food in the communal refrigerator.

My former co-workers (the alleged adults) had disgusting bathroom habits from not flushing to not washing their hands to not cleaning up their pumped-out baby food, and worse biohazards you REALLY don't want to hear about, but at least in an office I wasn't in charge of wiping anyone's anything.  

My new co-workers never go way over deadline gossiping, or talk about American Idol until I want to jam sharp office supplies into my ear holes. They do sing "Let It Go' from Disney's Frozen after I caved and rented it from the $2 video store down the street. 3 times now. 
Yes, I know that eventually it will be cheaper to buy it, but also if we own it? I can't say, "Sorry, the store's closed."  Can you put a price on THAT? No, no you can't.

I miss office pranks something fierce. In my old jobs I could for example, let off some steam and simultaneously remind someone of their least favorite client by wallpapering every single inch of their cubicle with returned mailers from that client. Also inside all of their storage shelves and desk drawers, any anywhere else I could get into.  
No, this is not mine unforch. It was like this, only with client mailers.
The HOFF pics ARE better, though
. from Pinterest
I've done that one twice, both times before having a digital camera so I have no idea where the physical pictures would be. In the saddle bag of the brontosaurus I rode to work, no doubt.

Working with toddlers, pranking is generally frowned upon. They also never fall for that whole,
"Your credit card company called to verify a $7,000 charge today." 
One guy really yelled at his wife over that one before I had the chance to explain that it was just me, just kidding. Whoopsy.

Toddlers on the other hand? It's a scientific fact that toddlers are the LEAST funny individuals on planet Earth, despite maniacally laughing at their own evil destruction. You might think wearing a cute clown mask to greet them in the morning would be funny, but you would be dead-on-balls wrong. And definitely greeted with screaming tears. And possibly tiny fists of fury. Toddler humor is a very oddly specific art, where only adults being in actual, physical pain seems to make them happy. Say, bumping my head or falling on the floor, or fighting off a nervous breakdown. I'm not playing to that room. Not on purpose anyway.

Managing projects is quiet different in my new gig. I used to arrange a meeting(s) of all people involved to lay out a general timeline, making sure everyone is on board with their part. All team members were clear on their individual goals, and we would have follow-up meetings to see how things were coming along (or not.) Now my projects are handed to me, like it or not, without so much as a pretense of pretending to care about my opinion. 

I'm told what the goal is, and when the light is green, even if it couldn't be more red. Or yellow and brown in the case of Force potty-training (and I'm not talking Star Wars) a 2 year old, who can't talk or even pull down his own pants, much less control the muscles responsible for holding in his bodily fluids. The Father wants to stop paying for diapers, so now it's my problem how to make that happen with someone who can't even get their junk, much less their fluids into a potty hole once I've placed him on it. That's all I'm going to say, except:
If you feel like you get dumped on at work, walk a mile in my bathroom. 

The pay is much different, even how I'm compensated. Instead of my pay being directly deposited into my bank account, so I can cover the expenses of the job, in my case feeding other human beings that eat several times during my work day, now I have to actually ASK (beg at times) for each and every payment. Half the time I'm put off for a myriad of reasons no adult person would ever offer instead of payment in any other situation anywhere else in the adult world. 

Imagine your mortgage company calls you to ask for your house payment, and you casually walk away telling them you forgot your checkbook. Or you're running late, you'll get them later. Or listing a bunch of things you recently had to pay for that have nothing to do with them, that made you come up short. 

How do you think the electric company would respond to that one? That's right, after they hung up on you, you would be trying to dial them back up IN THE DARK because they would turn your crap right off. Assuming the phone company hadn't already turned your phone off for not paying because you didn't feel like it yet, even though the service you pay for WAS ALREADY PROVIDED. If you were at a restaurant, ate your meal and upon the waiter giving you the check, you rattled off everything you had to pay for that week-----okay, I think you get the idea. Point is, PAY people who provide services to you. It's literally the least you can do. It's what you agreed to do.

This job does come with benefits I have never had before, smiles, giggles, hugs, nine thousand crayon drawings every week and even "Thank you"s at times. I'm glad I'm able to work from home, don't get me wrong, even if it means making a LOT of sacrifices financially, and not having a lunch break, or bathroom break alone, or any break, or 5 seconds to be allowed to finish a thought or speak like an actual intelligible adult. 

This whole post probably doesn't make any sense, as I have yet to be able to read even a single sentence all the way through to try to proof-read it. Am I going to publish it anyway? Yes, I am. Interacting through this blog is 95% of my only adult interaction, so THANK YOU for reading, and especially those of you who comment and remind me THERE ARE GROWN UPS out there. Somewhere.

Enjoy your lunch breaks if you get em! I'll be over here oooh'ing and ahhh'ing over my stick figure drawings. 




27 comments:

  1. Now, I don't know if I'd consider either of us grown ups. But we appreciate the sentiment. As a shut-in, full time writer, blog comments are some of the only human interaction I have, too!

    Also, you have the type of family that eats every single day? Ugh, thanks for rubbing it in, Mrs. One Percent.

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    1. Well we do NOW that we have the extra kid. The house is pretty crowded, we have to eat in shifts and constantly wash dishes so everyone has one, but yes we do eat several times a day now *humblebrag*

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  2. That cubicle plastered in pictures missed my personal favorite of David Hasselhoff. Google will let you see it - just search Hasselhoff puppies. Don't blame me if you can't get the taste of vomit out of your mouth.

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    1. I don't skerr easily, but I'm a little......nervous let's say.
      Totally going to do it though. Natch.

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  3. I couldn't do your job, that's for sure. At least not without killing someone. Probably the debtor parent.

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    1. The parents ARE really the most challenging part. My sister did daycare for years and I never fully understood what that meant until I did it myself. Kids are just kids, they do what you say and learn quickly. Adults on the other hand? Have their own ideas about things and don't want to take advice from anyone else, even if that person is offering good advice gleaned from years of experience. They figure if they're paying you (anything, ever) they own your butt.

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  4. Funny you should mention oooh & aaah inspiring stick drawings...

    Seriously, though, I'm so over the cubicle life. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how I can leave it behind just yet (that & I'm too much of a chicken to try something different). A girl in one of my classes had an idea, though. It involves winning a few million in the lottery & then investing part of her winnings in lotteries with even bigger jackpots. Could be worth a shot.

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    1. It always seems there are other options, but a lot of the other options are much more scary. Small business, especially THESE DAYS, is really scary. The government, the whole world, seems dead set against everything except giant creepy corporations. They have the money, they make the rules, the rest of us just eventually have to conform. IF we want to eat every day, that is.

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  5. Never mind about the kids. I'd scream and show my fists of fury if I greeted at the door by someone wearing a clown mask!

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  6. My husband keeps asking me what I'm laughing at. He would only understand the half about working in an office, so I didn't bother to tell him. Thank you for the belly laugh, Joy. I'm laughing WITH you, not AT you, of course!

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    1. If you've done both you know! Thankfully for me, my last job was working with some very large children. Yes, they were mostly potty trained, but never did what they were supposed to! They made billing impossible, because their screwing around literally made client bills DOUBLE, we billed by time. When the same work takes 2-3 as long (just b/c of their horsing around) that makes ME have to explain why their bills are suddenly so high. Super annoying.

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  7. Ohhhh that sucks SOVERYMUCH that people don't pay you on time. Bastards! They shouldn't be allowed to do that, and HOW VERY DARE THEY! Childcare is atrociously hard work. And potty training shouldn't be your responsibility, and should never ever ever be done forcefully because it becomes a 'Thing' and invariably makes it all worse and not work and...

    Good grief!

    I feel like you should get paid to educate some of the grown-ups around your area about How Real Works.

    *hugs*

    Glad there are silver linings. Like eating daily. That's a good one :/

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    1. Thank you my darling! If we didn't cut it so close it might not be a big deal. People pay me by check, and it takes at least 2 days for the check to clear, and then if they pay in the EVENING instead of the morning, that's another day, and when we need FOOD to feed the kids and the check won't clear, it makes it pretty rough. Potty training is part of the gig, I get that, but when a kid can't TALK or pull his own pants down? Yeah, you might be pushing it. I feel bad for the kid because he has tons of accidents, then for the rest of the day when I say 'Let's try to go potty' he starts CRYING, because last time he was wet and he has a negative feeling about it. And he never tells me he has to go, so I just have to take him 157 times a day. But hey, they're buying less diapers and that's all they care about, so what do they care? And YES, they're paying for our groceries (EVERY DAY!) so I just smile and nod, and spend every day that the kid is here in the bathroom.

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    2. Poor boy. And poor you. That's no fun. When I was in the nursery, we had a toilet training policy which said that the kid had to be able to manage their own clothes, AND show signs of interest/understanding, AND be able to communicate when they needed to go.

      Still sucks about you not being paid. Can't you impose charges for late payment?

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    3. You're right, there should be SOME signs of readiness before making a child feel bad about something he obviously struggles with controlling.
      You're a genius! I will make that a policy, in the case of late payment add $25 fee! Thanks, smartypants.

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    4. Heheh we were never allowed to make it a policy, because our clientele consisted of (mostly) consultants/lawyers/rich self-employeds who would WILLINGLY pay an extra £25 to leave their kids with us for longer and bollox about with the payments. I hope that it works for ya, and I hope you get LOTS extra money if the payments don't get sorted.

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  8. I'm here, Joy. I'm an adult and I'm here and we're both real and not toddlers.

    So, some slacker dad expects YOU to potty train his freakin' kid? Charge him double. Bastard.

    My son is almost 11, and I STILL can't go to the bathroom without him somehow *needing* me at that exact moment. I know I shouldn't complain, because soon he'll be a teenager who will dream of murdering me in his sleep. But in the meantime, can I get an "Amen, sister!" for being able to take a whiz, uninerrupted?

    You're hilarous! And without all the profanity I use. I dig you.

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    1. Thanks, that's awe-sam-sauce.
      hahaha 'dream of murdering me in his sleep' that's hilarious. I don't know about THAT, but the teen years are a giant ball of suck. I have a 19 yr old son, let's not even talk about him, and 2 girls that are 2 years apart. So they'll be teens at the same time. I literally can't even allow my mind to think about that for one second right now. The teen stage is by far the worst, 2nd only to toddlers. I can't think about the teen years until they're in school and wiping their own butts for awhile. We have no advice on getting through that.
      Thanks for reading!

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  9. You are a very brave woman. I would take a job doing Calculus equations all day (and I HATE math) before I would sign up to take care of children. Very brave.

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  10. Grown-up reporting for duty. Glad I found your blog, and that you found mine. I too love the interaction on my blog and others I read. Us bloggers are a cool bunch, and I am sooooo glad I am past the childcare years. But yeah, that wanting to eat everyday is a great motivator.
    That is why I am subbing in a grade one classroom tomorrow. ACK!

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    1. Thanks for checking in. We bloggers are a cool group. I never feel like a real blogger, but I can play pretend.
      First grade?! That's the bigtime, the show! ALL THE QUESTIONS! Good luck. Just think of the food, and grocery stores have booze! Most of them do anyway.

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  11. Uggiddy ugh ugh. I couldn't do it. You're a stronger, more resilient women than I. Although, I did take another child on when my oldest was just 11 months old. A newborn. Yep, THAT was nuggin futs. It was my best friends baby, and she went back to work. Her mother and I shared care of him. I took two days a week, she took the other three. Fortunately, he was an extremely easy baby, but a baby is still A BABY while I had my own baby to deal with. But you have it worse. Five days in a row.......OY. Just keep writing about to make us laugh, or wince, with you, and to keep your sanity.

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    1. 2 babies ARE a lot! Even though they nap, they grow up fast, start moving around and become toddlers almost immediately! I don't know how parents of multiples do it. It's almost harder with part-time daycare though, because the kids don't fall into a rhythm. I'm having a hard time GETTING TO my blog. I can do social media apps on my phone, but I can't seem to fit my fat fingers onto my phone to blog during the days much. Oh well. I'm just trying to enjoy MY kids during all this craziness. I know they grow up so fast. Even if most days feel like an eternity.

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  12. I just look like a grown up. I'm actually just a horny 15 year old trapped in a 46 year old's body.

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    1. That I believe. I'm not what you would call a mature adult, but I can form sentences and talk about things other than the latest Disney movie. And so can you. Even if you blog about penis cakes. Believe me, that is more interesting than what my 2 & 4 yr olds are throwing down, conversation-wise. Glad you're here!

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