Last Night

[dancerjodi]

I get to the office park early, but don't have anything to do in the building so I'm sitting in my car. Reading Ishmael starts to put me to sleep - the concepts from this story are interesting but getting through it has been tough. Four men made by corporate cookie cutters just walked into the building. Two wore dark blue suits and the others wore gray; all had briefcase-sized dollies to bring their presentation materials inside.

The grass here is too green - too perfect. Even the geese walking around appear sterile. I was here a year and a half ago for an interview with Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, who also occupies this building. I wonder sometimes how things would have been different if I had taken that job. They were ready to offer it to me but I politely declined given that I had been hired by Hallmark.

Today provided a few reminders of my struggle with the corporate environment. A new dress code, after work meetings, powerpoint slides and formality . . . I can function in this world well, but sometimes it gets to me. Sometimes, you have to stop and think, "am I really doing something important here, or am I just a contributing factor to the rat race?".

I don't know. What I do know is that I'll have some corporate catering and listen to people schmooze while I try and look occupied with some printed e-mails (I hate schmoozing). I'll wait excitedly for the time that I can leave and head a bit further west down route 9 to see the hubby and our furry kids.

Its a good week to be ending with a camping trip.

[I wrote this last night sitting in the parking lot before my meeting. It actually wasn't that bad - the presenters were way more interesting than last week. I'll have one more tonight, and the final meeting on Thursday]

Comments

[alabastard.livejournal.com]

Corporate office environment and those sterile office parks still give me a mild case of the creeps. I worked in one briefly before being hired at Genzyme, couldn't wait to leave, and on my breaks would walk outside of the sterility and enforced nature to where the foliage grew wild and the rocks were not manicured, well away from the suits taking their cafeteria lunches, all with the same look and hair and even mannerism. shudder

Have a great time camping.

Working Environments

[dancer.livejournal.com]

"Corporate office environment and those sterile office parks still give me a mild case of the creeps."

Its a toss up really for me, whether the office environment or the hospital environment is better.

The office environment - we've discussed those negatives. Working for a hospital organization, I'm quite often surrounded by that "hospital smell" when I go to meetings on the main campus'. My own desk is in a medical building that holds some doctor's offices (though not on a hospital - still has that medical/hospital vibe). I think given that I've had a lot of experience working in hospitals this hasn't been too tough for me. I've preferred it to the office park vibe. It also helps knowing that we *are* saving lives (even if I personally aren't doing it in a hand-on sort of way) too.

Its definitely going to be a good weekend to be surrounded by nature and getting dirty :)

Re: Working Environments

[alabastard.livejournal.com]

Strangely, I like the chemical and medical environment, though it is sterile, but in a different way. I think it's the suits and briefcases, the homogenization.

my ishmael

[ej-geno.livejournal.com]

excellent book.
one of the few i've actually read more then 2/3 of.

when you finish, check out the story of B. it's kind of a sequal.