IPW

A Return to the Office

I returned to the Office today. I haven't been working "in house" very much in the first few weeks of the year and it was nice to get back and see everyone. I am going to refer to the place in which I frequently freelance as The Office since I am apt to say something inflammatory and I want my defense to be: How do you know I was talking about you? A could have been talking about some other raging fool clear across town. I told my friend "Frank" (I'll call him "Frank" in these pages since it sounds disturbingly close to his actual name and may in fact be) as we were going to lunch today that he ought not to do anything interesting lest he wind up in my blog. I could tell he was dying to get in. I told him that the only thing he could probably do that I would take note of was to run out in the middle of the street. I would like to say he did this, desperately trying to be mentioned in perhaps the most obscure corner of the internet there is, risking death chasing that elusive lady: Fame. Unfortunately for all of us, and him I guess, he didn't take the bait.
But baiting Frank is just one of the reasons I like going to the Office. You see, since I'm a freelancer I am not bound to the petty politics of the place. And the politics is the best thing about an Office. Having worked at home for almost 6 years I think I went a little bit mad. I had to invent office politics for myself to be involved in, sometimes dragging my poor accountant into the fray. The janitor was constantly trying to bring the secretary down a few notches and the secretary had a thing for the CEO. Very twisted. I was like Tom Hanks on the island talking to a golf-ball. The golf-ball was The Man. At a real office you already have a "the Man" that comes with the place like batteries in a new watch, you don't have to invent him (or her, She can be The Man too).
Office workers have a hard time seeing the point, which is when it's not there to complain about you start to miss it. Especially if you get canned for writing a blog about your workplace and revealing that you attempted to lure your co-workers into the street.