A couple of weeks ago my boss over at The Internship asked me if I’d be interested in doing any side projects that involved getting paid real cash money, and I pretty much spit out my coffee so I could say YES sooner.
The job turned out to be a temp administrative position at a non-profit in downtown San Francisco. Before I say anything else, let me tell you now that the word “administrative” is kind of like kryptonite for me because every tiny little molecule in my body loathes office work, but there are holes in my pockets so I took the job anyway.
On the first day I found myself on the fourth floor of a large brown building, sitting in a comfy chair near a table full of promotional materials while I waited for both my boss to show up and for the tech guy to fetch me the water he offered, probably because I was visibly sweating after the fifteen minute walk from the train station. I’m such a sucker for anything artsy and non-profit because the real world has yet to squash my dreams of making a substantial income at a company that doesn’t have much money to give, and I especially love geeky dudes that offer me cool refreshments, so I had really high hopes that this particular admin. experience wasn’t going to take away all my super powers. But then after waiting for my boss in the same comfy chair (not so comfy anymore) for nearly an hour, the promos started to look desperate and my cool refreshment had already cycled its way through my intestines and was threatening to make a quick escape.
The broad finally showed up a little after 10am with some guy that reminds me of Alan Tudyk and a stocky person whose gender I’m still not sure of. All of them had coffee in hand. Then, to make it even worse, I could tell by the way she wasn't making eye contact with me that she was going to walk by without even saying anything so I popped up from my chair and say, HEY. HI. HEY. and then in a voice that was totally nonchalant and lazy she said, “oh I totally forgot you were coming in. Sorry.” Awesome. And there went my high hopes.
The work turned out to be as terrible as I thought it would be, and the office turned out to be just like every other office I’ve worked in: I was there at least forty-five minutes before anyone else, the fridge breaking sent the everyone into a panicked frenzy, the most pressing decision each day was what to order for lunch, not having the right binders set us back a full two hours, there were plenty of conference rooms in which to have breakdowns or heated, tear-jerking, personal telephone conversations, and a majority of the time was spent by both my boss and myself surfing the web for other jobs. But at the same time it was cool to be in an environment full of people that regularly bike to work and don’t think that the volume in which their heels clack across the pergo flooring correlates with how important they are to the company.
Also, both my boss and the Alan Tudyk wannabe turned out to be relatively awesome people (the person whose gender I was unsure of mysteriously disappeared), both having recently transplanted from the East coast. I liked my boss especially because she became a kind of mentor to me by suggesting where and how I should apply for jobs in the Arts and, as it turned out, her dry, semi-brash personality was simply a result of being raised over there, and ninety percent of the time she wasn't even trying to be insulting. So when she yelled at the cab driver for not taking the shortest route from the shipping store back to the office, and that other time she flipped off the lady for merging in front of us during rush hour, I wanted to shout, “IT’S OKAY. SHE’S FROM NEW YORK” because I totally would have meant it.
On our last day the three of us celebrated finishing our project without physically hurting ourselves and/or others by eating delicious treats from Bi-Rite Creamery in Dolores Park. And as I was sitting there watching dogs hump each other while their owners drank out of bottles held in paper bags and a suspiciously illegal smell wafted around us I thought, If only all office jobs could end with Balsamic Strawberry ice cream, animal sex, drugs, and who I can only assume is Alan Tudyk’s long lost brother exclaiming: “Wow, I never hang out down here with all the straight people. It’s nice!” --Then I too would buy a pair of sophisticated looking heels and hop around like a monkey if a refrigerator broke.