We Survived!

We had our annual section meeting at work today. I can't begin to describe the air of dread that suffused my workplace leading up to this meeting: stories of carnage, despair, abuse and misery have been circulating about last year's event.

The prospect of the meeting was so terrifying that several of us arrived 20 minutes early to be sure there was seating available in the back of the room. We weren't the first ones there. Two members of the ready-set-retire crowd, who had arrived before we did, were amusing themselves by playing tic-tac-toe on the whiteboard. When's the last time you saw two grown adults (which it putting it charitably on both counts, by the way) playing tic-tac-toe? Bet you never have.

Later arrivals had to sit closer to the front, though some clever souls rolled their chairs behind the back row. By the time the room was full, there was a fairly clear demarcation of miscreants and riff-raff in the back, while the front half of the room held the virtuous, the oblivious, and of course management.

But the fear turned out to be largely unfounded, unless you have a particular phobia of boredom - in which case, working for the state, the meeting would be the least of your problems. The section director - who was said to have been so vicious last year - was upbeat and pleasant, if you can look past her mildly troubling hint that she's considered taking out hits with the Russian Mafia on some of her employees. She praised several individuals by name, and tossed (not to say hurled) candy and trinkets to (not to say at) the crowd.

Less fun were the presentations by the middle managers. If I were a drinking woman, I'd propose a game where you have to take a drink every time the manager of the mapping department digresses from the point at hand to tell an amusing anecdote about his children.

If I were a drinking woman at work, I mean.

The only really depressing moment came when one of the other middle managers said we should all ask ourselves if we believed our jobs were meaningful. "If you don't have passion for your job," he said, "then you need to go see your manager, because that's a problem." Then, his presentation complete, he sat down.

Robbie and I looked at each other as we applauded politely with the rest of the room. "Shit," I said.

But aside from that - on what planet is it a good idea to go to your boss and say, "Yanno, I just don't feel passionate about my job!" then gaze expectantly at him or her? No? I don't know either, but I'm pretty sure it's not Earth.

But it's over, and we can go quietly back to our desks and not bother our little heads over goals, or accomplishments, or deadlines, or any of that nonsense until this time next year. I'll just conclude with these words of sound advice from our section director: Don't blow bubbles into your computer keyboard. It gets it all sticky.