This funk may grow again this year, but I am hopeful it won't as I have three things going for me.
First, winter hasn't been too heinously bad. This weekend is cold on a nearly intolerable level, but we've had a couple really nice weekends recently allowing bicycle riding and even some grilling.
Second, I have a trip coming up. Not only does this give me something to look forward to, but the thinking and planning (an integrally fun part of the trip) allows for something to break up the monotony.
Third, I am in transition to a new job at work. While I won't get too jazzed up about work, the change allows for some corporate repletion, even if it ends up being bleakly short.
This transition just sort of happened. At first I wasn't too sure about it, but now that I'm two weeks into a five month transition, I'm realizing that I'm quite ready for new problems.
My work transition has me working out of two offices, or rather, my old office and new cubicle (damn, it feels good to be a gangsta). As I sat in my new cubicle on one of my first days in the new job, I opened all my desk drawers. As usual, the previous denizen had done a reasonably good job of cleaning it out, but there was still some flotsam and jetsam.
The previous occupant must have been very paper oriented as there was no shortage of folders and folder tabs. These will end up in the shred barrel soon enough, but there were much more interesting things:
- Five pairs of scissors. Why did "Rod" have a need for not one, two or even four pairs of scissors, but five? I can only hope that they are remnants of past employment civilizations. I'll keep one of these and the rest will be discarded.
- Two telephone headsets. Why did "Rod" need not one, but two telephone headsets? This is a standard office cubicle where talking on the phone with any degree of decorum is difficult, so one phone is a stretch. Two headsets looks like a problem. Reusing these feels almost as gross as rewearing someone else's pants, and they'll likely end up in the landfill (sorry future generations).
- Six opened boxes of staples. I'm quite sure all the staples that the world will ever need have already been manufactured. Every work location I've every moved into has at least a partial box or two of staples. But six? I guess I'll keep these, future archaeologists will assume these are some type of office idolatry and I must be in a very sacred place. Oddly, there was no stapler.
- A vast assortment of pens and highlighters. I kept a couple felt tip pens and sharpies. I have no affection for highlighters and am partial to gel ink pens. "Off with their heads!" says the Red Queen to the rest of the writing paraphernalia.
- A powered USB port. I've never needed one of these at work, but I guess I could someday. I'll stick it in the drawer likely to be discarded later in office life.
- Various other sundries: pennies (keep), paper clips (in the stables camp), toothpicks (um, really gross), rubber bands (keep, but discard when they start to deteriorate), screws taped together (cubicle must be missing some critical hardware somewhere), and other things that I, frankly, have no idea what they are...
- The most curious thing though has to be this Plantronics device. I'm really not sure what it is, but I strongly suspect it has been supplanted by cell phones long, long ago. My suspicion is that since this was probably really expensive initially, "Rod" must have been unable to appropriately discard it when he left the cubicle even though it now has negative residual value. Curiously, I have not thrown this away either, yet...
I shouldn't and won't beat up "Rod" too much. I've never met the guy and probably never will. But I also know that once my job transition is complete and it comes time to vacate my old office, I will probably leave a few parting gifts to a future generation of subterranean office dwellers.
I guess the only question will be: What do I do with my partial boxes of staples; do I begin breaking the generational cycle of office detritus?
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