That New Job Smell

The Difference Between a Job with a Chair and a Job with an Office is a Chasm

This week I turned a bit of a corner in the whole reinvention and reclamation of my existence.

I started a new job. A job that pays well (especially well for Wichita, KS). A job that is salaried rather than hourly. A job with benefits and a title.

A job with an office.

It helps that it's a job working with radio stations. And promotions. And events. You know, my specific wheelhouse and all.

But that office? Makes all the difference, gang.

Some jobs come with a uniform. Those jobs, while often necessary, are almost always the shit end of employment. Think Judge Reinhold in his pirate outfit in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Doesn't matter if it's a blue polo or a t-shirt, a uniform never fits well, never quite smells right, and is fundamentally humiliating.

Other jobs come with a chair. Wandering through the past few months, I've encountered two such gigs: substitute teaching and casino surveillance. Sure, there are desks associated with the chairs but they aren't your desk. They're either someone else's desk that you can put your water bottle on and hide behind from the customers (students) or a shared desk-like thing used strictly for the work at hand. Substitute teaching is fine but incredibly dull. Surveillance is bizarrely interesting but each hour seems lengthened due to the inactivity of the responsibility.

Substitute teaching isn't hard but it isn't terribly challenging, either. Unless you've been with the same group of students for a bit, you are effectively invisible to them. You check in at the office, get to your assigned room, read through the lesson plans that the kids will absolutely not take seriously. The disaffected zombies will shamble in. You take roll. You make some awkward attempt to connect. You mostly fail. Then you sit until the bell rings. Another group, the same routine. Your job is to simply be a responsible adult in a room full of delinquents waiting to strike.

Surveillance is like working for the NSA with the staff of a late night 7-11. A couple of monitors with multiple windows. A unit with a camera control joystick. Another monitor for marking thirty-minute reports of the things you observed drunken strangers and sloppy blackjack dealers doing within that window. Once a shift, someone gets stupid and violent. Once a shift, the supervisor tells you to go back to earlier in the evening and observe what happened in a section a few hours prior. Your job is observe and report people gambling.

This job? An office. Shelves. A huge three sided desk. Two monitors. A phone number with my name on it. A key to the door. Two floor to ceiling picture windows. I can turn on one of my stations that I work for and just listen to tunes while I'm working. Sure, there's plenty that I'll be doing once I get the gist of the place but I can come in when I want to and leave when I'm ready. No time clock.

Sure, there's a lot of work to be done but this is where I thrive. Gimme lots to do, autonomy to get it done, and I'm the happiest asshole this side of pigshit.

Another thing that is banging is that, when in Vegas, I had the sense that maybe my years of experience didn't matter. Here, everyone has already looked me up and walked away impressed. "I saw your stuff online and wondered 'why is he in Wichita?' I decided it must be because of family." I feel appreciated without having done anything yet.

None of this is meant to be a boast. I've been feeling unreasonably unwanted (for a variety of reasons) since I left Chicago and merely being in a place with people excited to have me here is like swimming in cool water after four years in the desert. It feels great.

A job with a chair is...

Watching the clock.
Limited freedom.
Busy work.
Burning hours until quitting time.

A job with an office is...

Big To-Do lists.
A sense of accomplishment on the merits of the work.
Freedom to move as you need.
Your own personality reflected in your office decor.
A place to leave your water bottle and Yeti coffee cup.
Keeping your own hours.

One of my favorite gigs in adult life was working at WBEZ and I had a cubicle. Here, I have an office the size of a studio apartment (a small one but still).

Yeah, the difference between a job with a chair and a job with an office is supremely cool.