Tuesday, August 05, 2003
This is my first summer as government employee working at the State House. It is molasses slow. At least on the House side it is; the corridors echo ever so quietly with the footsteps of the few-and-far-between. It’s a strange feeling because for all ostensive purposes NOBODY, if I put my mind to it, would ever know whether I was at work or not (my boss is gone for a month and my co-worker on vacation). Except for maybe Fritz.
Fritz is a rather adorable guy I’ve become very, very fond of. He tends to pop into my office unexpectedly; sometimes he is so fast he startles me and then I startle him and then he runs out again. He’s quick on his feet and except for a nervous twitch of his nose, is an all in all very attractive mouse.
I’m negotiating with him to keep quiet about the fact that I will be going to London for a week this Thursday. “Haven’t I helped those two families get housing, Fritz?” And what about that job recommendation I wrote, and that big school event I lined up for the fall?” He drives a hard bargain but I think I may have clinched a deal with him. He’ll get a few extra leftover crumbs from my all-time favorite sandwich place and while I’m gone, he’ll go over and hang out in the ‘scary’ offices so he doesn’t go hungry.
The scary offices are located in the windowless section of the basement (as opposed to the basement with windows where I work). Most people avoid going down there at all costs. Not even the mice like it down there. But if you happen to be the PR person who needs to get a digital picture copied onto a CD so that you can send your press release out on time to the papers, down you must go.
I’m no IT girl here (tech support), but I would THINK that it would have made a whole lot of sense to have given the state photographers access to email so that when they upgraded to digital photography, they could have emailed the respective jpg. photo to the office that had requested it, rather than everyone having to trudge down to the State House photographers' cave in the basement. But why do things simply when you can make them complicated?
No to the bowels of the building you must descend, CD in hand, expecting at any moment a troll to jump out at you from around some dark corner. There is a receptionist down there -- an elderly lady whose job description seems to be to play solitaire on the computer all day. She is as pasty and pale as you could ever imagine a state employee to be and I don’t mean I-finally-figured-out-the-sun-isn’t-good-for-you hip pale -- I mean doughy and sallow from years of sitting at a desk letting your mind and body atrophy. I’m actually not entirely sure she isn’t dead.
The two state photographers are tucked away in a windowless closet slammed shut by a solid wooden door with a sign outside saying Please Knock. Honoring the Please Knock sign is a courtesy gesture that allows them to extinguish their cigarettes before you walk in. If you make the mistake of entering without knocking, then suddenly they can’t find the picture you had just called to say you would be down to get and then ask would you mind coming back later. At which point you cough out a groveling apology through the nicotine shroud making its way into your gym-healthy lungs.
I’m looking forward to my trip to the other side of the pond. It’s supposed to be pleasant dry weather in the eighties all week in London. I could use some fresh air and I want to finish my Jonathan Franzen book, Corrections (which I could just as easily be reading while sitting in my office but I don’t). I am only about a third of the way through but so far I have to say it is a pretty depressing book – full of dysfunctional individuals extraordinaire. I also have my new Atlantic Monthly magazine to take with me for the plane. And packed deep into my suitcase underneath my underwear and socks will be the Ann Coulter book, Treason, which I promised Bandit I would try to digest… I mean read. No thine enemy so to speak. “Oops! I can’t imagine how it fell into the Thames…”
BTW, I went with a girlfriend to see the animated movie NEMO. What a colorful and imaginative piece of work. PIXAR studios has really elevated animation to a whole new level -- amazing and vibrant backdrops that frame characters that you can relate to. They remind you of people you know. And cleverly, PIXAR drops in just enough stuff for the grown-ups to smile at -- like the seagull scene in NEMO that definitely was plucked from the old Alfred Hitchcock movie, The Birds. Marlin, the clown fish worried sick about the evils of the sea and his lost son reminded me and my friend so much of a mutual friend of ours that at one point we looked at each other and at the same time yelled his name! It's Cream Puff!!! (I'm using his nickname to hide his identity). Kudos to PIXAR, and damn there goes another company I didn’t have stock options with early on…
Fritz is a rather adorable guy I’ve become very, very fond of. He tends to pop into my office unexpectedly; sometimes he is so fast he startles me and then I startle him and then he runs out again. He’s quick on his feet and except for a nervous twitch of his nose, is an all in all very attractive mouse.
I’m negotiating with him to keep quiet about the fact that I will be going to London for a week this Thursday. “Haven’t I helped those two families get housing, Fritz?” And what about that job recommendation I wrote, and that big school event I lined up for the fall?” He drives a hard bargain but I think I may have clinched a deal with him. He’ll get a few extra leftover crumbs from my all-time favorite sandwich place and while I’m gone, he’ll go over and hang out in the ‘scary’ offices so he doesn’t go hungry.
The scary offices are located in the windowless section of the basement (as opposed to the basement with windows where I work). Most people avoid going down there at all costs. Not even the mice like it down there. But if you happen to be the PR person who needs to get a digital picture copied onto a CD so that you can send your press release out on time to the papers, down you must go.
I’m no IT girl here (tech support), but I would THINK that it would have made a whole lot of sense to have given the state photographers access to email so that when they upgraded to digital photography, they could have emailed the respective jpg. photo to the office that had requested it, rather than everyone having to trudge down to the State House photographers' cave in the basement. But why do things simply when you can make them complicated?
No to the bowels of the building you must descend, CD in hand, expecting at any moment a troll to jump out at you from around some dark corner. There is a receptionist down there -- an elderly lady whose job description seems to be to play solitaire on the computer all day. She is as pasty and pale as you could ever imagine a state employee to be and I don’t mean I-finally-figured-out-the-sun-isn’t-good-for-you hip pale -- I mean doughy and sallow from years of sitting at a desk letting your mind and body atrophy. I’m actually not entirely sure she isn’t dead.
The two state photographers are tucked away in a windowless closet slammed shut by a solid wooden door with a sign outside saying Please Knock. Honoring the Please Knock sign is a courtesy gesture that allows them to extinguish their cigarettes before you walk in. If you make the mistake of entering without knocking, then suddenly they can’t find the picture you had just called to say you would be down to get and then ask would you mind coming back later. At which point you cough out a groveling apology through the nicotine shroud making its way into your gym-healthy lungs.
I’m looking forward to my trip to the other side of the pond. It’s supposed to be pleasant dry weather in the eighties all week in London. I could use some fresh air and I want to finish my Jonathan Franzen book, Corrections (which I could just as easily be reading while sitting in my office but I don’t). I am only about a third of the way through but so far I have to say it is a pretty depressing book – full of dysfunctional individuals extraordinaire. I also have my new Atlantic Monthly magazine to take with me for the plane. And packed deep into my suitcase underneath my underwear and socks will be the Ann Coulter book, Treason, which I promised Bandit I would try to digest… I mean read. No thine enemy so to speak. “Oops! I can’t imagine how it fell into the Thames…”
BTW, I went with a girlfriend to see the animated movie NEMO. What a colorful and imaginative piece of work. PIXAR studios has really elevated animation to a whole new level -- amazing and vibrant backdrops that frame characters that you can relate to. They remind you of people you know. And cleverly, PIXAR drops in just enough stuff for the grown-ups to smile at -- like the seagull scene in NEMO that definitely was plucked from the old Alfred Hitchcock movie, The Birds. Marlin, the clown fish worried sick about the evils of the sea and his lost son reminded me and my friend so much of a mutual friend of ours that at one point we looked at each other and at the same time yelled his name! It's Cream Puff!!! (I'm using his nickname to hide his identity). Kudos to PIXAR, and damn there goes another company I didn’t have stock options with early on…
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