It’s my first day of work at a new job!
I know I
interviewed and was clear about me being part of this company beforehand, but I
now can’t explain what my actual job and responsibilities are.
The
office is super progressive/modern/creative.
There’s cube pods and offices, but the building is huge and there’s all
these different themes for different sections.
Sometimes it looks like a tree house, sometimes a nightclub, sometimes a
ship/pirate ship, sometimes a sketchy horror basement. But always still office space.
I’m
introduced to a few other employees, one of them is in my cube pod. I forget all their names immediately. Their jobs sound technical. The coworker in my cube pod is young and kind-looking
but he’s clearly been there for a while and focus’ back on his work after we’re
introduced.
I sit at
my desk and realize my family must have snuck in before I arrived and hastily put
up a bunch of pictures and shit to make my cube feel more loved/like home. But all the pictures are blurry and they’re
in very large frames. Really, no place
for them in an office cube. I’m embarrassed
and take them all down. Then I notice
that they must’ve also put some files on my computer because there’s already
some embarrassing personal shit on the screen, along with the standard company
files and icons. I’m having a hard time
removing the personal files and instead try to get to work. But there’s no clear button to get into my
company email. I forget what my job is
entirely. I fumble around on the
computer and notice that everyone else in this very interesting-looking company
is hard at work.
Vanessa
stops by my cube! She’s the one that got
me this job. She’s super high up in the
company. She comes over with her big,
lovely smile happy to see me at my new post.
But then immediately after we greet each other, she realizes I haven’t
yet begun to get any work done. She is
astounded and reminds me how I interviewed and wanted this job and that I was
here to work, not goof off. I try to
calmly say I’ve not been instructed how to log in to my email but she implies I
shouldn’t need hand holding and that I should just begin the job I was hired to
do. She walks away miffed.
I look
around but everyone has their head buried in their computers or are talking
about work in groups around the office space.
A young
woman is trying to get my attention. She’s
not an employee. I think she’s some kind
of rep or salesperson or service tech. I
tell her I can’t help her and turn back to my computer.
My dad appears
out of nowhere, sitting across my desk.
He’s got long hair and a moustache and is peacocking on my desk like he’s
a slinky lounge singer on a piano. What
are you doing here?! He tries to reach
for me in a playful, cocky way but I shy away.
Why is my family so weird?! Get
out of here, this is my first day! He
leaves.
I get up
from my chair and walk around a bit, looking for clues as to what the company
is/does and hopefully a friendly face that can offer some assistance. The young sales rep is back and nagging
me. I find a back room with trash bags
stuffed with paper shreddings and go face-plant into a few of them. I’m having a meltdown. I wave the sales rep away, “just a few
minutes, I need a few minutes”. After I
feel like I’ve calmed down some, I emerge and she is still there asking about a
technical issue. I’m walking and see one
of the people I was first introduced to.
“That’s who you want to talk to/that’s who can help you” I say without
remembering the coworkers name, and I slip around a corner before the coworker
even knows what’s happening. The rep
stays with him.
I go
back to my desk and try again to get into my email but notice that now the
desktop background has changed. There
are all new files and icons on the screen.
There’s still some files/folders that are clearly not work related and I
try to clear them away. Then I realize
that my screen is actually being projected onto the big screen over my entire
cube section! I am mortified when I
realize one of the folders I’m struggling to clear is titled ‘Sexy Stuff’. I desperately try to delete these files and
hope that no one is looking at the big screen.
I get up
to walk around again, this time desperate for someone to offer some help. As I walk around more I can see how big the
space is. There are so many different
themes of rooms; there’s break rooms where people are still talking about work
but in a cool, casual setting, there’s stairways and diagonals, hard to get to
sections, and endless corners that lead to more interesting office spaces.
Finally
I decide on a somewhat older (about my age in a company that consists of mostly
20 and 30-somethings) man talking to another employee. I apologize and interrupt. “I was just wondering if you had a quick
moment to help me with a small problem?”
He turns to me, somewhat amused but also expectant as he was in the
middle of a productive work conversation.
“Do you know how I can log into my email, or… what my job is here?” The man is stunned by my questions but without losing a second begins walking away talking with the other employee. I overhear him saying something about the
president of the company. I catch up to
them and say, “wait- are you the president of the company?!” He replies by saying yes, and he’s on TV so…
(how did you not know who I am?). I
apologize and humbly ask if he could at least give me some advice. He says just start doing your job and then he
walks away.
Everyone
seems to be looking at me funny as I walk around. I’m dressed normal and even have a company
lanyard/nametag hanging around my neck, so I don’t understand why people are
giving me the stink eye. If I try to
talk to anyone they barely respond and shy away like I’m a creep or contagious.
Once or
twice my shirt comes off. At first I don’t
think about it; it’s warm and if a wind somehow pulled it off me, I’m
comfortable going chesty. But then I
realize how inappropriate that is for an
office space and put it back on. This
happens a few times.
I walk
around and around, now I’m trying to ask anyone that will look at me if they
know Vanessa and where her office is. I’m
surprised that of the few people that actually talk to me no one has heard of
her.
After
going through what seems to be most of the office spaces, I decide to take a
path down to the sketchy horror basement section. There’s an office with three employees
squatting around a pile of raw chicken meat, eating it by the handful. I stare in disgust and horror. Isn’t that dangerous? “It’s perfectly fine,” they reply. “It’s our favorite. So is (human) arms.” Did they just say they eat human arm? They’re cannibals?! I hurry out of the sketchy horror area.
People
look so disgusted in me. Why?! Why, I
ask. But the employees can’t give me
logical answers, they all just notice something different and apparently
poisonous in me.
I decide
to call Vanessa but the numbers on my flip phone are all messed up. As I fumble to dial, I realize I’ve stopped
in the hallway of a very busy and productive company. I’m loitering and causing a disturbance in
the flow. Finally I’m able to dial
Vanessa. Where are you, I ask. “I’m in the hallway wing in the upper right,”
she replies. “’The upper right’?! Is that near the café, the tree house, the
club, the cannibals section?? Where??” She doesn’t appreciate my tone and becomes
very vague and distant and eventually the connection is lost.
And
there I am. It’s getting late in the day
and I decide it’s time to leave. To flee,
to escape really. I’m in a small car
with a friendly bird sitting on the hood and a big friendly cat running alongside
of us. The path we’re on is on the bank
of a river, but then it somehow becomes its own raised path over the water as
it splits down the center of the widening river. Something from the company begins to chase
us. The big cat realizes that the best
way to go is into the mainland and before the path splits far away from the
shore it jumps for the bank and runs inland into the trees. My car is in motion and now it can’t turn
around on the narrow path. Whatever is
chasing us is getting closer. The bird leaps
from the hood of the car and takes flight to freedom, leaving me alone. I am driving but wondering why, and for how
long I’ll continue this futile escape attempt before being caught.
And then
I wake up.
