Danielle Creates a Blog/Coping with Office work

BLOG!!!!!

That's an onomotopoeia if ever I've heard one.

Since I began working ye olde 8-5 office job, I've spent quite a bit of time in a cubicle doing mindless data entry, giving me plenty of time to sit and reflect on life, the world etc.  This put the idea into my head of starting a blog as a forum to reflect on these musings and turn them into some kind of meaningful way to distill my thoughts into a kind of artistic outlet.  

As an actor/singer/artist type currently lacking in an outlet, this blog idea has been niggling in the back of my mind, and I am now, at this MOMENT, taking the plunge and going for it.  So.  Here is my first blog post. 


Ways of coping with a mindless office-monkey job, in no particular order:

1.  Starting a blog while you're at work. 
(Minimizing this window whenever someone important looking walks by.)
2.  Wasting time on facebook.
3.  A constant stream of music--
          a. Discovering new bands
          b. Rediscovering old bands I used to love
          c. Trying to type along with the rhythm of the music--DIY percussion.
4.  Listening to TED talks.  Openly weeping at my computer when they get really intense, making my cubicle mates wonder why I'm weeping at whatever data I'm currently entering.
5.  Playing with hand-me-up toys that my coworker brings in to work
6.  Chain emails forwarded from coworkers
7.  Coworkers that are funny/entertaining/otherwise awesome
8.  Experimenting with various levels of caffeination
9.  Ten minute breaks in the company gym
10. Happy Hour

Finally, I don't mean to imply that everyone that works in this office is "coping" with their office job, as I assume that many people here enjoy their jobs.  I assume that because not everything here is a data entry temp job like mine--there is a fairly sizable finance department, a massive IT department...and for many people this is probably not a job but an interesting career.  That said, there is a widely popular activity that could be thought of as a coping mechanism for the fairly stationary work that takes place in your average office.  I don't participate in it, but it seems like half this company does. 
11. Running marathons.  Seriously, it's intense.  There is a surprisingly large population at this company that runs anywhere from 3-13 miles before work and on their lunch hours, and they do their "long runs" on the weekend.  So these people subject themselves to 40 hours a week of sitting quietly at a computer in a little box, and then spend like 20 hours a week just running all over the city of Portland.  It's an interesting impulse, and I think it speaks on some level to the human need to have "wrought" their own existence through some kind of intense physical effort.  My own Dad, a mechanical engineer for HP, is a third degree black belt in Taekwondo and an expert skiier and mountain biker.  If he can't be intensely active physically, he starts to go a little stir crazy. 

I mean really, just thinking about the concept of "going to the gym," it's like we've all agreed that we'll go sit in an office all day dealing with machines, but then outside of work you're also socially obligated to go move your body on a bunch of different machines so that it looks to the rest of society like you actually do something with your body.  Weird.

Then of course, there's the flip side of that coin evident in the handful of people whose bodies have become obese from this modern lifestyle in which the physical "work" that you are contributing to society is made up completely of the activities of typing, moving your mouse, "swiveling," and occasionally rolling.  The rest of the work happens between your brain and the computer/internet.  Rather than running all the hell over the city of Portland or plugging their bodies into a treadmill or eliptical after unplugging from the computer, they are, theoretically, finding bliss and escape in delicious foods. 

My recently-discovered way of physically coping with this lifestyle? 

12.  Bikram yoga.  Thank you Groupon.

Signing off.


Oh wait!  P.S.  Credit needs to be given to my dear friend Roya for giving me the inspiration to do this!  She is a super fabulous Communications guru and runs a badass blog.  Check it out at  royaghorbani.wordpress.com