Good-bye Desk, Hello Future!

It’s not easy to go after your dreams. It’s not easy to say “no” to the easy and push for what you want. A dream can be anything- weight loss, houses, kids, travel. The list is endless and each of them are attainable. Sometimes reaching for your dreams means having the right platform to jump from.

I quit my job in Feb with the intention to never return to an office. At the time I hadn’t been accepted into school and I had no idea how I was going to fulfill my big dream shoes. I just knew I had to leave the office. After I got into Birmingham for my MA I knew I needed to fill my days, and my bank account, with work and a temp office job was the most logical. No one was going to hire me knowing I was leaving in six months. So once again I found myself sitting at a desk.

Today, at 4:30, that ends. The next time I will be at a desk I will own the company. Now is the time to dream big. It’s so exciting! I’m not sitting at a desk again. I’m not going to be a waitress. I’m not going to DJ parties for rich people. I’m not going to do anything that doesn’t move me forward creatively and artistically. I’m no longer sacrificing my dreams and goals for the easy.

This is a risky move, packing up everything and leaving for a year, but I know it’s the right move for me. I’m trusting this is where my life is supposed to go in order for me to fulfill my purpose on this earth. I have known for years that sitting at a desk is not for me so I’m taking the steps to change it. My dreams are going to come true. My dreams are reachable, attainable, and so completely doable it scares me.

When I walk out of this office at 4:30 today I’m not looking back. I’m not going to think about how I’ll pay my bills or have health insurance or work experience. I’m not going to think about the calming routine of a job where I don’t have stress or have to over extend myself. I’m going to walk out these doors and look to the future.

A future filled with promise and performing. A future filled with amazing food and wonderful friends who continue to support me. A future where I am in charge of my destiny and where I take myself.

These office jobs have served me well. They’ve provided a place to practice monologues and write my blog. They’ve given me supplies to print out resumes and submit myself. They’ve given me a safe and secure place to live. (Twice in my nomad life I have actually slept in the offices where I worked.) They’ve fed me. They’ve provided me lasting friendships. They’ve given me paychecks.
More than anything, they’ve given me a strong platform to jump from in order to reach for my stars.

Thank you, office jobs, for giving me a future to look forward to.

Snippets from Friday 2.26.10

Amie, the color copier is broken. Can you fix it?

Sure, let me call IT.

(I sit on hold laughing to myself because I just spent the last four days watching a TV show about the IT department and I have visions of them in my head.) The man who picks up the phone is not British, though, so I’m quickly pulled out of my British television day dream. JP takes the information and tells me they are sending someone over. Being IT, I don’t really expect them until sometime after lunch. However, apparently the color copier being down is cause for extreme panic in the office.

I send out an email to everyone telling them that the main color copier is broken and to send their printing needs to one of the other two assistants who have color copiers. Here is my logic behind this: it all comes from the same cost center! So if we need to print on your printer for the day, it’s not coming out of your pocket! But apparently that wasn’t the logic everyone took. I was told by one of the women that they don’t have the time to be printing out everyone’s documents and I needed to call IT. I told them that I had already done that. No less than four execs have come to me and asked what happened. I tell them I called IT and someone is on the way.

My favorite of the printer epic is the woman who had this conversation with me:

Is the printer broke?

Yes

Oh no.

Sorry

Are we going to fix it?

Um, yes. They’re coming.

Are we going to fix it?!!? No, we’re not. I think it’s worked enough this week and should take some time off. It's Friday, afterall. I turned the broken machine off and am just sitting here hoping no one needs it. No, we’re not going to fix it because I like to bother people and this is how I can do it best.

And the crowning moment of this Friday? At 2:45p the CEO walked out of the office. At 3p every other executive was gone. But 3:30 all the assistants were gone. I sat alone on the office floor, watching my television, shocked that it was 3:45p on a workday and no one felt the need to actually be at work. So I backed up my bags and clocked out at 4p. Had a three hour drive to Orange County anyway.