Struggles of a Right-Brained Creative Stuck at a Desk Job

Desk jobs suck for everyone, I would imagine.  But I would assume even more so for every single person who sat through parent-teacher conferences every year with the same complaint: “she’s very smart, she just can’t seem to keep her damn mouth shut and stay in her seat” (I mean, I’m sure it was a bit more sugary than that, but I can’t help the way my mind decides to remember things). 

You need to have so many different things going on at once to get anything done.
It doesn’t matter how backwards that logic sounds.  If there are not dozens of things circling around you at once, you don’t know how to function.  You think in fragments.  You juggle projects like a pro because multi-tasking is how you were built to operate.  Keeping the stimulus changing by hopping from project to project helps keep what little attention span you have from becoming completely shot.  While everyone else gets things done in a linear process that sounds more torturous than water-boarding, you’re over here with a little bitta this and a little bitta that, checking e-mail, snooping on clients, entering orders.  You’re like Emeril Lagasse of your Google Chrome tabs—BAM!  Oh, this blog post looks interesting—I’ve never thought about my risk for pre-eclampsia before.  And then a few clicks later and you’re annoying the shit out of everyone with your newfound knowledge of potential pregnancy complications before you go back to what you’re actually supposed to be doing.  No matter how painstakingly mundane your job is, you manage to get it done, even if you take a roundabout way to finish it.

You literally have no idea where the last hour just went.
You blink, and all of the sudden, it’s 9:04am and you have a few papers carelessly strewn about your desk—papers that you assume you have been working on?  You look up at your computer screen and see that you’ve gotten through quite a bit of work but have no recollection of doing it, and then you fear that in all the e-mails you don’t remembering sending, you’ve just typed “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” over and over and over again.  What is wrong with you?  How could you have just spent the last hour daydreaming about what you’re going to write about tonight and which hobby you’re going to pick up next—oh, soap making sounds fun!—and why the countless companies with creative openings haven’t come begging you to work for them after you’ve spammed them with resumes and cover letters and haikus about your professional prowess?  You spend so much of your time thinking about things that are more exciting than your desk job—like the atomic make-up of cardboard and what packing peanuts taste like and the entomology blow flies (something you’ve actually looked into when you had your “well maybe I’ll be a forensic scientist” thought)—that you completely forget that you’re stuck at your desk job.

As soon as you get back on task you forget what you were

You’re more interested in your co-workers’ lives than your work.
You linger in the kitchen while everyone grabs their morning cup of coffee.  You perk your ears to listen to the office hap.  Oh, Jenny had a falling out with her maid of honor?  You’ll have to go chat with her later and give her your guide to best friend break ups.  Chet has a rash on his foot that he thinks might be MRSA?  You might need to take a look, since you’re basically the Google Guru and WebMD personified…and then make sure to wash your hands. Thoroughly.  You plan your day around when you’re going to talk to each of them and even make cue cards in your mind about the points you want to make, just like the speech you made in 7^th grade when you ran for middle school Spirit Commissioner.  You are so invested in the emotions of others, and nothing makes you happier than when you get to offer insight and build relationships.  To you, company culture isn’t about making numbers and then going home and forgetting about everyone you spend the day with.  It’s about making connections with people and breaking down those Eggshell-hued cubicle walls.  You get pegged as the flake who slacks off and socializes too much, and you might have a reputation as the Office Gossip, but how are you supposed to get any work done when other people have interesting stories that you’re way too eager to overanalyze in your free time?

Your desk is a disaster.
People give you that look when you tell them, “oh, just put it on my desk,” as if you’re saying, “why don’t you just burn it and forget it ever existed?”  Surprisingly though, you know where everything is.  That coffee-stained pile over there?  Orders waiting on confirmation.  That stack of files using Amy Poehler’s Yes, Please as a paperweight?  Vendor profiles.  The crumpled mountain of Post-Its engulfing your phone?  All of your bubble-lettered doodles you scribbled down while you were intently listening to a very important conference call.  There is definitely a method to your mess, and if anyone were to give your cubicle an organizational makeover, you’d be lost.  No one understands how you get any work done (and most people doubt that you even do your work), but for you, there’s an art in the chaos of everything.  Your desk reflects the billions of ideas you have bouncing from synapse to synapse, dripping with raw, creative energy.  To organize that and try to make sense of it all would almost be a crime.

You take your breaks very seriously.
Sitting at a desk and staring at a computer screen for 8 hours of the day leaves you feeling more like a hostage than a productive member of your company.  Your Spotify is blaring too loudly in your headphones and the guy who sits behind you pokes his eyes over his prison cell to see you lassoing your arms above your head while dancing to Whitney Houston.  This is your “dance break” that you take religiously at 10:42 every morning.  It falls directly between “second water break” at 10:28am and “go look in the fridge to see what everyone else brought for lunch break” at 11:17.  They’re marked in your Outlook calendar, and once you’ve made a contract with Microsoft, it’s kind of unbreakable.  Most people in the office probably think you have a perpetual UTI or chronic IBS, given how many “I’m just going to run to the bathroom really quickly” excuses you give when you leave your desk.  Being whispered about as the Office Incontinent is better than risking your skin fusing to your cheap Staples chair that doesn’t even lean back and isn’t even fast enough for office races.

You use your lunch break as your passion hour.
While everyone else counts down the minutes until lunch because they’re dying to get out of the office and decompress, you’re watching the clock because it’s the hour that you devote to the hardest work of the day—your passion projects.  (First of all, I hate the phrase “passion projects,” because it sounds like it was coined by a motivational speaker trying to sell an overpriced self-help book.  But I feel in this sense, it’s the only phrase that works.)  Your lunch hour is when your brain ignites, and you think of the endless potential for this hour to propel you closer to your dream.  You write, you design, you doodle, you watch tutorials, you read, you plan, you learn something new, you Google (or Bing, I don’t discriminate) until your fingers cannot Google (or Bing, and while we’re at it, Yahoo, as well) anymore.  Doing what you love re-energizes you more than any broth bowl from Panera or Kung Pao chicken from the questionable Chinese place up the street.  You’re content with eating last night’s leftovers and possibilities for lunch.  Leftovers and possibilities.  The lunch of champions.  This hour is what gets you through the day.  This small drop in your metaphorical creative pond is where the magic begins, and you end up being kind of grateful that your desk job sucks, because without it, you wouldn’t be so motivated to sharpen your skills in order to find greener, more creative pastures.

This is for You. All of You

I had an epiphany while eating lunch in the Kroger parking lot today.  Let’s not dwell on the fact that I’m pathetic enough to eat lunch alone in my car.  There are more important things here.  Focus. 

I popped off the top of my Baconator fries I had just ordered from Wendy’s, and opened the cover of Yes Please from Kelli, a girl in my office who has decided to do a book swap with me.  I realize it’s basically a mortal sin that I haven’t read it twice already, but life gets in the way.

I was halfway through the preface, licking processed cheese goop and bacon grease off my finger, when I felt something inside me swell (no, this is not going to turn into some weird 50 Shades of Gray shit.  Just let me be flowery here).  Amy writes,

“You just dig in and you write it.  You use your body.  You lean over the computer and stretch and pace.  You write and then you cook something and then write some more.  You put your hand on your heart and feel it beating and decide if what you wrote feels true.  You do it because the doing of it is the thing.  The doing is the thing.  The talking and worrying and thinking is not the thing.  That is what I know.  Writing the book is about writing the book.”

Writing is the thing.  Writing is the thing that I’ve been writing about and writing is the thing that I’ve been talking about and writing is the thing that keeps me up at night because I never know when I’m actually going to just fucking write.  And after reading this preface, it’s like all the clouded dreams and hopes and “I wish”s have become lucid.  Stop complaining about not having enough time to write.  Stop writing something and letting your brain get in the way, just to erase it and tamp down every seemingly ludicrous idea.  Stop making excuses.  Stop worrying, “will anyone read it?”  Just. Fucking. Write.

So that’s what I’ve decided I’m going to do.  Something I’ve been promising myself and something I’ve been talking about and something I’ve been putting off until “the right time,” missing so many other right times that could’ve been writing times.

I’m going to write a book. 

And I guess since it’s out there now, I can’t take it back.  And YOU, the one reading this. YOU have dragged yourself into this.  You have, whether by accident or completely on purpose, made yourself someone to hold me accountable.  Whether you give a shit about my writing or not (if not, you can just heckle me if I don’t finish the book. I’ll deserve it for making such a bold statement and then not following through), you have become part of this process.  But I can’t let you do that without thanking you first.

Thank you.  

To everyone who keeps up or has kept up with my writing, despite many hiatuses, frequent questionable posts and undoubtedly, sometimes failure to impress. 

To people who have written me personal messages telling me that my writing has impacted them or impacted someone else they know.  Because that’s my aim.  I write to relate.  Not to be superior or demand an audience.  I write because goddamnit, there’s bound to be someone else out there who has fucked up in the ways that I have and just needs someone to say “PREEEACH.” (I apologize for using that.  I only use slang ironically.  Most of the time.)

To people who have liked and commented and shared and Tweeted and Tumblred and Whateverelsed my posts.  Your support and motivation is greater to me than you’ll ever know.  Like, I don’t think you have any idea how many times I refresh Facebook and freak out about how many people have seen it and shared it.

To the people who have been there from day one.  When I was 19 years old and decided to start some idiotic, immature blog about ridiculous and serendipitous things that happened to me.  Looking back at some of the things I wrote, I want to cringe and hide and get into a bar fight with my former self for being so, well, ridiculous.  Between switching blog names and taking long, indefinite breaks, you still read what I write.  And that’s incredible to me.  There’s too many of you to even name.  Just know that I know who you are, and I appreciate everything.

To my ex-boyfriends and past frenemies who have supplied me with endless fodder over the years.  Shout out to you.  Didn’t anyone ever warn you not to clash swords with a writer?

To my high school English teachers Kelly Kirwan and Diane Darst, who both taught me there shouldn’t be any shame in writing something if it’s honest and beautiful.  Who constantly encouraged me to write past formulaic academia and let me find my own voice.

To my high school speech coaches Daniel Hamm, Woody Zorn, Jenn Watson, Bill Thompson, and Jeff Mangum, who all embraced (and put up) with my inappropriate humor and pushed me to find the persona that I put into almost all of the essays I write.

To my college professors Bill Bettler, Kathy Barbour and Kay Stokes who let me grow into myself as a writer and saw my potential to do something with it (and didn’t mind having a drink or two with me after graduation).

To Laurie Notaro, who was my first serious writing influence.  The first person who actually made me laugh out loud while I was reading, and made me say to myself “that’s what I want to do.” (I realize Laurie Notaro will probably never read this, but thanks, homegirl.  Without you, I would be hesitant about accepting my inner Idiot Girl).

To all of my close friends who have the privilege (burden?) of talking to me on a daily basis, and who make this interesting life possible.  Your friendship has been invaluable to me.  But you already know that.

To my parents, obviously, for having me.  But on a serious note, you’ve put up with a lot of shit.  I mean, a lot.  Like, day after-eating-Chinese-food shit.  And you’ve supported me in every single move I’ve made (except for all the times I got tattoos, which I’ll forgive you for).

To my sweet, patient Pat who has had to and will have to put up with my neuroticism long into the future.  For you, I am most thankful, because I couldn’t imagine what you have to endure.

Sorry for the Oscar speech.  It seems like I’m getting ahead of myself.  Now I’ll look like a HUUUUUUGE ninny if I don’t write this book.  But I just wanted to lay all of my “thank you”s out there in advance, because honestly, without a lot of the help and support and encouragement I’ve had,  I wouldn’t have had the courage or motivation to do any of this.  So I mean it.  Thank you.

With that being said, to focus on writing this thing, I will be uploading on here a little less regularly, and the articles won’t be of much weight or very personal (think BuzzFeed lists or things of the like—maybe a few funny poems or quote lists).

I will also be deactivating my personal Facebook account to put more time toward writing—but never fear!  I will be creating a Kind Of An Adult, But Not Really page so you can keep up with any updates, send messages, all that jazz (or I could create the page and absolutely no one could “Like” it, that’d be totally cool, too).

Like Amy said, I’m off to do the thing.  But I had to say ‘thank you’ first.