Work Work Work

I lost an entry yesterday. I was writing it in Notepad to be less conscpicuous while at work. I wrote a paragraph and hid the window until I could pick it up again after getting some work done. Well, that work I wanted to get done was some automated testing. During the automated testing, I run scripts I’ve written that are basically a recorded sequence of actions such as mouse clicks and movements and keystrokes to simulate a person using an application. While it doesn’t test all the quirky things people can think of to do in an application, a successful run of a script ensures that the application will behave correctly when used correctly. Every time we make changes to the system we run it through these scripts I wrote before giving it to users to test prior to the final production release. Well, since these scripts have to mimic a real user, it takes over the computer while it runs. I can move the mouse and hit keys but it will probably disrupt the test unless I time it right. Sometimes I have to help it along with an extra click or keystroke for the times when things don’t go quite the way they’re supposed to but it’s not enough to stop, adjust, and re-run the script.

I’m the only person in my group who uses this tool or even knows how to use it. I’ve tried to show them how it works before so they can start using it, but it just didn’t happen. Surprise, Surprise. I’m not explaining all this just to say, “look at what they’re losing when I leave!” No, there are other things I know and do that they don’t too, but everyone has something and it’s always replaceable. I’m just making a short story longer.

While one of the test scripts was running yesterday, I decided to finish rearranging my desk and cleaning up the clutter as I had started on Monday. I started that on Monday for two reasons: 1) It needed to be done, and 2) It was an opportunity to arrange everything on my desk in a less standoffish way. Yeah, imagine me, standoffish even in my desk arrangement? Naaaah! Not me! Yeah, and it’s been that way for four years too. Not very conducive to a trusting relationship with co-workers I know, but I didn’t design the layout of the “cubicle” I am stuck with.

My cubicle isn’t really a cubicle. It’s two walls. Two walls don’t make a cube No, it makes an “open work environment” that my boss loves oh so much. The only good part about it is my desk faces southeast toward the window with a view of the Connecticut River, and it’s a pretty nice view from the ninth floor. One wall is to my right, the other wall is behind my other desk and cabinets behind me. The left is open to a walkway between all of our desks where we are to share our ideas freely.

Sure, that’s all fine for out-going, open-book people, but not for me. I like people approaching me from the front, not appearing behind me. I don’t like people watching me work unless I am demonstrating something. And I like to keep personal things personal. I know I am at work, a place where my personal life should not exist, but it does. It does for everyone there, but no one needs to see it.

So, since I began working at this position over four years ago, I have had my monitor turned in towards the only corner I have to huddle in. And everything on my desk has been arranged around that rotated at roughly forty-five degrees to the right. So if you approach from down the walkway to the left, you do not come up behind me but to my left. That way you see only the left side of my monitor and maybe a bit of screen, but what you see from the side is just colors and shapes before I know you’re there. I have pretty good peripheral vision and I keep one ear open to listen for approaching footsteps. I know the step patterns of the people I see most often, especially my boss.

So now I hope you get an idea of what it’s like to work around me. Basically, I always have my back to the wall and it’s an obvious, untrusting position to be in. No one has said anything about it yet, but I think I’ve written about one attempt to make a wall out of computers that my boss made me take down. I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I don’t like the arrangement of our desks, but he refuses to think of anything but what he likes. He’s hired nothing but people who won’t care or like it as he does thereby making my needs the minority instead of addressing it directly. I’ve taken every opportunity to drop how much I’d love for us all to have real offices when they discuss rearranging the floorplan. No one takes me seriously because I keep it light-hearted, but they can probably figure out that I am serious even though I know it’s hopeless. Knowing that most of my opinions are in the minority isn’t conducive to feeling like part of the team either. When I feel like an outsider, I want to treat everyone like outsiders and withdraw into my corner.

Well, I gave up the fight on Monday. I turned everything back to right-angles. Everything is even. Everything is open and inviting. It took me all day Monday to get over feeling like my back was hanging out in the isle when it was really just positioned like a normal person would have it. Yesterday I decided to move my monitor more to the right and move my pc to the left edge of my desk. That way I don’t feel quite so much like I’m out in the walkway and it still looks open. With nothing else to do but twiddle my thumbs, I started working on that while the test scrips ran. Well, that was a mistake. In unplugging the modem I don’t use from the power strip, I hit the On/Off rocker switch in the strip and shut everything off. That’s how I lost my entry I was waiting until later to finish. After I finished moving things around, I turned my computer back on, restarted the test script, and began cleaning up the clutter. But I never got back to writing that entry until tonight. It was to be about how and why I was rearranging my desk, and now it is much longer than it would have been had I written it yesterday.