office

Generally I am sitting at my desk by five-thirty in the morning. I am always completely startled by the alarm at 4:45, as if it’s the first time I’ve ever had to get out of bed. “What the hell?!” I think, although I’ve been waking up at quarter to five since I graduated from college. I chug a glass of orange juice, throw on my gym clothes, and hit the road. I get to the office by 5:15 or so, boot my laptop, and decide if I should go directly to the LA Fitness a block from my office or reply to email for a little bit first. It’s a good way to start the day. Except for a few times when I’ve fallen off the workout wagon for a week or so (or, like, all of 2004), I’ve been doing something along those lines ever since I rowed crew at the University of Florida from ‘94 to ‘96. This morning I had to be somewhere in Westwood at 7:30 so instead of going to the gym I took Buddie for a run around the block. But most of the time I have the same routine.

It’s a rare day that I’m not the first one in my office. I am also, interestingly enough, almost always the last one in the office. So not only do I turn on all the lights every day, but nine times out of ten I have to roam around this huge building turning off all the lights every night. Turning on the lights in the morning never bothers me. I enjoy it, to tell you the truth. But when I’m tired and I want to go home, I hate — I loathe — the fact that nobody else ever turns off the lights when they leave a room. The conference room light is almost always left on. All the lights in the main sales rep area are left on. There are two or three managers who leave the lights on in their office every.single.day. The lights in both of the ladies’ restrooms are always always always left on.

It’s not huge. It’s not the end of the world. I don’t even care so much about the wasted electricity. I just hate having to walk through the building every night. When it’s time to go home, I just want to leave, y’know? </rant>

Have you ever been searching the office coffee area for a plastic spoon, found an unmarked box full of plastic utensils, thought to yourself, “I just know they’re all gonna be forks,” looked and found that they are all, in fact, forks, and then wondered if that had ever possibly happened to anyone else? Man. Sometimes I wonder about you.