How to Survive at a Job for Five Years

  

                David Bowie once sang a song about his time as an office clerk. “Five Years” his first song off of the “Ziggy Stardust” album explained it in detail. As a devoted followed of the church of Bowie, I listen to this song whenever I’m feeling down. In fact, I even referenced this song when my boss told me I’d been there for five years. Sadly the reference was lost on him. Perhaps my singing wasn’t good enough; I doubt many people can pull off Bowie effectively. 

                Here’s my contribution to survival. This guide will help you get through at least five years in some entry level position. I’ve tried to structure this for someone who is just entering their workforce with a liberal arts degree. You probably have debt. You took out loans for school and now realize you have to pay it off. A job in a workplace, not working on your own, is what’s starting to come into view. Freelance photography didn’t work out for you. Don’t worry, you can do that on your two days off a week. 

                The experience doesn’t have to be bad. Office work is tolerable. You can do it. I believe anyone can figure out how to survive long enough in a work-environment to get money. After these five years, I don’t know what happens next in a job. Whatever occurs in the sixth year escapes my perception; I never made it that long. 

                Let us begin with a year by year breakdown for each year. 

1.       You have a pretty easy first year. Since you’re new you get some leeway. Use the leeway wisely as it evaporates around the end of the second year. Right out of school, you still have enough cool leftover from living in dorms and studying liberal arts stuff. Hopefully you’ll have a few other twenty-somethings starting out as well, though lower aged thirty-somethings without children are a suitable substitute as well. During this year figure out who you can trust down the rest of this journey. Overwhelm with quirk. By being quirky, you are forgiven more easily if you’re in a bad mood one day. Try to be nice in general, but in particular lay it on pretty thick for the first year. Delete a ton of stuff from your Facebook if you are of the ‘sharing’ persuasion. Obviously I’m not. 

2.       The second year requires you to go on some long vacation. You’re probably given the full mandatory two weeks off. Use all two weeks to go to a place that people nod their heads in approval to, places such as Australia, the UK, France, Brazil, The Czech Republic, etc. By doing this, you show you’re still with it and hip. Begin to bring up college dorm stories. Get a few of them really down pat. Oh yeah, you might want to start asking less questions by the end of this year or quit it altogether. Get it together and begin helping out others with their queries. Learn your business’s lingo and figure out how to subtly mock it. 

3.       Don’t worry, you’re halfway there. People sort of know your personality by now. At this point begin to volunteer for really small-scale projects. Nothing big, but things big enough for people to notice. They’ll say “He really gets it.” You’ll either get a better raise this year or get a small promotion. Start to figure out who the influencers are. For me, influencers are people close to a boss or supervisor but lack an actual title. Maybe these people went to high school or college with the person in power. Lavish goods and attention on these people. Anyone can suck up to their boss.  By sucking up to someone without any official power you look more considerate and caring. Show up to the influencer’s birthday party or block party. Doing this can show you care not just about the job but the people there. This is important as you still have another two years to finish. 

4.       In this year, you should have one or two friends at work you can speak with on a person to person basis, not simply mere coworkers. Though you’re told to always be professional understand that to survive in an office setting you need to humanize it. What that means is have a few friends at work you could spend a weekend with, preferably at their summerhouse or parent’s summerhouse or them having some connection to the owners. By now, you should have a least a minor amount of credit to your name. No worries if you don’t. To build up credit, show the older people at your job one or two really cool tricks they can do with the propriety software your company creates. Every company has a mediocrely designed software program you can use to mess around with others. Don’t make the play malicious, just funny enough so in the rare case you got caught, you have that loophole.

5.       At the fifth year, you’re almost done. You’re really close with all your coworkers. Even your superiors have added you as friends on Facebook. New hires look to you for advice. That ‘new hire’ smell is long gone; you’re a person who is going to be there for a long time. It is official: you are a company man/woman. Go out on a high note. When you mention you’re leaving the company, be as kind as possible. Figure out who you want to invite in your last email to all your coworkers. Try to tell your boss when you’re leaving before the required two weeks: it shows a certain amount of consideration and respect for their position. By giving so much advance notice, you’re guaranteed at the very least the company picking up the tab for your going away party. Consider this a fairly important fact, as you don’t want to pay for drinks/food when you leave. Someone will hopefully purchase you a cake while you’re at work. Keep in touch with them via Facebook but avoid creepily sending them Facebook messages. Let them contact you first before you respond.

6.       Whoever makes it this far, let me know what you do for the sixth year?  I didn’t make it this far. Are there hints for staying there longer? 

Keep in minds that for any job, as the youngest person try to avoid abusing the young cute angle. Avoid trying to be bitter towards lazier elements in your office. Though offices can be dehumanizing places, you don’t have to act that way. Rise above the bland generic office worker stereotype. If you’re memorable for a good reason if you need to return they may be more willing to take you back. Being a worker who constantly complains or argues wins you few friends or a raise which outperforms inflation. Remember you’re all in this together. Five years is a long time to be angry at coworker. Making love is easy. Making war isn’t. 

Excluding being a full-time writer or other lone wolf creative type, you will encounter a work place, most likely an office place. By having a guide I want everyone to realize the good and joy that can come from a workplace. Work seems less daunting when you enjoy or can find the Zen of work. I hope this helps you. It helped me.

The Zen of Boredom

                “The Pale King” David Foster Wallace’s last book came out right in time for tax day. I’ve never read any of his work before but I have started my ritual stalking of the author’s life details, focus, writing style, etc. Usually when I decide whether or not to read an author’s work, I do some preliminary research on whether or not I can relate to the work at hand. Thomas Pynchon went through this phase before I got “Gravity’s Rainbow” and James Joyce went through this before I got “Finnegans Wake” (though in hindsight probably should have started with “Ulysses”). For “The Pale King” I feel the subject matter may appeal to me.

                According to the little I’ve gleaned from reading about it, it focuses on the idea of boredom as a form of Zen. Characters have to figure out exactly how to handle the often tedious nature of their work. I first put my hands on this book in perhaps the best place for tedium, the Port Authority, a place completely devoted to transit and devoid of any meaningful kind of entertainment, interest, or much of a purpose besides housing countless bus lines going to places of dubious interest. New Paltz, I love you but you’re really quite small in the grand scheme of things. 

                I’ve been thinking about that one central idea, the ability to find enlightenment in the most boring places imaginable. Over five years have passed since I began my training under the best dull had to offer. Working in an office sort of prepares you for near-useless, archaic knowledge that may or may not be transferable anywhere else. But while some of that knowledge may not have value, it does teach you the importance of killing time and learning how to appreciate others. How do you manage your time to make sure you accomplish whatever has been set in front of you while still creating a small amount of time for human interaction. Any office job virtually guarantees you’ll learn this skill or go hopelessly insane. 

                Balance is the best word I’d have for this, but it is somewhat incomplete. Sometimes you need to do both work and focus on people at the same time. Zen might be the phrase for this, where you focus on your work peripherally while you are emotionally attached to what is going on around you. Concentration is needed for this skill and you do need a certain amount of knowledge in order to pull this off, but the rewards are amazing. Essentially you are able to do two things at once. While computer screens whiz by as you have the hot-keys memorized, you’re able to avoid being deadened by the sheer tedious nature of the data, of the information. You are aware it is there and what you need to do to interact with it, but you shouldn’t try engaging with it on a heavier level. 

Focusing too intensely on work can often lead to feelings of sourness, of questioning other people’s contributions. This is what I would call the ‘sour’ phase of work, one you really ought to avoid. Questioning what others do or how valuable they are isn’t something that you, as a mere peon (I doubt I have many managers reading this) should be doing in the first place. You’ll begin to put a value on everything everyone does, giving a monetary rather than a more human response. Eventually you may become more emotionally distant from your coworkers and you’ll notice a certain tension growing between you and them. Sure, there will always be egregious examples of the ‘useless’ coworker and that will happen. But try to limit the amount of these negative thoughts. Instead, try to focus on similarities or what you enjoy about the person, that way if criticism ever comes up you can offer ‘constructive’ criticism rather than something bitter.

Waiting forms another large chunk of time we have to spend. New York is a prime example. The city never sleeps since there are so many things to wait for, from buses, trains, lines, tickets, money, food and etc. That’s why I thrive in a city environment. I never understood why people say “in a New York minute”. Nothing I consider worth doing takes a minute or less. Connections mess up. You forget what line to take. Food preparation takes a long time. If anything, I feel by having a giant metropolis you have to accept the idea things will move slowly and ‘all representatives are currently assisting others. The next available representative will be on the line to assist you shortly.’ 

That’s why I can be a sloth in the city. I know how to wait. I know how to be bored. I know I may not always make everything, every train or meeting at a precise time that I want. Automatically I build this into everything I do. Occasionally I’m even given little electronic boards which tell me when the next train is coming, but I can’t really do anything to make things move faster. My expectation remains I may or may not get lucky or my own intuition may improve. Keeping this in mind I have a few different scenarios play out in my head as I’m on my way somewhere, each serving as a back for any given situation.  

David Foster Wallace brought me to think about this expectation we create. I’m not sure whether or not his deliberate goal was to make us think about how we use time or how we interact with others, but I’m glad he decided to focus on such a massive part of our lives. A part of our lives edited out of books, writing and so forth rather than celebrated in its own right. So much writing edits out the gritty little details leaving us with a glossy sheen which is why his posthumous novel excites me. Does a broken escalator force people to move faster since they have the idea it should be moving faster, or do people enjoy running up stairs to see if they can beat that languid machine? I see this all the time, of the little kid outrunning his parents by taking the stairs. Then he stands up on top, thinks, and waits for them to realize the folly of their ways. He’s not even thinking about the extra time he’ll be up there, waiting for them. For the child, he has focus and understands the importance of waiting, of boredom. 

Boredom can be a relieving factor. It can drive people crazy. For literally the least interesting thing in the world, it is a surprisingly divisive issue. Maybe I should get “The Pale King”. What do you think?