Musings on "The Office"

Office work. It's bizzare. You sit and create documents, make telephone calls which result in more documents, and then pass those documents on to other hands, where they are signed, passed on for authorization, documented in a database, and then filed for posterity (or however many years is legally required) in the appropriate filing cabinet - to sit and collect dust.

Who came up with this idea? It's so strange that the act of someone signing a page is considered "work". I don't know if it comes from growing up in a blue-collar family, but the whole idea of pushing papers is so far from my idea of "work", that I can't believe someone is paying me to do what I do all day!!

And what I do is - "office administration". Which, for this particular brand of "office administration", means that I make flight, cab and hotel bookings for people travelling between the various offices of a particular company. This generally takes up about one hour to one and one half hours of my day. Sometimes, when it's REALLY busy, I even get to do things like order stationery, put out sandwiches for meetings, send reminder e-mails ("Don't forget to order company Christmas cards for your clients by Friday!") or book meeting rooms. And if I'm lucky, I'll even get to change the toner in the photocopier!

Now I understand the the TV show "The Office". I thought that show was exaggerating the amount of free time and ridiculous nature of "work"... but it's all real! It is not a comedy - it is a realistic portrayal of life in an office environment!!! For all of my friends doing active work out there - keep your teaching, directing, writing and constructing jobs and avoid office work like the plague... it will rot your brain!

It's true! I do almost nothing all day... and get paid to do it (it = nothing)! The only problem is - I'm paid hourly, and want more hours. So each time my manager asks me how I'm doing, I have to pretend to be busy, so he will think I need more hours to do it and offer to make me full-time. As dishonest as that sounds, friends who are shaking your heads and saying quietly to yourselves "What has happened to Hana? ... She used to be such a hard worker!" in my defense: I have already offered to do more work. Every day for the first two weeks, I have asked "Is there anything else you need me to do?" And always, the answer is, "not right now, I'll let you know." So I've filled my time with job-related tasks. Making contact lists, writing multiple to-do lists (categorized by time, priority, like-ability of task and task-type, depending on my mood), and memorizing the names of the people on my floor from the map left on my desk. I have even produced a manual on how to do my job in the free time I have at said job. It is printed it in colour, organized in a fully-referenced binder with colour-coded, labelled tabs for each section. And as of today, it also has pictures of the computer screen at each step of any given task. So don't say I haven't been doing work, friends... but I'll give you the fact that it's not important work. Or useful.

It's a strange feeling, doing useless things all day. But on a working holiday visa, nobody really wants to employ me to create a new approach for program-delivery at a museum or plan cultural events that promote Japanese culture and language. They just want to pay me to sit on my a** all day and e-mail with the girl in the next row about how we have nothing to do all day. It doesn't make sense. ( And she evengets paid more than me for her brand of nothing!) If a country is going to invite me in to work for a limited amount of time - it should milk me of all the skills I have while I am here - get me to write a new and innovative textbook for language learning, or introduce young children to a new scientific concept, or help design and plant a sustainable vegetable garden in conjunction with a centre for the homeless! Use my youth and energy for the good of your country! Don't let me waste away my time browsing a gym brochure to see if I can make it to a yoga class and make it home in time for dinner!

... but on the upside - I have never been so stress-free. I have time to jog in the mornings, play board games in the evenings, socialize with friends, and I have even read three books in the past two weeks! As a result, my skin is clear, I have lost a kilo, and I'm sleeping 8 hours a night!

Now, if only I can figure out a way to get the best of both worlds - mental/emotional job satisfaction of a "real" job AND the good health/personal leisure time of office work.

Any suggestions?