Friday, March 04, 2005

I am going to pee on my laptop.

Okay I admit that is a crude thought not to mention an ugly mental image but let me explain. Bare with me, this requires a little bit of set up.
My job function affords me little personal space because of the large area necessary to accommodate the number of computers and monitors required for my assigned responsibilities. In addition my position is so freakin crucial that when I go to lunch or even take a break for biological accommodations, another person must come in and basically keep my chair warm so that it appears my position is covered. Therefore my work space is more of a public domain than the rest of my neighbors in the cube farm. My one consolation for this is that I have a laptop PC (because I am frequently on call) where most of the people who sub for me have a desktop pc and share a community laptop when they are required to be on call. Although this is a childish thing it is a highly coveted status symbol in this environment. Now I should clarify that I do have a cubical assigned but rarely am able to make use of it with the exception of an occasional lunch consumed there in order to work through my break. What normally happens when someone comes in to cover my lunch is I will undock my laptop and replace it with the on call laptop and take mine to my cube so that I can check my email and post to my blog during my lunch, because I only do this sort of thing on lunch(sure). This week however several others in the group needed to use the on call laptop from a conference room where they were doing an intensive after action review to report on last months performance short comings. This created a situation where the person who came to cover for me did not have access to a PC when I left for lunch. Now the obvious solution was for me to leave my PC behind for them to use, but for some reason this did not sit well with me. It was as if my last foothold on personal space was forced from my cold steal grip, like a bone from a growling pit-bull.
After some discussion with another male peer he conveyed that he had similar feelings about people coming into his work area while he worked the night shift. During the day this same area was occupied by several people but by night he was the entire staffing requirement. He stated that he would be working there alone and someone would enter the area with a completely legitimate reason in order to perform some job related function in the domain where he reined supreme by night and he could feel the hairs on his neck bristle. And thoughts of suspicion would invade his mind, not real malice but more of a cowardly lion glare would manifest. This reminded me of my own feelings in a similar evening job situation. Therefore this must be some male disposition a manifestation of the primal male who lays dormant in all men, and when called upon by will or outside influence can never be completely suppressed. These feelings must be excised from same gene that draws us inexorably to sports like the simulated combat in paintball or rugby. I refuse to immaculate my self for the sake of political correctness and will embrace the caveman in me. I have come to the conclusion that the only way to properly reclaim my rite to dominion over personal space as a male is to mark my territory! Do you think the IT department will service my PC if it is damaged in the process?

2 comments:

Eddie said...

GO FOR IT!

monkistan said...

it seems like the only reasonable solution to your problem.