Out of Office Joey

Well, hell, no sooner do i set this up than I'm suddenly running all over the place and I'm pining for a bit of Own Office time. Grass is always greener and all. Highlight of today's OOJ activities has been standing on a window ledge (already! and it's not even 9 am!) because I'm not tall enough to reach the top window. That's the kind of thing you can ask someone else to help with when you're a Shared Office Joey.

Also, I've noticed that I'm becoming completely obsessed with my pigeonhole (where the post goes, natch, rather than some strange pigeon-keeping receptacle). Sometimes, if I've just been sitting here for a bit and need to stretch my legs, I'll go and casually saunter over to check the post sitch in the (often vain) hope that someone from the outside world is making contact with me. Occasionally people will be standing by the pigeonholes, informally chatting, and then I have to casually make like I'm actually going to the stationery cupboard instead. I mean, I don't know *why* I do that. Very odd. And anyway, you'd think that, working in a Major Cultural Institution as i do, I might go and stretch my legs and take in a bit of challenging and exciting art or something... but, er, I don't. So, er, there.

So it's another grey Monday morning, which means another day and week of Own Office solitude stretches ahead. Not that I mind altogether, as I do have stuff to do (obviously, I mean, I do have a job after all), but the lot of the Own Office Joey can be a lonely one. In a shared office your Monday morning conversation might go something like, "Hey, how was your weekend? ... Oh really, that sounds great. ... Yeh, mine was okay. Saw some friends, went to the cinema." but sitting here on your own it's almost like the weekend never existed and life's just one long Monday. (Well maybe other people have a richer and more diverse interior life, which doesn't revolve around constant reassurance from other people but, erm, I don't.) So yeh, why am I doing this? well, my friend Elise (name and shame) has been affectionately (i think) calling me Own Office Joey for a while now (and don't be like that, we're just Reclaiming the Term. I'm sorry if you're offended, but you can make yourself feel better by realising that it's better than Quas or a million other really offensive terms that come to mind.) and she reckons there must be other people existing in a state of Own Office Joeydom who, frankly, need to company as much as I do.

(By the way, you don't technically need an Own Office to be an OOJ, you can qualify if you, say, work at home, or feel particularly alienated by your co-workers and feel the need of some occasional human contact.)

If you're an Own Office Joey, I'd like to hear from you. Tell me how your weekend was, what your plans are for lunch, and all about the really brilliant outfit you're wearing that no one else will appreciate (keep it clean though. I might be on my own but I do have some standards).

Own Office Joey -- because in your own office, no one can hear you scream.