Note # 55 – New Office, New Rules

You guys.

I’ve started my new job (Full Time Writer During a Global Pandemic) and I have to tell you — even though it’s only been a few weeks, this is a pretty great job.

For one thing, the commute is fantastic! After I make myself a latté (there is free coffee for all employees in the kitchen!) Gavin and I walk through the living room and down the stairs to the basement where my desk is. The worst traffic we’ve run into (Mariann trying to come up the stairs with the laundry basket) only held us up for a few seconds. There’s no road rage, it’s carbon-neutral and it’s good exercise to boot!

Speaking of exercise, not only can you go for a walk on your lunch hour, you can take as long as you want for lunch! After 32 years of speed-eating my packed lunch so that I could get out to the playground to supervise the children pushing each other off the play structures, I have to say, this whole “eat and digest” thing is pretty great. (And there’s usually a great selection of leftovers and snacks in the kitchen that are also free to all employees. Honestly, I don’t know how they pay for this place to operate.)

As you can imagine, the office is very dog friendly — in fact there are a variety of dog beds, blankets and squeaky toys littered around the place, so Gavin approves and has made an effort to try out each of the beds. He especially likes the really cool days when they run the gas fireplace for a while. He always snags a spot close to the flames to warm his little belly.

Other things I like about my new job:

• There are no bells to tell you when to begin and end whatever activity you are currently engaged in. (This was a bit disorienting at first but gradually I’ve gotten accustomed to the quiet.)
• You can go to the bathroom ANY TIME YOU WANT. (Sometimes I go, even when I don’t have to pee, just because I can.)
• More than once I’ve showed up to work with a bit of breakfast on my shirt and not one person in the office has noticed or minded.
• Once a week, the whole office just stops whatever they’re doing and goes hiking for an afternoon. (They are very big on mental health days here — as HR always says, “A Happy Writer Is a Productive Writer.”)

And what a Productive Writer I’ve been — not quite four weeks and I’ve got the first two chapters of The Spaghetti Supper completed and have come up with an idea for another Stafford Falls related book, the details of which I will be sharing with you in the next few weeks.

But for now, I’ve got to run — the whole office has decided to have a combination dance/bathroom cleaning break while we work out the beginning scene of chapter three, and I want to make sure I get one of the good toilet scrubbers.

P.

P.S. I don’t know the details yet, but I hear the office Christmas party is going to be EPIC…