AT work we argue great themes, just how intrusive is biometrics and idealism versus theory versus experience.
There is an edge to our voices because for once, our opinions might matter. They might affect the status quo.
There is an edge to our voices because idealism tells us we are heroes, experience tells us that the status quo is larger than our job descriptions.
At work we use great disclaimers and drop armfuls of syllables like "political philosophy" "injunction" "human rights" on each other's laps with straight shoulders and proud grins.
At work I made my assistant draw a house with a tree in the front yard and a face in the window on my new whiteboard.
We laughed that the face she drew was as big as the sun.
At work I am now in charge of the security cameras and monitoring. In the last two hours I've upped the efficiency of their setup from something unmentionable to something intimidating, but still against my contract to mention.
At work I occasionally copy my boss on emails that I write to external partners, and he replies to me to confirm that he's read and received the FYIs. He generally also adds adorable little exclamations at my geniality and the friendly tone of my letters. Strategic, he calls them.
Writing the way I would like to be spoken with, I tell him, spouting elementary school lessons. He laughs. Clever girl, he calls me.
At work my boss wanders by sometimes to tell me something he thought of, and I show him where I've already worked that into the organizational diagram and politely ask him if he thinks I've put it in the right place. We use different types of connective arrows to demonstrate our points.
I love the way he nods gleefully. His was a generation that understood enthusiasm.
Last night we took our first tentative steps into Q's role-playing game. I fell asleep with the words "punkass kid" echoing past me in affectionate tones. I woke up laughing at myself for having thought that I might not have the energy to play every Monday night after work.
For this type of group, for Quentin's type of storytelling, I'll clone the energy from my hair follicles.
What? They're bouncy.
I have learned a few lessons from Stuart, the other new guy, and there are things at which he excels that I will never feel comfortable doing.
Today I learned that this is okay, even better that the two of us work so well together.
He's a great digger, I'm a great analyst, together we can weave bullshit into farraday cages.
We have the same title and for a while I worried that he was much better at this job description than I.
He is. But there are a handful of things that Michael has made it very clear no one has ever been able to get their heads around before --
-- and I got seven eigths of them done by 5pm today.
The rest still need brushing up.
In between my four meetings tomorrow, three on Thursday, and two on Friday.
Daunted?
Nah, doodle-time is always welcome.
Somedays I really do think as brave as I talk.
And it becomes so much easier when simple things like being able to explain the word "concatenate" to your tech writer suddenly makes your presence poignantly valuable.