One Big Happy Family

If you work a full-time job at basically one worksite, you spend a hell of a lot of time there. Well, all day every day, at least 5 days a week, at least 8 hours every day. And you're with the same people for all those hours every day, day after day after day. You see those people and interact with them more than your family--well, unless it's a family business in which case you never really get away.(Yeesh!)

My office is a pretty charged atmosphere. We have not only the fairly diverse array of characters staffing the place but all manner of folks coming through our doors. So we have not only our own dramas but those of our clients.

And sometimes things get a bit heated. We have clients who aren't getting what they want or need in terms of--usually but not always--enough money to make it. They holler at us and call us names on occasion. And then there's us. Some of the staff aren't getting what they need(again, that mo-nayy), so we holler amongst ourselves. Within every week, there's a fair amount of hollering, or at least emotional intensity.

Fortunately there's also a goodly amount of joking and horseplay among the staff. I must say, amid all the negativity in the day's work I do have at least one healthy laugh every day. This definitely helps ease the workday tensions. Dealing with the public and with one another.

When you're around the same people all day every day, you develop a closeness from sharing not only space but issues, problems. You may not have a million things in common with them outside this sphere, but within it you have everything in common. Probably something like serving in the Military--particularly if you're in battle together. Lord knows, we've been through some skirmishes in our office..

So it becomes very familial. After 16 years you see a lot of coming and going, but you do get close to folks, especially if they've served most or all of the years you have. And like families, people do bicker, some on a daily basis, some more intermittently. Unless you wear a specially insulated suit, something sometime is going to get under your skin. Or something you do(intentionally or not)is going to get under someone else's.

Of course, this is rather entertaining when it's someone else: "Well I'm just not speaking to Tom this week". Perplexing when it's you. I do my damndest to avoid such interpersonal drama but once in awhile my armor is off and I get zinged in some way, or I unintentionally zing someone else. So you have a snit of a week or two, sometimes longer. I've lost track of how many times this has happened to me in my 16 thusfar years there, either the snitter or snittee..

The only other kind of work I've done for any length of time besides work in an office is being a musician, some of which I've done on the road. A road band is another group of folks you spend an inordinate amount of time with- another concentrated setting- and thus your relationships therein are either enriched or exacerbated by all that closeness. I was on the road from '84 to '86, and there are a couple folks from the band I'm still close to, as well as a couple I haven't communicated with since then and likely won't ever again.

This was a 7-piece group. I have a friend who played in the Ray Charles Orchestra for some years, which would be population 30(counting the Raylettes and crew), so the relationship potential is increased exponentially. He said there were always little snits going on amongst the players, people not speaking to one another for weeks.

One such "Cold War", between a trombone player and sax player, where they hadn't spoken in months, ended one day when the sax player picked him up off the ground(I guess it helps being 6'7")kissed him on the lips and said, "I think we should kiss and make up". At this point everyone in the room cracked up, including the trombone player.

So I asked my friend, "Well then, everything was cool again from that point?"

"No. A week later, he was mad at somebody else".

Ba-DUM-chik(drum fill, as in after a one-liner)