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I cannot be described as a "morning person". In fact, the
concept of smiling before noon and a couple lattes is rather foreign to me. So
the switch to a regular 9-5 schedule was a little rough to begin with. Then,
somehow, I ended up working very closely with the marketing department. I had no
idea how rough my mornings were going to be. I knew there was a problem when I would be greeted with phone calls at 9:15. "Good morning! How are YOU today?" I would stare blankly at the phone. I'm not particularly verbal until at least 10 AM. "Golly, there's so much to do today. How exhilarating!" It wasn't even noon and I was already using a mantra for serenity. |
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Others around me even noticed the problem. Stephanie
would roll her eyes when the marketers came in to check on the
"creatives". She had inspirational signs around her desk in a vain
effort to bring out some innate, perpetually sunny side of herself.
"Encourage, don't discourage." "There's no 'I' in team."
"Turn that frown upside down!" She and I both agreed that...no, it's
not there. There are days when we just want to scowl and listen to Bill Withers
on our headphones, ignoring all those around us. Somehow, that urge never hit the
marketing group. They would blithely ignore our moodiness, assuming it was part
of the "creative process." They never got it. So I thought, maybe the people involved in marketing are just mutant. Some chemical floats around their brain, as foreign to me and my circle of friends as from one species to another. My theory was blown when my contact was transferred to the television department. She'd been hoping to break into TV one way or another, and as soon as she was out of that environment, she seemed to calm down. She still worked hard, but...well, when she had a bad day, you could tell. Somehow she had broken out of the perky conundrum. I'm sure some of the problem stemmed from the company itself. CNET was a new and exciting concept, bursting onto the scene in an incredible flurry of energy, fresh content, and, most of all, a good chance at turning a profit. In many ways it still is, but the start-up attitude is disappearing, and the serious business of both maintaining a high quality of content and turning a profit have infused the daily working environment. Maybe perkiness is a marketing strategy unto itself. The scariest part, however, was the intense peer pressure to try to be perky. Frowning was, pardon the expression, frowned upon. Anything less than glee and people would ask if I was feeling all right. I started pasting on a fake smile. I would wake up earlier than usual and try to self-medicate myself with espresso shots and bright dance music to try and wake myself out of what I supposed was a glum depressive fog. I began to think about Zoloft as an option. It took several friends' shock at my pert way of answering the phone to make me reevaluate this attempt to change my personality at its root. That glum oppresive fog wasn't a problem...that was just my personality. What was to be done about the problem? We tried shock therapy. I covered my computer in black lace and set the background, icons, toolbar, and everything else I could to a muted grey. I tried dressing in all black. Again, this was chalked up to the creative process. "Artists standard-issue uniform," they called it. Of course, I'd dressed like this since well before I was a "creative", but that didn't matter. I set out to be as mean as possible without losing my job. I would shoot down their creative ideas before they even unleashed them on me. I argued, I bitched, I whined, I cajoled. Somehow that didn't work either, and I merely got a moment's peace while they retreated back into their corner of the office to regroup and, I suppose, perk up. But it seems that the problem has been subsiding as of late. I switched them to decaf. My hellos and apologies to our Marketing staff, who often get to be the butt of the joke. I'm teasing...I hope you're laughing. |
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