As you all have gathered from Quirks: On Quitting, I recently quit my job. It was a great job where I didn’t have to work that hard except for sometimes (a real feast or famine type situation) but it started to kill my soul a little bit and in the end I decided to save myself. (Hi people I used to work with and for some reason decided to share my Substack and (as a result) GI issues with and now you know that I didn’t work that hard and that the job was killing my soul and that also I know where all the secret bathrooms are at our office and that’s super embarrassing so please never bring this up when we see each other next time!!!) And then I took a ten-day sabbatical where I did one workout to kick-start my new lifestyle but then literally couldn’t move my body for three whole days and did a guided meditation to find myself and all I found was some hot and tan pilates future Lindsey lady but that’s not realistic because working out is just too hard. Fast forward a week(ish) and here I am, in some other dimension, reporting to you from a new job and I have some thoughts.
A company will literally just buy you a new computer. Sight unseen. Passing them out like candy. Like, they did some reference calls, but honestly those references are my friends and they are probably shady as fuck. One of them is for sure shady as fuck because he carries handkerchiefs on the off-chance he encounters a lady in distress. They tell you to pick it up at the “Apple” store, so you make an appointment and walk in. Remember those store greeters I was telling you about? Well, take that, and multiply it by one million but make it Video Game Guy. Imagine yourself, playin’ it cool. Walkin’ in. Saying you’re here for a “Laptop”. Maybe doing a half-lean on the table so you look calm and cool. You give the guy your name and he asks you if you need to stay for a demo. “Nah”, you say. “Pretty self-explanatory I assume,” you say. They raise their eyebrows at you, impressed by your tech savviness, obviously. Another guy from the back comes out, and brings you a shiny new MacTop LapTop. You take it and the packaging is surprisingly slippery so you drop that fucking thing right out of your sweaty nervous hands onto the fucking tile floor for all to see. “It’s okay,” says Video Game Guy. “Great protective packaging,” says Video Game Guy. You respond with a meek, “Can I have a bag?” as you clumsily attempt to pick up your brand new MacTop LapTop off the floor, but it’s slippery as fuck so you end up sliding the thing into the bag right on the floor and then you slink out of there like some kind of criminal without saying goodbye.
You know what I don’t love? An Onboarding Cohort. An Onboarding Cohort is a group of people who all start their jobs on the same day. There’s pre-programmed material for the entire week, so every single virtual meeting has you, your cohort, and some person from the company that teaches you about their “Functional Role”. Instead of department we call it “Function” because that sounds cooler and seems less Corporate. At least that’s what I gather. You know what’s worse than a large cohort of many people? A cohort of just two people. You find yourself getting real friendly with Joe from Implementations, or so you thought, until some effing guy says, “Hey! I know! Instead of introducing yourself, why don’t you introduce the other person from your cohort!!! And Lindsey you should go first!!!!” And so you hmmmm and haaawww for a second being all, “tee hee I don’t know if I’ll remember all of Joe’s details but here goes: This is Joe from Implementations and he lives in blah blah blah and used to do blah blah blah, how did I do Joe?! Please like me!” And then Joe is all, “Actually I’m Joe from Integrations” And then in your head you’re like what the hell is the difference between implementations and integrations this guy needs to just fucking CHILL. And then as payback Joe introduces you as somebody who has “an extremely vague title and isn’t really sure what she’s going to be doing”. And in your head you’re like, he’s not wrong but oh my god how does he know, is it that obvious?!
You know what I don’t love? Meeting the first person in your professional life who went to your alma mater and so you make a fun little Zoom meeting with her to talk about growing up in Portland and then when you ask her when she graduated college and she says a year that was TEN YEARS AFTER YOUR YEAR and you realize that you’re fucking old(ish) and that’s fine except I’m used to being the youngest(ish) and I don’t know what to do with all these early aughts pop-culture references and I refuse to download this TikTok thing everyone’s talking about because I’m just now starting to be not addicted to my technology apps after a ten year fog.
You know what I really don’t fucking love? Posting an “Introduction Post” on “Slack” where you carefully craft your bio, your “fun facts about me!”, and your fucking bucket list only for the seemingly Company Cool Gal to respond saying, “you remind me of [Mommybloggerfarmer[whattheactualfuck]] on TikTok!!” I’m sorry. Did you just compare me to someone who refers to themselves publicly online as a mommy? A mommy who has an online presence? A MOMMY BLOGGER? Is that what this is? If you guys think I’m a Mommy Blogger then I quit forever. No more substacks. That’s it. Is that what this is?! First of all, how dare you. Second of all, I don’t see the men who post photos of themselves with their children being accused of being Daddy Somethings. All the comments are just, “Awww!” “How sweet!” “Beautiful Family!!!” Can you imagine being called a Daddy Biker just because some Manfolk Guy decides to share with his new co-workers the fact that he’s a dad and he likes to ride his bike? No. The answer is no. That will literally never happen. My literal kid doesn’t even call me Mommy my gawd what IS this place.
This so-called Slack thing is like Facebook. But for work. There are channels dedicated to photos of your pets. Channels dedicated to IRL hangout sessions. Channels for sharing wins. Channels for sharing challenges. So there I am one day, lurking on the channel for my specific departm—function when I see that their last little get-together involved a DANCE WORKOUT CLASS that they went to together. Like, they danced together, publicly. Do you get it? Are you listening? They danced. As a workout. Together. In public. You know what was the last time I danced in public in a non-intoxicated/non-intentionally comical way? The time I was 12 in middle school when I tried out for the dance club and we had this little routine to Cotton Eye Joe (Line Dance Remix Version, obviously) and the coach pulled me out of the front DURING THE SONG WHILE I WAS DANCING and put me in the middle back of the formation. For those that don’t know, the bad dancers are the ones in the middle back of the formation. The ones they don’t want front and center. The ones who are so bad that they literally have to move them as the song is going and as the dancers are dancing. As you might have expected, I had a literal panic attack at the thought of me in a leotard dancing WITH MY COLLEAGUES AND NEW BOSS in a dance class. Together. In public. Dancing. I think I miss the Finance Bros. This would never happen with Finance Bros.
Someone asked me, “So! What is it that you are going to be doing here?!” And I said, “I mean… what is it that YOU think I will be doing here?!” Because I honestly don’t know what I’m going to be doing here and I thought maybe she could tell me.
My manager sent me a form to fill out that asks for my preferences on how I like to be managed. Get this. It asks for my enneagram score, which I had just happened to figure out a few weeks prior. How do I say, “Funny you should ask. I’m a 6w5. In other words I am a recluse who despises small talk so act accordingly.”
Tonight I went to a happy hour with strangers, except one of them is my new boss. One stranger asked, “does anyone believe in taking those personality quizzes online?” I’m not sure what she meant by believe but anyway without remembering to think before I speak I said, “Actually last night I took an online test to find out if I’m autistic”. …. Now. A few things on this.
The fact that I said that out loud without thinking is maybe going to put one check in the ol’ “Definitely Autistic” bucket.
But the fact that I even am taking the test because I’m concerned is maybe a check in the “Not Autistic” bucket? Like, same rule applies to this as it does the narcissists, right? If you think you’re a narcissist then you’re not a narcissist.
Look. Sometimes I wonder what’s wrong with me and I haven’t figured it out yet and so I take these tests. Okay? This one was… insightful. One survey question said, “Do you have strange interests in random dates or numbers.” And I was like, “As in, the fact that I remember that Kathy’s birthday who sat two rows away from me in my first job out of college who I never even spoke to is on March 31st and I think of her every March 31st and wonder what kind of cake she’s eating? Yes, I suppose I’m vaguely interested in dates.”
The stranger responded, “Well I was wondering more about those quizzes that help you determine your personal style and such, but please go on…” And the whole table went silent. And then I had to dig myself, a person who wonders what’s wrong with them, out of a whole clusterfuck of an overshare and that’s the last time I will go to a happy hour with strangers.
If you’re wondering…. The survey results said I maybe have some “spectrum-like tendencies”, but that it’s nothing to be concerned about.