how did I get here?

When I imagined what I wanted to be when I grew up, it was not to be invisible. Like most young girls, I had big aspirations without knowledge of the actual work and dedication it took to fulfilling them. I want to be a veterinarian because I like animals! Medical school and euthanizing cats? No thanks. I want to be a ballerina because they get to wear pink tutus! I can’t eat anything and I have to exercise a lot? No. That won’t do. After I graduated high school and started college, I started taking classes that sounded interesting, rather than choosing based on how they’d prepare me for the real world. Funnily enough, I never really thought about the “real” world. Picking my major was essentially a giant game of eeny-meeny-miny-mo, and communications was broad and also allowed me to stay out of the science building.

While I’ve never had a clear-cut definition of where I want to be in my career or what I really want to do when I grow up, I find it defeating that at the age of almost-28, I’m in a position that a. doesn’t have a real job description; b. no one really knows what I’m supposed to be doing; c. has very little guidance and/or direction; and d. gets paid a decent amount of money to accomplish … well, not a whole lot. If I were funnier and did bold things like pretend I was a robot walking down the hall, this could potentially be a sitcom.

I sometimes ponder leaving early or coming in late to work since I’m not exactly in demand here. (On a side note, I’ve discovered that my lunch-storing habits have morphed into a representation of my job personality. When I arrive in the morning, I change my shoes and head to the small kitchen to place my lunch on a shelf in the refrigerator. If there’s food already in there, I move what’s in front and safely put mine in the back corner, where no one can see it and it won’t be disturbed or discovered.) It should be noted that while I may be not entirely important to daily happenings or activities, I work for a company in a very specialized market with very, very smart people who do a lot of work and put in lots of time and effort. How did I get here?

In my five-year “career,” I’ve only worked for small companies who eventually ended up closing down and forcing me to find new work, so when I made this choice I was excited to delve into a company that was bigger, albeit more corporate. I knew it wasn’t the perfect match for me, or for them, but coming back from Thailand with very little in my bank account, and what little I had covering car payments and daily expenses, I accepted the offer so I could start getting a paycheck and insurance. My last job, although frustrating in the end, started out much like this one, where I felt lost and unsure of what I was doing, but turning into an excellent “feet wetter,” if you will. I got to work directly with the CEO and senior executives, write pieces that were published online, and even dabble in events. In short, I was visible there, and used to being counted on for delivery. It’s not so much the corporate factor here that makes me invisible, but the fact that they hired a person for a job that doesn’t really exist.

In the first two weeks I was started on a project (a “whopper” as they described it) to document the process for a big-client project. Not exactly in-the-know about this process, I do as much “fill” as I can, send it to the senior consultant I’m working with, and let her make all the changes, fill in the detail, etc. Then, when we’ve finished a section, we send it on to the project members and wait for comments. So far, we’ve sent one thing for review, a few weeks ago, and still haven’t received feedback. People are very busy and important here, as exemplified by the giant bottleneck which inhibits me from doing actual work. Sometimes I send a reminder email, along the lines of “Where are we on this project?” and I get a “I haven’t had time to look at it yet” in return, reaffirming the fact that the work I do is not first on their list… or tenth on their list. And so on.

Other than that “project” (please notice the sarcastic use of quotations… ), I fill my time by teaching myself HTML, fooling around in Photoshop, and generally just counting the hours till I can exit this soul-sucking building. Apparently my communications degree and experience didn’t prepare me for anything at this job except for clockwatching. So far, no one has noticed this, and if they have it’s par for the course of this “job” since I keep being met with “Are they keeping you busy?” comments.

I started this little rant as a preface to the encounter I had in the hallway yesterday. Let me back up a bit and tell you that last week I cut off about 10 inches of hair to donate to Locks of Love, and when I returned in the middle of the day, the only people who noticed were the ones who were anticipating my return, who just happen to be new employees that sit next to me. Oh, and the teeny tiny nice girl who sits over the cube from me, but we don’t talk much. So fast forward to yesterday, where I’m walking down the hallway and my manager (who I haven’t actually met with yet, despite a few pointless requests, and who’s not really my manager because my “real” manager works from Wisconsin) is approaching from the opposite direction. I wave and say hi, he asks how it’s going (aside: shouldn’t he know how it’s going?), I say fine and then comment on his haircut. Even though his hair is about .05 millimeters in length, I notice that it’s cleaner looking and shorter. He says thanks and makes a comment about how it’s a little too short this time and the barber always asks him “is this ok?” after he cuts it and it’s not like he can put it back on ha ha ha! Then he walks away.
…

He is male and stereotypically not prone to noticing these things but I have to admit my disappointment. I realize the purpose of parting with my hairs was to help a good cause and not to get recognition, but it’s always nice to be reaffirmed with some sort of acknowledgment. Surely my nod to your .002mm loss of length in hair could be met with a nod to the hacking of mine. Alas. Such recognition would assume that I’m working on projects and therefore seeing him on a daily basis and not be based on the reality that the most I see of him is the top of his head when he’s standing at the copier in front of my cube.

How did I get here?