The Man Cave

I have been working at Amtico almost a year now, and have survived the year of spending my days in a man cave. I have always enjoyed working with men, but this is my first experience of working with nothing BUT men. It has certainly been an adventure.

Our man cave is carved out of the large reception area of the Amtico manufacturing plant. It’s really nothing much more than seven-foot outer walls, and five-foot inner walls that separate our individual working space, otherwise known as cubicles. There is nothing decorative about our space, save for photos of children and grandchildren that have been photocopied and pinned to the cushiony walls separating us. My space is actually not much different. I have photos of my sons and dogs, calendars, and a few pithy sayings gracing my inner sanctum. I sometimes think I’ll bring something in to make it a little more welcoming and homey, but then I don’t want to become too attached to this place.

Dealing with complaints and claims all day long, tempers can become stretched like tight rubber bands, and occasionally colorful language erupts from behind cubicle walls. Since I work with gentlemen, an apology always follows the verbal eruptions. Most of the time I don’t mind, but every now and then I have to escape for a few minutes while the storm roars.

My belief has been reinforced through working with men that there really is a difference between men and women in how we think, act, and process information. These men think differently than I do, and follow different paths of reasoning and working through problems. For example, one day in a meeting, I was asked to create a computer-generated, interactive form – something I’d never done before, or even considered ever having to do. “It’s easy,” one of my co-workers told me, “it won’t take you more than twenty minutes.” When we met again the following week, I was totally frustrated from spending a total of at least ten hours on this project, and still not accomplishing my task. My boss couldn’t understand why I hadn’t finished the form or why I was having difficulty with it. “It’s easy,” was repeated, followed by, “I don’t see what your problem is.” With that, I got up from my chair and exited the conference room where we were meeting. Ten minutes later, my boiling point down to a mild simmer, I returned to the group. The three of them looked at me as if they were gazing at an alien from outer space, but nothing more was said about the form. Three days later - lo and behold - my email inbox had a message from someone I’d never met, with the completed form as an attachment. Why couldn’t they have gotten this mystery person to work on it in the first place, I wondered. However, I didn’t question, but simply accepted this gift.

A few days later, one of the guys I work with was joking about my walking out of the meeting. “We didn’t know what to think,” he said. “None of us understood why you were so upset.” I replied, “Imagine this, if you can. I bring a ball of yarn, a crochet hook, and a page of instructions on how to crochet a scarf, and place it on your desk. ‘It’s easy,’ I tell you. ‘All you need to do is follow the directions. It shouldn’t take you more than twenty minutes to whip this up for me.’ ” He stared at me, the light bulb of understanding beginning to reflect from his eyes. Since then, I haven’t been asked to do something that is outside of my area of familiarity or expertise, without the appropriate training or tools.

I never knew that guys liked to gossip until working here. I swear that they are worse than any women I’ve ever known. They love a good scandal, and relish the details, replaying them over and over, laughing all the time, while at the same time coming up with wild assumptions of what might have really happened. I’ll take a female gossip session over one of these any day! I have to admit that I learn a lot about what goes on behind the scenes, but I really get tired of hearing the same story repeatedly, always with a new twist or angle added for entertainment, followed by gales of masculine laughter.

On the whole, I like working with men better than I did when I worked with an all-woman staff. The testosterone in the air isn’t nearly as objectionable as estrogen overload. However, there have been times when I’d have loved to have another girl close by when I felt the need to escape the man cave. Thankfully, my wish has been answered. Our new office manager, a female, started working here this week. It’s nice to hear the sound of a higher pitched voice drifting over the cubicle walls, and I’m looking forward to having a feminine conversation every now and then.

Yes, I’m getting adjusted to working in the man cave. It’s a pretty good place to spend my days. That is, as long as there’s a clearly marked escape route!

Cottage Industries - A Sign of the Times?

I was driving down I-20 a few mornings ago, daydreaming as I drove to my job over near Spaghetti Junction. I had been listening to country music, as I always do when I’m in the car, and for some reason it had begun grating on my nerves. I switched off the radio, and was enjoying the silence inside my car. Because I wasn’t bombarded with music, I became more aware of my surroundings, namely the other cars on the highway. A new phenomenon became obvious to me as vehicles passed me and I whizzed past others, giving me pause for thought. I began reading magnetic car signs.

The first one that caught my eye was an old pick-up truck towing an open trailer loaded with lawn mowers, rakes, blowers, and all the stuff needed to manicure a lawn. Pasted to the driver’s side door as I passed this slow poke was a magnetic sign advertising “ABC Lawn Service”. I glanced as I passed, noting that inside the truck was a young man and woman.

Next was a mini-van that buzzed by me. The first thing I noticed was the extension ladder fastened to the roof. The magnetic sign on the side of this vehicle identified the young woman driving – “Kim’s Chandelier Cleaning” - complete with phone number and website. Kim, who I assumed was the driver, was an attractive African-American woman, probably in her 30s or 40s.

A little further down the highway, I discovered more interesting reading. There was a sign stuck to the side of an old sedan. It read “East Atlanta Courier”. A man about my age was the driver, and he was obviously in a hurry to get somewhere. We were at a place on the interstate where the traffic was stop-and-go, and we inched forward side-by-side along the jammed-up highway. I knew he was in a hurry, because he was drumming the steering wheel with his hands and was furiously chewing on a piece of gum. He kept answering his cell phone, talking for a couple of seconds and then hanging up. I imagined that he was updating someone on his progress, while carrying an important document or package to its destination in Atlanta.

Once traffic began moving again, more cars and trucks of varying ages and conditions caught my eye. I saw one advertising a “fix-it man”, another hawked “cake decorating”, and yet another claimed to be “carpenter, dry-wall, painter, plumber, electrician.” Wow! A man of many talents in that old truck! I also saw three Mary Kay decals on back windows and an Amway bumper sticker. I hadn’t seen one of those in years. I also passed four more lawn care trucks and trailers. This must be a pretty lucrative business, or at the least a relatively easy one to start up.

All of this set my mind to thinking about the people supplying these services and products. I wondered if they, like me, had been the recipients of a lay-off visit from human resources somewhere in the past couple of years. Were they still looking for work, or had they used their ingenuity to reinvent themselves with independent businesses in order to make a living? I was curious, and also impressed.

I then began thinking about myself, imagining what my magnetic sign might say if I had one. Of course, “Jennie Lou’s Treehouse” came to mind, as this is the name of my Saturday market booth. What would I advertise - my home-baked breads, jams and jellies, the cotton and bamboo fiber wash cloths that I knit and crochet, photo note cards, rag rugs, dried herbs, fresh vegetables? Or would I hawk the services I provide – research, organization management, meeting planning, tutoring, writing? I would most certainly need a super-sized sign for all of the little things that have kept me busy since I left my last office!

I turned into the driveway of my part-time job, which by the way, is located in my friend, Beth’s, home, and is a very successful independent enterprise. I was ready for a day of utilizing my talents to help her business flourish. I grabbed my bag filled with bread, jelly, and vegetables from my garden, and entered her home ready for a day of research, proofreading, organizing, data entry- whatever tasks she had ready for me.

With one last thought of the people I had “met” on the interstate, I said a quick prayer for them to succeed in their endeavors, and began my workday.

Hitting the Wall

On Saturday afternoon about 4:00 PM, I hit the wall, figuratively speaking. It had been a long time since this had happened to me, and I was somewhat miffed that I ran out of steam a couple of hours before going out to dinner with friends. It had been a busy week, but I hadn’t been aware of how draining it was until Phil reminded me, reciting a list of things I’d done during the week, as I was struggling to get back onto my feet.

One of my main tasks for the week was watching my leg wound on a regular basis after getting the stitches removed on Tuesday, and fretting that it wouldn’t heal the way it should. I obsessed over my leg - the shade of red, the warmth of the wound site, the formation of scabs, and the lumpiness underneath the skin. It was either on my mind or lurking in the shadows all the time. This alone was enough to exhaust me!

I was on the go all week long. The garden kept me on my toes, as I picked okra, beans, peas, tomatoes and peppers, and then had to do something with them after coming in from the garden. Much of my spare time was spent in the kitchen, washing vegetables and preparing them for the freezer. I even made a new creation, candied jalapenos, a recipe that I came up with after extensive internet research and taking what I hoped was the best from several recipes I found online. The result was a delicious combination of hot and sweet, and I was very pleased with myself. One of our huge pumpkins found its way into the freezer as I labored over lugging it upstairs to the kitchen, cutting it up, cooking it, and then blending it into a creamy puree.

Besides all this, I tutored at the college one evening and helped out my friend, Beth, in her site selection business two days. I also found time to pick blueberries, knit a wash cloth, and bake bread for the Saturday market. Saturday morning at the market was extremely busy, as I sold out of almost everything at my booth, and commented along with everyone else how hot and humid it was.

So it was that at 4:00 Saturday afternoon I sat down to rest for a few minutes and crashed. Somehow, I managed to get myself out of the chair an hour later and freshened up enough to go to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner. Once there, with a few chips and salsa in my tummy, and sipping on a strong margarita, I artificially perked up and enjoyed dinner immensely. But by the time we reached home after dinner, I was done. I managed to dredge up enough energy to call Brian to wish him a happy birthday before my lights went out, and didn’t regain consciousness until the sunlight hit my eyes yesterday morning.

And so, now, it’s another week. And it looks like it’s going to be a full one. I hope I learned a lesson last week, and I plan to spend a little more time with my feet up and my eyes closed each day. No more crashes for me – that wall I hit was no fun!