The Free Thinker

Despite many similarities to Initech from Office Space I really, really like my job and I'll tell you why.

Theoretically I start work at 9 AM. The first three days this week I arrived at 9:30. On Monday my boss and the other girl on my team both "worked from home", which is code for "do other stuff but return to check my email every 90 minutes." Tuesday I was the first of the three to get to work, and on Wednesday I beat my boss but not my coworker.

Notice a pattern? This place is slack as all hell. In fact I'm writing this blog post on company time.

Not to say I don't do my job, I do. My boss knows that no matter what time I get here, I'm not going to leave if there's something that needs to be done. So in exchange for her not caring if I'm late, I don't make a fuss if I have to work until six. And I have, many a time.

Needless to say this is an uber-refreshing change of pace from the call centre panopticon I was stuck in before. That's right my boss actually trusts me to do my job, you know, like an adult. Oh, and I also don't have some stupid schedule that tells me when I can have lunch. Nice, eh?

It might sound pretty basic and not all that exciting, but to someone fresh out of school that's used to crap jobs (and being hated by his boss), it's the bees knees.

Now as I've said previously, this job pays for crap. In fact, I took a pretty decent pay cut from my horrible bank job. But can you put a price on a boss that gets you two pounds of gourmet cookies for Christmas when you've been there for three weeks? Or a boss that drives your coworker to Winners to get some new clothes when she gets here soaking wet from the rain?

Now like I said, this place has some Office Spaceish qualities. It's a software company with about a billion cubicles and a very generic name. It's an in industrial park. In fact, I think if I had a different boss here I might hate the job. The work I do isn't particularly interesting or exciting. But when you get the sense that the boss is on your side, how bad can it really be?