(this is) durkin.org

Here’s the thing about working in a cube - it doesn’t have to suck. If, for example you work with a fun group like mine, its actually quite nice - the whole team is in a cube, we laugh, we joke, its all good.

But lately, I am on assingment to another group. They don’t play quite as nicely as my group does. And so today it does suck. Big time.

I can hear, over and through this pre-fabricated wall of carpet and steel, the delicate slurping noises of boiled peanuts being eaten.

I hate boiled peanuts, but if that’s your thing, more power to you. Just don’t make me listen to it.

I should have titled this post “John’s Biggest Pet Peeve,” and I could have gone on and on about listening to people eat / chew / drink. I guess I could still go on and on, no matter what the title is, but I like the small semblance of focus I have going here. I digress.

Please, people - chew with your mouth closed. Even and especially when chewing gum. Its just common courtesty.

My father-in-law and his mother-in-law have an acrimonious relationship. To say it that way is, I think, polite but perhaps not quite accurate. But it will suffice.

I do not have time or energy for the backstory, so please just take it on good faith that there is a backstory and that they do not always see eye to eye and that both of them like to be in the know and in the right. Or at least to seem that way.

This past Thanksgiving, over a remarkably calm and delicious dinner, Grandmother (the mother-in-law of my father-in-law) took the conversation into a new direction: “I just love that little boy in those new car commercials.” She and my wife discussed the merits of the Dodge Durango ad campaign and remarked that the boy in one of them looks to them a bit like my son. There is talk about the humor in the commercials, especially the father’s command to his son: “Son, there is only one thing you need to know about this car: Hemi. Can you say Hemi?”

We all laughed.

“And what,” Grandmother continued, “is a hemi? Just what is that?”

My father-in-law does not look up from his meal. He speaks as though to his wine glass, saying between bites that it is a particular kind of head within the engine block that makes the engine more powerful. He gives details, talks about pistons and parts with the same tone and manner as a the afternoon news anchor.

I am impressed by his knowledge. So is the rest of the table, and converstation moves on.

Later that night, after she has gone home, he laughs out loud at nothing. “What is so funny,” we ask.

“Hemi.”

“What?”

“Hemi.” He says again. “I have no idea what a Hemi is.”

Memorandum To My Once and Future Cubemates:
Today, I have a door. A door of my own, that I can shut at any time I please. I can shut the door for no reason at all. I can open the door as well. Attached to the door are walls that reach the ceiling. Effectively, if I were to close the door, I would be sealed into a small box; a room, really - a room of my own.

I am told that there is a word for this room, and it is mine now as well (at least for a time): office.

Today, for no reason, I was upgraded. I was given an office with an Eastern Exposure. More importantly, I was given an office with a door. I know it is not permanent (indeed, today could be the only day), but I have an office with a door.

After years in cubeland; I am once again, well, human.

One of the things I really did not understand about parenthood was the sickness. No, not the particular bent of brain that makes you ever think that being a parent would be a great thing, and not the kind that has you utterly consumed with your child’s every single sound, action or, um, movement; but the actual, physical cylce of illness that you become tied to for years.