Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Firefighter, Cat Herder, Magician

Ever have one of those weeks at work when nothing you planned to do can be addressed because you are so busy putting out fires? When your efforts at being part of a sane approach are trampled by the feet of organizational chaos? When the rules seem to change at whim?

If I wrote a recruitment posting, and included a more accurate (and certainly more colorful) description of the job I do, it would look like this:

Looking for Other Duties as Assigned, in a Small and Driven unit within an Traditional Heirarchy that finds itself transitioning to Corporitization?

Spend, play with, reorganize, spit polish and lament over miniscule resources. Alternately appreciate or get bushwacked by new business practices while managing this little pantry of goodies and those it feeds. Snake charming, firefighting, mind reading, and scrapbooking skills a plus.

Extra Special Other Duties may include (but are not limited to): musical chairs/desks/you name it, preventing a kitchen fire by emptying almost a loaf's worth of bread crumbs from the office toaster, General of the supply closet - sometimes commanding recon missions to local hallways for freebies, knowing the answer to the question "How do We say what We say?" and other pithy inquiries, corralling innumerable moving parts to get one small thing accomplished. Rodeo experience, cat herding, thermodynamics and gourmet cooking skills desired, unlimited patience and naive impression that it can't get worse required.

Join us in a diverse environment of unique and quirky people with individualized working styles. Free yourself from organization and method, savoring your role as a purely reactionary member of the workforce, and become one with the Now, or as we like to call it, the "What Now".