Where You Live

When I was at work the other day, a man passed my office. He said, “We don’t get enough Hello Kitty here,” as he pointed to my cubicle name plate, which I had recently adorned with a Hello Kitty sticker. In my decorating opinion, the new-old work place needed a bit of humor to offset the overwhelming sense of doom and gloom that I felt since I went back to work there.



I said to him, “That’s why I’m here.” He replied, “I get enough of that at home.” Apparently, while I thought Hello Kitty was a breath of fresh air, he thought he successfully dodged the cute pink cat bullet by going to work every day; obviously, he didn’t get the memo that Jean was back in town!

When my new-old job was old, I had an office that was wall-papered with stuff. It wasn’t just any stuff. It was a lot of stuff that I loved.

Greg, one of the engineers I worked with, once said, “I love coming to your office.” I laughed when he said that. He said, “You should sell tickets; it’s like going to a museum.”

Recently, I had to actually work with a friend who had helped me get my old job. He came by the other day just to catch up. He scanned my cubicle and said, “This is nothing like what you had before.”

When I first got my new-old job back, one of my friends asked me if my office would be resurrected. It probably would have been immediately had they hired me as a “permanent” employee. But, I kept having to remind myself that while I longed to be back permanently, I was only temporary.

You can tell a lot about a person by their office; there were levels of office decoration. I was definitely at some kind of alert level, which was “Employee That Thinks She’ll Be Here Until She’s 65!” I’m sure the company liked to see the offices that only had a calendar and a computer in them the best.

I approached my office like I approached my home; I spent a lot of time in both places. My home had no decorating theme. I surrounded myself with the things I loved, and I let it be.

For the most part, it all seemed to work. I think my home said to most, “This is Jean.” And, I think most people liked to linger in Jean.

When it came to decorating my home, I didn’t subscribe to feng shui, Laura Ashley, or anything like that. I had my totally kitschy candlesticks from the Lancaster Flea Market, my living room, which was reminiscent of 1890, and my plastic fish, Daisy and Spike, in my bay window. It was all so wrong, yet it was all so right…for me.

It was funny, but decorating my office was kind of like a relationship. If I moved in all the things I wanted, would it be saying, “I love you,” too soon? Having been around the relationship block too many times, I decided to be, no matter how much it hurt, conservative; I vowed that I would not put anything in my office that couldn’t fit into one box the day they decided to end my contract.

I had pictures of Iz and Nate.



I had my own personalized mouse.



I had my stash of food and my Maneki Neko.



I had my teapot, which was from a flower arrangement that my Dad sent me on Valentine’s Day a bazillion years ago.



I had something that Iz wanted me to put in my “office.”



Barbara, the receptionist/professional clown, had gone by my cube a few times. She said once, “It’s like you never left.” I had left, and now I was back; however, like any on-again-off again relationship, I wanted to get close but I wanted to stay far enough away, so I wouldn’t get hurt again. ♥