Hey,

You’re not fooling anyone with your plastered on smile and your caffeine fueled enthusiasm. I see you sitting in your cubicle scrolling through all your social media when you think no one is looking. Your overly enthusiastic co-workers have made open floor office designs the bane of your existence as there’s no escaping their constant volunteering for more work or their actual cheery demeanor. You take your entire lunch break every day and god help those who cross your path on the days that precious hour is taken from you. Don’t even get started on the days you are forced to work late! Your countdown to holidays is none too subtle and you run out of the building on Fridays…most days, like you're being chased by ax murders, lions, tigers, Freddy, and Jason. Heck, even if one of them caught you, it’d still beat going back to work in that damn cube!

You’ve been feeling this way for a while but this is what you went to college for right? All those hours of studying paid off or you at least landed the right internship to be honored with the right to sit at this desk every day. Except, each morning when that alarm goes you mentally count down your sick days, vacation time, and wonder how much longer you can sleep in before putting together a mediocre outfit to go sit in a cube where you will stare at your computer’s clock for a majority of the day.

If this is you, you’re not alone. Sure, many of your classmates might be celebrating multi-year anniversaries at some company on their LinkedIn account but have they even updated that thing? Do you really want a multi-year anniversary at the desk you’re sitting in right now? If you find yourself describing your resume as a list a careers you’d really rather not revisit, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your life. Those people celebrating job anniversaries most likely dread their office almost as much as you do, except they’ve been stuck there for a while.

Your job isn’t who you are, it’s what you do. It’s where you spend at least forty hours of your week for a majority of your life. Do you really want to spend all that time starring at the clock? When you’re in your mid-twenties and considering college the good old days, maybe you should take a long hard look at yourself and your job. Hiding in the break room, scrolling through Facebook is no way to spend your career. Look around your office at the genuinely happy people who you’ve come to hate. That could be you, in a different office, with different coworkers, and a different career.

Sincerely,

The Girl Who Hated Her Cube