A few days ago, the entire Marketing team was given the same assignment. Short of going into all the boring details (of which there are many), it basically involves the onerous task of double-checking thousands and thousands of lines of programming code. The importance of this task is high, and the execution can be mind-numbing.
I started yesterday and by the time mid-afternoon rolled around, I was zipping through my assigned portion at a steady clip. The work is not hard. Tedious as hell, but really quite simple, and I found that I could easily do it with my eyes closed (metaphorically) and my mind altogether somewhere else (literally). I actually enjoyed the banality. At last, a task at work where I don't have to think--score!
And because the entire department is embroiled in this time-sensitive chore, I felt a sense of solidarity between all of us that I have never felt before. Even though we are all in Marketing, we each work on such disparate things, encapsulated in such effective cubicle walls that I can go days without even seeing my cube neighbor, much less talk to her or know what she does at all. With this project, for once, all of our various job functions merged.
This morning, the head of the department called together a "Code Verification Party." It was a BYOL(aptop) kind of affair, and a good handful of us sat together in a conference room and verified code together on our respective laptops. It was unspeakably lame, yet so awesome. The room was filled with the gentle tapping of keyboards punctuated with a groan, a sigh, some side comment, all of which carried a palpable parallel; we each were working toward a shared and defined goal, suffering a shared misery to get there.
The whole thing, and my enjoyment of it, totally reminded me of the "Editing Parties" I went to back in high school. A small group of classmates and I would get together on the evenings before a big English paper was due, and we'd sit round-robin style and edit each other's essays. One girl usually hosted, and we'd sit silently in her living room for 10 or 15 minutes at a time, copy-editing another's essay and writing comments in the margins. Her mom would pop in every so often to refresh our snacks. After we were done with one essay, we'd switch, and switch again, and again, until all of us had read everyone else's papers.
Yes, I know that this, too, is unspeakably lame, and I am well aware that putting the word 'party' after something does not innately make it fun, but I seriously looked forward to these kinds of parties (both the Editing and Code Verification variety) without any shame or irony.
See, I have never been comfortable at regular parties, the kind with lots of people, most of whom I won't know, and beer and loud music, an overcrowded house and no agenda. I never know what to do at those. Should I just walk up to people and introduce myself? Should I wait against a wall for people to approach me? Since I don't drink or smoke, I don't have that immediate, easy connection, can't hold a drink and blend in or twiddle a cigarette between my fingers. Those props would help, as I don't know what to do with my hands. Shove them in my pocket and be aloof? Cross my arms against my chest and be standoffish? Let them dangle loosely to my sides, apelike and idiotic? As much as I want to be the kind of person who flits from person to person, group to group, ready with charm and a quip to leave everyone wanting to know more about me, I am terribly self-conscious and suck at finding common threads to weave myself into. Rarely do I feel like I fit in. At these parties, I usually stick to the people I know, wonder why I came in the first place, and count the minutes down before I feel like I've been there long enough to politely leave.
This leaves me, then, with those other kinds of parties, the nerd parties, the kind of parties that real party-goers would not dignify with the word "party." Also, sadly, the ones I feel most comfortable in. This afternoon at the Code Editing Party (I swear, the word "party" just sounds lamer each time I type it), I thought it was great fun, largely because of the commonality of those in attendance, including me, and how I felt like I fit in without even trying. Maybe if I drank, smoked, was more outgoing, liked the same kind of music, knew more about pop culture and what's hip and cool and happening at the time (wow, I have so far to go), I may feel this way at normal parties. As it stands, I guess the makeshift nerd ones are all I've got.
May not be much, but it's a start. And tomorrow, I'll have my iPod with me so I can verify code while showtunes and Adele vie for my attention. Then the real party begins.
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