indecorum

Hitting a little close to home….

Editor’s Note: Originally posted at Aaron Karo’s website

The other day I found myself sitting on the couch watching reruns of Lizzie McGuire on the Disney Channel (and feeling sort of guilty because I was kinda getting turned on). And as I stuffed another piece of my roommate’s girlfriend’s leftover Valentine’s Day candy into my mouth, I realized something – I haven’t worked in a full year. Furthermore, I realized that the past year since I left Wall Street to pursue comedy has been one of the best years of my life. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked many a job in my day – from investment banks in New York to consulting firms in London, from tiny dot-com startups to huge, multinational corporations. And they all had one thing in common: I hated every second of it. Look around you. I bet every unemployed twentysomething you know is desperately looking for a job while everyone with a job is desperately looking to get the hell out. We’ve entered an era of job insecurity.

Getting up at the crack of dawn for work is sort of like doing the New York Times crossword puzzle – it gets harder and harder as the week goes on until it’s almost impossible on Friday. And when your alarm goes off and you sit up in bed with one eye open, you always do that silent “reverse acceptance speech where you curse every person of authority in your life. You think to yourself, “I’d like to say that I hate everyone who brought here me to this moment at 5:45am. I hate my parents, my boss and, of course, my co-workers who come out every single day to support me. I hate you all. And now I’m going to snooze for seven more minutes. Goodnight. Assholes.”

Why do girls carry that extra bag to work? Everyone’s got their laptop bag and maybe their gym bag, but girls always have that extra, brown Bath & Body Works shopping bag piled high with crap. I’m baffled.

I love the people that proudly wear their employee ID cards around their necks all day long and refuse to take it off. Its OK buddy, we’re at lunch now, and that’s a terrible picture of you anyway.

In the past eight years, there have only been two times when I shaved my sideburns completely off. One was after my first night of pledging when my pledge master told me that if I didn’t shave them off, he would. The other was the night before my first day of work after I was told that facial hair was “frowned upon” in the office. In both cases, I grew them back without anyone noticing, was summarily shit upon for months on end for no apparent reason, and when it was all over, had learned nothing more than a few bizarre and mundane skills not applicable anywhere else.

On the subject of bizarre and mundane skills, to all the investment bankers out there reading this, if you’ve ever found yourself arguing with someone about who is more skilled at using keyboard shortcuts instead of the mouse, it’s all over for you. You’ve had a nice run, but it’s time to get out. Slowly make your way to the door without making any sudden movements. Oh and leave that Bath & Body Works bag, someone else might need it.

I love corporate America’s futile attempts at boosting employee morale. For instance, the Friday afternoon beer bash. Have you participated in one of these? You get to stop work early on Friday and hang out in a drafty conference room sipping lukewarm Heinekens with a bunch of co-workers you already spend twelve hours a day with. Um…yeah…could I, uh, just go home early instead? Because that would really make me a lot happier.

For me, the moment I knew it was time to quit my job was when I caught myself using office buzzwords with my family. I was like, “Hey Mom, I just touched base with Dad. Yeah, he’s out of pocket right now but we’re gonna circle back in about an hour. I really think it’s critical that he gives us the view from 50,000 feet because there seems to be some disconnect between…wait a minute, what the fuck am I talking about?”

Quote of the Month. This month’s quote comes from my friend Adam R., disgruntled banker. He was going out to lunch one day with a few co-workers, all wearing the standard blue Banana Republic shirt, gray J.Crew pants and black Kenneth Cole shoes. A cheerful secretary passed the weary group in the hall and said, “Hey, you guys all look the same!” To which Adam replied, “You mean miserable?”

You know who I hate? People want to go back to business formal attire. There’s always that one asshole in the office who for some reason needs to make it known to everyone that he would rather wear a tie and a dark suit in the middle of the summer. Shut the fuck up and stop trying to ruin this for the rest of us. And will you take that goddamn employee ID off already?

There are few things worse than attempting to make it through a day of work with a massive hangover. You know, you’re perspiring slightly, you have a huge glass of ice water, you’re trying to stay very very still, you tell everyone you have food poisoning, it’s horrible. I actually threw up in the office once. I came back from the bathroom and everyone was giving me a dirty look. I told them that I had some bad sushi and they all shook their heads and went back to work. The funny thing is that I really did have some bad sushi the night before. Plus twenty sake bombs.

Right up there with trying to survive when you’re hungover in the office is trying to stay awake at your desk after you come back from lunch. It should really be an Olympic sport. It’s a beautiful day out, you just went out to eat and had a nice turkey sandwich, then you get back to your desk and all of a sudden you become narcoleptic. Phones are ringing off the hook, people are yelling, but your Herman Miller chair is the most comfortable bed in the world. I once fell asleep for so long on my computer that when I woke up I had impressions from the F and J keys in my forehead.

I think the most important skill that any twentysomething working in an office must learn is how to look busy when you’re really not. The easiest way to do this of course is to throw a bunch of paper around your desk to make it look really messy and keep a complicated looking document up on your computer screen. You can see this charade in action in other professions as well. That trainer at the gym who’s constantly arranging the dumbbells in weight order? He’s got nothing to do. The doorman who’s triple-checking his list of dry cleaning deliveries? Nothing as well. And how do you know when you’ve been pretending to look busy in the office for too long? When you reach that moment, and I know you have, when you decide that you’ve officially surfed every web site on the entire Internet and have been reduced to searching your own name on Google. At that point, you should make sure you’re still actually employed.

Ever notice that as soon as someone above you in the office curses in front of you, you feel like you should curse in every conversation with them from then on?

Ever get an email from a friend at work who is trying to outwit the system that scans all of his outgoing messages? It’s always something like: “Hey Karo, what the f@ck happened with that b_tch last night? Her t*its were huge! I want all the details you m%ther f@cker!” I’m like, are you sure your company won’t be able to figure this out?

Ever try to explain to your grandmother what you do for a living? No matter what you do it’s always way too complicated to explain. You’re like, well, you see, our clients are looking to raise additional capital and we provide a liquid market for…uh, yeah, you’re not following this. How about this? I’m a stockbroker. Yup, just like on TV.

I think the people with the most warped outlook are those working on Wall Street. It’s amazing the kinds of hours that people will work in exchange for a tote bag and a hat with the company logo on it that they’ll never wear. And the expense account, that’s where the real brainwashing comes in. My roommate will come home from work and start bragging like “Karo, I expensed the sickest sushi dinner tonight!” I’ll be like, “Dude, wouldn’t you have rather paid for your own dinner and not come home at 2am?”

How come when you quit a job you have to give two weeks notice but when they lay you off you have to leave immediately?

I hate when I call my friends who are employed and an assistant picks up and says, “John Smith’s office!” Can you giving me a fucking break please? I know you don’t have an office. I also know that same assistant answers the phone for a dozen other drones. In fact, I bet he or she has a bigger cubicle then you do. So get off your lazy ass and pick up your own goddamn phone.

For those of you reading this at work right now, I want you to know that I feel your pain. I know what you’re going through. If you’re a summer intern, right now you’re watching the clock, waiting for it to hit five so you can bolt out the door and hit happy hour. If you’re in your late twenties, right now you’re wishing you went to law school. If you’re a guy, the office is way too hot and the other window open on your computer is Bill Simmons’ column on ESPN.com. If you’re a girl, the office is way too cold and the other window open on your computer is the new arrivals section of Bluefly.com. As for me, well, I know that living off of book royalties and stand-up gigs can’t last forever. Maybe one day I will return to the working world. But this time, I’m keeping the sideburns.