Monday, March 17, 2003

QUACKING UP Just outside the

QUACKING UP

Just outside the door to the bullpen where I work is a hallway, undecorated and sterile, nothing punctuating the walls but the occasional door, each unmarked and identical and anonymous.  But one of those innocuous doors leads to one of my favorite rooms in the whole, bland, antiseptic building - the Fifth Floor Conference Room.  It’s intimately proportioned but not overly cozy, and has no windows, interior or exterior, so the occupants can concentrate on their efforts without distraction or the self-consciousness of being observed.  The lights are on a dimmer - there aren’t many of these in the building - and the chairs are deep and comfortable. 

I’m not sure I can put my finger on exactly why I like this room so much but I’ll sometimes sneak off to it and secrete myself there when I want to thrash out some especially pressing business.  But one particular feature disposes me particularly fondly toward this room, apart from its accomodating features and the significant - nay, earthshaking - accomplishments I have achieved in it:  the door, which closes automatically like all the other doors in the building, makes a little sound that none of the other doors make.  It’s something like a quack, something like a biological backfire.  When I have meetings in this room I try to be the first to arrive so I can enjoy as many pneumatic raspberries as possible.  If someone comes into the meeting once we’re in session, I have to exert myself prodigiously not to disrupt the proceedings by giggling as the door closes behind him with a thick squirty sound. 

I’m personally grateful that this particular room makes this particular noise.  It’s a good way for me to keep perspective and a sense of humor in an otherwise humorless environment.  Otherwise the Fifth Floor Conference Room would be nothing more than my cloister, my sanctum, the place I go to be alone with my thoughts and labors, where my distractions can be minimized and my output, maximized, where I can get the most out of my time and myself.  But that little noise - that cheers me up when I get tired, fires my enthusiasm for the task at hand.  Every workplace needs a little weird inappropriate noise every so often.  I’ve found mine; you’re on your own.