Corporate Stooge.

I'm not cut out for this lifestyle of meetings and corporate obedience. I'm starting to feel that my days are numbered. I'd better line up something good to take on the burden of paying the bills. Even if I try, I don't know how much longer I'll last in this business of streamlined marketing and structured everything, with a total lack of independent style.
I keep being requested to attend these meetings and I keep missing them. I'm not used to having the expectation put on me to be somewhere at a specific minute for a non-specific amount of time to listen to people say, "Do you think...?" "Yes, I think..." "And what about...?" "That's a good question, we'll get Bob on the next call."
Let's say the meeting is at 1. I'll be aware of it at 11:30, then I'll go to lunch, then I get back at 1:40 to realize that I completely spaced it. Even if I only have 5 minutes to wait, I'll get distracted by whatever I'm filling my time with, and I'll realize 15 minutes later that I'm 10 minutes late for the call. I don't like it! I don't know what I want instead, but this doesn't feel like it.
Today the conference call is at 7:30 am. Now, I don't get into the office until about 9, but the meeting hosts are on the east coast, so the meeting is ridiculously early for us westerners. So I have to call in from home, in my robe, with my first cup of coffee. I'm taking notes on a sheet of printer paper with a golf pencil. I've got 3 or 4 minutes to go, and I'm sure I'll lose track of time and be late. I've been thinking for the past 14 years that "this corporate thing isn't so bad. It's not like in the movies and whatnot." Well that's because we weren't a typical corporation, as portrayed in the movies and whatnot. But now it's getting that way. I'm starting to feel really stifled, unappreciated and out of place.
Well, I have to dial in now.
Okay, well that's over. 20 minutes later and I was able to tell them, "yes, I'm a graphic designer. Yes, I know how to stretch one end of a vector shape without distorting the curves at the other end." Funny how much doubt some people have that other people understand anything. It's okay, better safe than sorry.

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