Cubed

I'm in a cube again. I work in a cubicle that is. A very cold cube so I am like an ice cube!

I've been around the cube before and inevitably, the experience is only about as good as your cubemate. The person who is across the way from you, the one who has three walls pointing someone else and one empty space pointing at you.

There have been good cubemates, and really awesome cubemates who might start talking to you after ignoring you for 6 months. They may function as your therapist at times. They might even keep in touch with you after you've both moved out of that office with the cube and found work in some other place. Maybe with a cube, maybe not.

Then there are the not so fun cubemates. The ones who breathe through their nose and it whistles but they never seem to notice and you have to talk to yourself nonstop in your head so you don't hear it anymore. The ones who play country music (sorry country fans) and maybe sing along. The ones who leave dirty cups and plates and forks lying around and then exclaim with surprise when there are fruit flies and roaches. The ones who tell you about scary personal things you really don't want to know about, like how the guy they picked up at the bar after work came home with them and they don't know their name, but don't worry, they told the guy all about the gun they have in the nightstand (!!!!). And yes, these are all true encounters of mine.

So I have a cube again. The cube itself is ok, except the weird window in it. My problem is the mate. She is very negative. I mean, the second I sit down I hear curse after curse upon curse about her job, about the work she reviews, about how stupid everyone on the planet except her is, about the temperature, about the air quality, about the hours, about the snow coming down. She throws dangerous lightning-bolt laced sentences at her computer screen, it's too slow, she can't take this anymore, let THEM (whoever THEY are) come and sit where she sits and see how long THEY can take it.

At this point, I am just visualizing a large bubble of protection around my person when I enter the Cubedom. I try not to react to any of it now. At first, I tried to make a joke or two to lighten things, tried to empathise with her, tried to problem-solve. None of these made a bit of difference so it's extinction this week. So far not much progress here either....

I've never liked many things that are cubes. Cube steak--yuck! Sugar cube--who wants your sugar all clumped up together? Rubick's cube--never did solve it except when I took off the stickers and restuck them to make it look like I did. Cubes.