graphing success, discount paper and conditional air

Beginning in junior high they started showing us the Stay In School Or Else Graph. It was usually a simple bar graph designed to show kids how much more money they’re bound to rake in as high school and college graduates, to impress upon them the need to be a part of the biggest colored rectangle.

I wish they had spent some of that time bracing my 12 year old self for the reality of that rectangle. About the difference between living and making a living. Because there is a difference, some days it feels like a pretty big one. Days where I can’t help but wonder who decided the most productive way to spend eight hours of a day is behind a desk and how the hell they got that idea to catch on.

The woman who called me just now asking about who we buy office supplies from and if she can send me information about her company’s competitive paper prices- she probably went to school, she probably makes a decent enough living, and she probably hates picking up that phone and asking me that question just as much as I hate picking it up and hearing it. It’s a question that doesn’t need to be asked. Whether or not she calls me the paper will get ordered and the stacks of forms and files and memos will get written, read and responded to. Of course then I might be able to go through my day with one less reminder of the ridiculously unnecessary nature of both of our work.

It makes me wonder if part of the reason all those adults tried so hard to impress upon me the connection between success and a 9-5 office job was to convince themselves that their own was something worth attaining. Some sort of an achievement. As well as the fact that somehow I have become the answer to “Who is it that takes care of your office supplies needs?” Yep, that’s me, living the life of the larger rectangle and wondering how everyone else that makes it up gets through their day without constantly asking "why?"

Not that it’s all bad, on hot days I do appreciate the air conditioning.