My Office

I work full-time in higher education in downtown Chicago. I work in Academic Affairs, which is the department that handles academic policy – everything from instructor pay scales when chairing student dissertations to being the final word on student dismissals for academic reasons. We probably handle a broader range of issues than most AA departments do, but we’re a relatively young and small institution and that means a few people do a lot of work! It’s not the sort of work I ever imagined myself doing, but I love it. I also love that my school’s mission and core values are firmly about providing resources to the underserved.

Anyway – here’s a quick look into (some of) where I spend my time at work.

My laptop and ginormous extra screen. I have photos of friends, family and stuff I think is pretty.

Note, below my phone – that yellow thing is a button you can push – like the Easy button – and it yells “OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!” (a gift from a co-worker – funny story, someone bought a bunch of those on a trip and packed them in their carry-on bag on the flight home. The bag was stored in the overhead compartment and was bouncing around, making the buttons go off over and over again. There were also buttons that yelled, “I’M SURROUNDED BY IDIOTS” – ha!). And next to the yellow button is my precious – my trackball mouse. I loooooove it.

The other side of my desk is just a holding ground for tons of paperwork. I also always have about 5 cups or bottles on my desk. The 2 Starbucks cups there are what I warmed up my soup in, for lunch. I never remember to bring a bowl. The bamboo was a gift from my boss. Next to it you might see a small mortar and pestle – a gift from a co-worker who went to Greece. There is also a jar of Ethiopian coffee and a bookmark from Istanbul (not Constantinople), and the scarf draped over that chair is from India. All gifts from co-workers who go awesome places and bring me stuff. One day, I will go someplace awesome. That print on the wall is from IKEA, it shows a dock leading to a lake. This is my “window”. Oh, next to the mortar and pestle you may see my Schruteformer. What’s a Schruteformer, you ask?

This is a Schruteformer. The co-worker who went to Greece hosts Stitch N Bitch at her house and last time I went, I took my 3 year old. He brought the transformer, we forgot it there, she brought it to my office, and it never made its way home because I always step on them with my bare feet. I also had the wonderful Dwight Schrute stressball that usually sits on top of the mortar & pestle (which holds mints and chocolates). So the other day while a few people were in my office chatting, one of them went to work to make the Schruteformer. I wasn’t paying attention and got a good laugh when I noticed it later. That’s scotch tape holding his head on.

Totally boring pic, showing the black sweater I wear when I’m cold, my really nice red hooded coat that I got at the thrift store for $5 and my Klimt/Van Gogh prints on the wall opposite my photo collage. The cardboard has big post-it paper that you stick on the wall and write on, with words like “synergy” and “multi-faceted”.

My filing cabinet covered in funny magnets and my bookshelf full of junk. Note the poor fern or whatever it is on top of the filing cabinet. I occasionally remember to water it and leave in my boss’s window over the weekend. I really need to clean up those shelves, they’re an eyesore.

This is the hallway outside my office. Pretty cool, huh?

This is me when I visited a co-worker yesterday (the one who is going to help me with all my logo revision stuff, yay!!). She has awesome Chicago Bears headphones so I pretended to be in the recording studio, singing something in a really heartfelt manner. Think “We Are The World”.

Downtown lights + bodies of water = Chicago beautifulness. This is the view from the bridge about 50 feet from my office. I get to look at this as I walk to the train station, every night after work. As pretty as this is, though – I can’t wait for the Summer when it will still be light out when I leave!

Occasionally I smile in photos, but most of the time, I don’t.

And completely unrelated, but funny (and because I ran across this today):

Happy Thursday!