My office is a very quiet place. But for the mechanical gushes of air conditioning that grace the office airwaves on the half hour (I look a lot like this most days), the only other sounds I hear are the click-clacking of keyboards, the gentle shuffle of someone off for a walk, and the occasional, “So, you want to send me that…?”

I am an introvert. I live alone. I’ve tended to pursue work that requires much solitary time and attention (see: reading, writing, reading about writing), but never has a space so quiet felt so alien to me.

The quiet makes sense, of course: this is a work space. We certainly do not need a myriad of distractions. And within this space, efficiency is valued above all else. After all, we’ve got a product to make here, people! This is serious business!

But the work environments I’ve loved most are those that alternate between this essential solitary space and a vibrant, collaborative dialogue. Working alone, there is only so much I can accomplish. I don’t pretend to think that my Romantic, individual genius will carry me through tasks; if there is anything I learned in both college and graduate school, it is that I produce my best work when I have worked closely with others on formulating and thinking through ideas. I miss that dialogue and wonder whether this solitary space is something endemic to a business environment. Have I just been living in that “academic bubble” where ideas are exchanged freely and without suspicion? Does this… not happen in other places? I mean, are we only supposed to think like:

Or is this kind of solitary energy I’m experiencing something unique to this company?

I’ll admit that I am hesitant to start dialogues. I suppose I could. That’s one solution. But I started out asking a lot of questions. However, one can only see so many beleaguered and/or bewildered expressions on their supervisors’ faces before deciding to figure things out for one’s self. This could have to do with the fact that I am temporary help; there’s very little need to invest in my full understanding or contribution. I’m sure this primarily has to do with the fact that my supervisors are very busy ladies. Granted, I’ll admit that I don’t really know what exactly they do and, when I’ve asked, I’ve received answers I am not sure I understand, interspersed with a lot of rhetoric from a discourse community of which I am clearly not a part. Perhaps this is how others feel when I retreat into that comfortable literary theory space and try to describe my own projects?

If so: yikes. Please let me do a better job of keeping my own work grounded. Will you (whoever you are reading this because you’re most likely someone who knows me in real life) feel free to tell me if/when I say things that are incredibly confusing?

So, I suppose that this is a long way of saying that I’ve been given a lot of time to fend for myself, which inevitably leads me to draw ever inward, and even more inevitably, perhaps gives me just a wee too much time to reflect upon why I am there in the first place and how this compares to my academic experiences.

Oh, and if you’ve made it here, you’ve definitely earned this (because come on, INEVITABLE):