The Culture Shock of an Office Setting

Late last week, I started at a new job after years in a customer facing role at a movie theater. Since I turned sixteen, there has not been a stretch of time where I did not work in some capacity. From movie theaters to restaurants, clothing stores, even one season working on a Christmas light show in a cave, I have been in a lot of different environments. But this is my first time working in a proper office.

The quiet is the most notable thing, feeling consciously aware of every shuffle of my desk chair, or cough, or mouse-click. I assume this will all feel like nothing more than background noise after a while, but it is so starkly different from every environment I have worked in prior to this. I’m interested to see how I adjust over the coming weeks.

The nature of my work involves sitting, with headphones on, listening to recordings and following along with transcripts. This means there is little collaborative work going on, and it seems like it may get quite isolating. One of the great challenges I will have to reckon with is trying to not recede too deeply into this world within my cubicle, to take a moment to look away from the screen and try to engage with others as time will allow.

But in another way, being able to compartmentalize my work and my personal life is a privilege I have not experienced before. The routine and the structure of this work will allow me to maintain a much healthier work-life balance, and I hope over the next few months that I see my friendships and interests yielding even more reward than they already do during my off-hours and weekends, which I am able to enjoy fully for the first time in nearly ten years.