Poultry in Motion

So, when I’m not busy fighting crime, I like to moonlight as a proofreader – that’s how I afford all my designer costumes and the stack of black market-hospital bills on my desk at home. I work in the Editorial Assistance - formerly Proofing - department of a publishing company. And, I like it :) It’s warm, with lots of natural light, and danger is at a minimum. Some days are frustrating and full of niggling aggravation, while other days are intellectually stimulating and make me think about things I’ve never thought about before. Mostly, I’m just thankful to have a job! But, no matter what mood I’m in and what opinion I have regarding my current position, the best thing about my job never wavers: I get to work with a pretty amazing group of people. They’re not superheroes, like me, but they ARE pretty cool.

I remember how at one of my previous jobs, I used to hate going in to work every day. As my footsteps carried me closer to the front door of the building my company was housed in, my pace would literally slow to a crawl and it became more and more difficult to resist the temptation to turn back around and run. Which is saying a lot, because I don't run. Not even for the bus in -40 weather. But I digress...

I think a large part of my unhappiness at that old job was due to working in an environment where I encountered maybe one or two people that I ever really connected with. When discussing this discontent with a friend I had at the time, he told me that the relationships in his life outside of work were so fulfilling that he didn’t find the need to look to his coworkers for friendship. This wasn’t what I wanted to hear, and it definitely wasn’t something I could relate to. I have the best friends in the world – but my relationships with them have nothing to do with how I want to relate to the people in my working life.

Human connection is the most important experience in the world to me. I live for it. That’s probably why I’m so bad at dating… I can’t just casually ‘see’ someone, can’t try them on like a pair of shoes and decide they just don’t fit. I tend to care too much, maybe too quickly. And, I’m really just after something more, something real, something bone-deep and lasting. Which is what I look for in coworkers… I want to work alongside people I feel a real affection for, who are important to me in ways that extend past what our professional relationships demand. Work is where I spend most of the hours of my day, most of the days of my week, and most of the weeks of my year. How can I not want to develop friendships with the people I see more often than I see my best friends?

Right now I share a room with some of the most unique and undefinable individuals I have ever met. They make me laugh, make me think, make me pause a moment when I can’t figure out what the heck they’re talking about. These people are so intelligent that I can’t help but be impressed that our company was so on the ball that it managed to scoop them all up. And they’re funny! Each of my coworkers has his or her own particular way of making me laugh, and I know my life is good because I get to spend a chunk of my day doubled up with the giggles. Our conversations run the gamut of every imaginable topic, from internet dating to Inspector Gadget, from the differences between British and Canadian slang to that evening’s dinner plans, from Hanna Barbera cartoon characters to the Care Bears. There’s no rhyme or reason to how we all work so well together, and no way of explaining in any sort of concrete terms how - in such a short time - I’ve come to care so much for each and every one of them.

But, don’t get me wrong – I’d totally trade them all in for their celebrity counterparts. My fantasy department seating list is as follows: