22 July 2005

The Locker at the Office

"They're free, get one for yourself now while supplies last," my manager told me during my first week in Trend, gesturing towards the lockers near our cubes.

So I went and tore off a small rectangular piece of paper from a notepad, printed my nickname in ALL CAPS, and stuck it into the label holder on my locker door. It seemed like a great convenience, an extra space to stuff my what-nots.

However, it didn't take too long for me to realize the irony of having a locker at work.

What would you put in a locker?

When I was in high school, I shared a locker with two of my best friends because it was cheaper that way. Plus, most of the stuff we crammed into the locker half of the time were our textbooks. I still can't figure out how we could have mooshed all of that paper into that little metal box.

In college, I kept a locker only at two instances: Gym class and Senior year. For gym class, of course, you'd want a locker where you could keep extra clothes and bath items. When I was in my senior year, being an officer in my college's literary organization got me a free locker in our tiny "office" (or tambayan). I stuffed all my books, extra shit, camera in it. It became especially useful when we had to stay overnight on the campus several times.

Bottomline is: A locker is a sign that you're gonna be in a certain place for a significant amount of time. Anything can happen so might as well be prepared.

A locker in an office forebodes of events set into motion once you accept its presence in your work routine. When you open the locker door for the very first time, you hear an ever faint voice saying to you, "Be careful what you wish for..."

Soon enough, it's after 4 months, that locker was PUT TO VERY GOOD USE. I went to training for about 7 weeks. 5 of those weeks were spent in night shift, and during 2 of those 5 weeks, I lived in the office. Hey, who can blame me? Free airconditioning, fast internet access, a quiet place to sleep, a lovely bathroom and shower, and of course, bottomless drinks on the house. Who needs to rent a condo unit nearby when you can live here?!

And now it's one of those nights again.

Actually, it's kinda fun staying late here. We're a global support center so the office is practically open 24x7. There's ALWAYS someone here. There's always all these noises--chatter, guffaws; mp3s players blasting; keyboards clacks; slippers shuffling around...

But I don't want to be staying here again for a week straight. I get homesick and it's weird going home after staying in the office for so long.

My locker won't be seeing much action for some time.

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