You will see the new improved version on Monday.

With each job comes a work space, frequently called The Office. Big offices with windows or the passenger seat of your car. Sometimes there’s only a counter, a kitchen table or a platform.

Since offices are the places where many of us live out much of our lives they are worth contemplating for a moment. The history of my spaces for doing my work goes something like this.

First job, board marker at Cargill Inc. in Wayzata, Minnesota. Yes, a very old-fashioned position. Although Cargill has taken over much of the food world for better or worse, generally worse I think, back then it probably wasn’t quite so greedy—but I don’t know that because I was one of those pretty little high school graduates from a small Minnesota town come to work in the big city and I wasn’t paying attention.

There was Oscar, the grain buyer god, and we girls posting the price quotes on a giant blackboard as they came in over something like a ticker tape machine I think. It’s been awhile….

No desk at that job. Moved to Florida which was the next thing those pretty young girls from the rural north did, although California was also a destination. In Florida I served morning coffee at the NCO club; no desk but I met my first and only ex-husband there.

Got married, had kids, worked at dead end jobs with not even a sign of my own space in sight. The counter in Sears credit department was as good as it got. But then college promised something a little grander eventually, right? Not so fast. A degree in Secondary Ed. teaching history with no accompanying sports licensure got me into a lot of teachers’ lounges as the sub of the day. Working on a Masters had me leaning against yet one more counter at the Minneapolis Salvation Army, downtown center.

Then my luck changed. My own desk. True, it was at McGovern for President headquarters and I was making $25 a week or so…but as volunteer coordinator— I. Had. A. Desk.

So the story goes. There were some other jobs, usually in conjunction with a main one—that old single mom routine. Several of them involved the front seat of my car. No, it’s not what you’re thinking…more like being a surveyor for the Gallup Poll or doing a field study for NM State University in Gallup.

Then I went to work for NM State Government and finally had my own desk. Better yet, my next gig was the City of Albuquerque where eventually I had a spacious private office at the KiMo with big windows overlooking Central Avenue. Wow. Definitely the high point of my office life.

Which brings me to today. Cleaning and organizing my office so it can be painted over the weekend. It’s a nice office I have here as executive director of North Fourth Art Center. True, there are no windows, and with a lot of students and staff using the same facilities it’s all quite far removed from having a key to the executive bathroom. Still it is my own private office and it’s almost as big as the Tech Director’s space, but then he has to keep all that equipment with him. Whereas all I must keep with me are a desk, a computer, a few maps and a flip chart or two. The computer enables me to check in ever so infrequently with my ‘friends.’ You know who you are. I make cute newsletters instead of perusing the typical office porn we always hear about—but then we’re mostly girls here so interest in porn is probably pretty limited. Another one of those things I don’t know for sure? The maps serve as my office windows, I glance up or gaze longingly, and there’s the whole world. Which I can access as soon as I work enough days to earn enough vacation….

 Sometimes a change is in order. With new paint colors I might be more efficient. With a new work table I might be more enthusiastic. With new pictures on my wall I might be more art appreciative. With newly-painted  little green tables I might feel … fresher? Greener? Springier? But the maps will return. There’s the world…there it is. The Entire Compete Whole World.

When I came in this morning it was still dark and damp from last night’s rare and lovely rain.