The Job
Marcus liked to walk over to my desk and put his hand on the table in front of me while I was working.
I hated Marcus for that.
I worked for a New York tech startup at the time. I was the oldest person on my team, and the oldest person not to be part of senior leadership. I was 33 at the time. Marcus and most of the rest of my team (we were in sales) hadn’t crossed the equator of 30.
The senior leadership of the company believed in the “flatness” of the organization. This meant that with only a couple of exceptions no one reported to anyone else. An extension of this was the design of the office itself — rows of tables were aligned in our little loft where five or six people would sit and work. These tables and work stations were not assigned, since everyone carried their own combination of laptop, tablet, smartphone around. The idea was that on any given day you would pick an open spot and get to work. This created a situation in which most people wanted the back row. The back row meant screen privacy. All other rows gave one the distinct feeling someone was looking over their shoulder.
This also created a need for privacy, even if it was unspoken. When you wanted to focus on a task (or, you know, not hear four guys bro-ing out over the lastest Walking Dead episode) the universal symbol for “Don’t Bother Me” was the gigantic headphones. After the change, these were easily the most cumbersome thing I carried back and forth every day, but also the most essential. On the bus, they made me feel like I wasn’t waisting my time as I had smart people discuss smart things via podcast into my ears. At the office, they kept me sane. “Headphones on” was a code the young and old could abide by. It kept the peace.
Except for fucking Marcus.
Since I worked in sales it was expected that I’d be the most social, the most extroverted of the team members. The truth was being outspoken was a feature I could turn on and off, and generally I could only flip to on when I felt prepared to speak about a given topic. This is why I could stand and deliver a damn near thrilling sales pitch to a room full of executives, but stand more or less silent in the corner of a room at a cocktail party. My extroverted energies were always in limited supply, so I saved them. I also had limited capacity to talk about bullshit. Some people love bullshit. They love talking about bullshit, they love reading about bullshit and they love reading about bullshit and then sharing that bullshit with the people they work with.
Marcus liked to sit at the table in the middle of the room — bros to the north, south, east, and west. He liked to flip open tabs to Buzzfeed. I’m sure he looked at other sites (ESPN comes to mind), but I like to lump all of the bullshit internet into the term Buzzfeed. He’d find something that he thought rose to the level worthy of vocal sharing them sit back in his chair and declare.
“Did you see Miley Cyrus shaved her fucking head? I’d still fuck her. I’d fuck her Disney channel ass, I don’t give a fuck.”
It’s probably a good time to mention that there were only two women in the company and neither of them physically worked in the office. One was our CEO’s “personal assistant” the other was our bookkeeper who I’m pretty sure was actually a freelancer, in any case she came into the office once a week to reconicle our accounts and then disappeared.
The “flatness” of our company meant that the CEO and the CFO would be sitting on the same benches we all were except when they had to take meetings. They would take those in the glass penalty box in corner of the office. They not only heard most of Marcus’ bullshit, they typically reveled in it.
When Marcus bellowed about Miley Cyrus, I was in headphones on mode. I’d like to tell you I didn’t hear his declaration, but I did. I was working on a pitch for a clothing retailer to move their website and social media efforts over to our platform. I was rehearsing the pitch in my head, playing the slides back and forth (this too consumed my extroverted energies) when I saw Marcus get up and start to walk over to my desk. I felt myself stiffen as he knocked on my desk like it was a door he wanted to enter.
“OK, serious question.” He said as I pulled my headphones off my hears and onto my shoulders.
“Who would you rather fuck, Miley Cyrus right now, or Britney Spears like 10 years go?” He snickered his question. I gathered this was a poll he’d been conducting in the office. Eyes of my coworkers were trained on me.
“Dude, I don’t know. I’m not into children.” I said exhausted.
“Oh come the fuck on! If Miley fucking Cyrus walked in here right now and wanted to blow you, you’d say no?”
“Marcus, if Miley Cyrus walked into this office, your dick would fold inside your pelvis you’d grow 15 shades redder and you’d park in the corner with your little ear buds in. The next day you’d brag to your friends about how you eye-fucked the shit out of her. So let’s not talk in hypotheticals.” Is what I really wish I’d have replied. What actually happened…
“No I’m still more a Jennifer Lopez guy, sorry.”
“A man with taste! I can respect that!” Marcus bellowed.