GJF, Vol. 2

Though I've only been showing up for jury duty for two days, I've already gained a great appreciation for my work environment. I've been in the arts community long enough that I forgot that other industries don't put nearly as much emphasis on aesthetic pleasure. This is the comparison to be made when arts professionals say they have a really great work environment. For jury duty, we report each day to a large building with security where we scan in and out of our appropriate areas. Once behind the locked door, it's a journey through a world of beige. Everywhere, beige... and not pretty, fresh beige (if there is such a thing), but a dingy, kind of beat-up world of beige. The facilities are pretty beat up and more than outdated. Chipped tables, broken witness box doors and holes in the partition under our desk/table. No decor anywhere. Not even any dc propaganda... nothing. So sad. I want to bring in a big plant or something just to make it feel a little more livable. Anyways, so things like that have reminded me of all the great things about my job:

• Although there are no windows, it's a pretty decent looking office. (And, now I realize how important it is to get it "fixed up" again... it's looking a little ragged.)
• I don't have to go to work until 10.
• I can eat, drink and go on break whenever I want to. No waiting for "permission" to step away.
  
• Very little beauracracy.
• I get to work on something that attempts to better people's lives in a creative way.
• I get to be creative and I have a lot of freedom to use that creativity to better the organization.
  
• I haven't been bored in 15 months.
• I don't have to go to work until 10. (Have I mentioned that?)
• I get 4 weeks off plus holidays (like today!!).
• The people I work with are all intelligent, decent, caring humans. That's nice, too.

One more: a woman on the jury was in the circus once. She rode on the neck of a lion and laid on the ground while bears walked over her (or was it lions... lions maybe). The funny thing is that she ended up doing it b/c she worked with this guy whose sister was recovering from a concussion due to a lion stepping on her head. The girl was going to lose her position in the circus unless she could find someone to take her place until she recovered. So, her brother brought the costume to work and paid my fellow juror $20 just to try on the sequined, glittery thing. It fit her like a glove and she flew from CA to Baltimore that weekend to, well, run away with the circus.