I used to love early mornings at the office. I'd awake with the birds and gather several of my own style of worms before the rest of my chirping, squawking, focus-disrupting colleagues got out of bed. I planned my day in the solitude of the kitchenette not yet sullied with petrified oatmeal, scattered coffee grounds, and aluminum pop tops that never seem to make it to the tiny Ronald McDonald house taped to the wall above the always-overflowing recycle bin. By the time the whole team arrived, ingested their coffee, and compared notes on the latest talent show contestants, I had completed two-thirds of my To Do's for the day.
Sadly, those days are gone. I blame the economic downturn that gave scores of barely average employees a much-needed wake-up call. I suppose it's good that thousands of otherwise marginal workers now are aware of their disposability. The uptick in anxiety seems to be driving a similar uptick in activity, some of which shows signs of the inventiveness we've always heard as being the offspring of necessity. I feel a heightened buzz and am encouraged by signs of a new wave of exciting, growth-spurring ingenuity.
I just wish it didn't have to come at the expense of my one, precious, never-again undisturbed hour between 7 and 8.
Franny Fried