Everyone I work with is at least 3 years older than I am. If I were a real adult I probably wouldn't think of a 27 year old as being considerably older than I am. I find myself wondering though why no one has praised me yet for being such a big, smart girl every time I do something right at work. Never mind the fact that none of them necessarily know how old I am, or that even if they did 24 isn't exactly an age at which a person is impressive just because they don't burn the office to the ground every time they login to their computer. In fact, a lot of 24 year olds have been working since they were 16 and didn't spend four years at college learning how to feel superior without actually accomplishing anything and really are world-wearied workmen. I know this. Yet still if I successfully close a sale and I feel like I've had an especially good conversation with a client I tend to perk up and look around after I hang up to see if maybe anyone was listening and if they would like to pat me on the head or perhaps give me some kind of crown that I might wear for an hour or so.
This never happens. What does happen is that I make more money than I would have otherwise, which is good. But nobody else is particularly happy for me when I do this except for maybe my manager because my success is his success. But that's the same for everyone. My being 24 has no bearing on how happy my manager is if I do something right. My manager is a super nice guy and all, but I'm new, which means that I am empirically much worse at my job than everyone else and I take up a lot more of his time with stupid little questions. It's his job to be encouraging but I have the distinct impression that he would very much like to hit the fast forward button to when he doesn't have deal with me bopping over to his desk every 20 minutes and making my "I'm about to annoy you face" at him.
When conversing with my co-workers I reference the fact that I just moved to New York more than I probably should. When I first started I had literally JUST moved here- was living in a hotel in fact- but now I've been here for over a month and my helpless bumpkin act probably isn't cute anymore if it ever was to begin with. I'm a little self-conscious about how little I know about things here. The truth is that I could be going out more and making more of an effort to get acquainted with my surroundings but I just get so tired and even when I do want to go exploring I'm not sure where to start. And when I do explore it's the last thing I want to discuss with anyone because every conversation would start like "Hey I went to _______ this weekend !" and people would be like yeah...ok.
When I do know things I get too excited about talking about them and once again I expect for people to be impressed when really they have no reason to be. Nobody cares that I know which trains I can transfer to at Jay street. I don't even care that I know that. But I catch myself clinging to these small triumphs and dropping them not at all discreetly into conversation. It's tacky and I need to stop.
I am aware that in my last post I said I wasn't going to write about work and I just kind of did. Oh well. Now they know. Maybe one of them will bring me a crown as a gift.
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