employees must wear bottoms

So I've had my first two days of work at job number one, an internship at a small publishing house based in Berkeley. Of course, I have already made my judgmental observations, and am here to report back on them.

The office only has thirteen employees, and that's including the four interns that are there now. Only two of these people are male by the way, and what's more is that three of the women who work there are pregnant right now. It's like a sea of estrogen in that office, but at least you know it means that stuff gets done.

From what I've seen in just a short time is that just like any other office it's also got its own set of quirky characters. Yesterday I met an intern named Page (no"i")—our resident hippie, vegetarian, Buddhist, UC Berkeley student. Apparently she's got a bit of a "beef", for lack of a better term, with another intern called Carol, the conservative, meat-loving, Arizona State graduate. One day, weeks ago, Carol made the mistake of eating a piece of pork for lunch in Page’s presence. Now, Page maintains that all she sees when she looks at Carol's hands is the hooves of many poor, dead pigs.

Like many other offices, none of us speak to the accountant. Unlike many other offices, our dress code can be summed up in one line - "Employees must wear bottoms at all times." This was tested when one of the publicity assistants—April, also a free spirited type—came into work wearing a 50s-syle apron she had almost successfully fashioned into a wrap dress.

We have two printers, named after our two bestselling authors, Wendell and Gary. I’ve found Gary to be the temperamental prima donna, he never gets through an important scan without making a fuss about it.

But the best thing about the job is that all day, every day I am surrounded by BOOKS. Lovely, lovely books in all stages of production. And I’m actually a part of the journey that sends them out into the world, albeit the very specific point in the journey where all the spelling mistakes and skipped page numbers are caught. And I love that our little office has a few weird ones passing through, otherwise I probably wouldn’t feel like I fit in there quite so much…