I know that sulking about it or getting mad or making delightful plans in my head on how to sabotage the new office space will not get me anywhere. That what I need to do right now is try to make the best out of whatever I'm getting... but somehow I can't win myself over with that argument.
One thing is that I've been making lemonade with my current office already. I don't like it. I'd mostly rather be at home or in a library somewhere. But I go anyways, I go because I like being around everybody else, I like being able to bug people when I have a question, I like being there so that my advisor can find me when he wants to, I like having conversations and being part of a community.
Maybe if I were a serious physicist I'd be thinking only about science and not ambience. It's true when I first started I was so excited about being able to do something, that I didn't mind going to Clark nights and weekends, and hardly noticed my surroundings. But nowadays if I am stuck or feeling down the office just pushes me further. It literally makes me cry sometimes.
So I decided to make lemonade. I decided that yes we can and should do something about it. Make our own place more cheerful. So I talked to Sumiran and Hitesh about it, and we started writing a petition. Even if nothing came out of it, I felt glad that at least we were trying to do something. I admire the fact that Kendra, Shankar, Jeehye and Katie bought plants for their office, and threw some of their clutter away. I was thinking about doing the same thing with my office, cleaning it, putting in some plants, putting up pretty posters... until I heard I had to move...
Now all of the sudden I'm informed I'm supposed to move to this gigantic cubicle with ugly carpet (and ugly dividers (but then how can dividers be pretty anyways)) and small desks and an insane amount of file cabinets, and poorly designed everything (except chairs). In a still windowless room, except now with 30 other people. And of course I'm upset. I'm upset because I know it is out of my control and I am in no position to request anything. I am upset because I know I'm supposed to just roll over and say okay fine let me think how to spruce this new crappy place up as opposed to my old crappy place. (And I never thought I'd prefer my old crappy place to any other, but I do.)
And then there's "the way things are" which means we will probably spend a lot of time asking for things, and then get none of them. Probably not blackboards. Probably not even moving the furniture around. Getting larger desks is obviously a pipe dream.
And so irrationally I've decided to sulk. I am officially sulking. I am not putting any effort into designing the stupid place. Do not come to try to persuade me with any lofty statements about rising above my own feelings or doing anything for the welfare of future grad students. I declare and defend my right to sulk.
Cause I don't see any sugar, so how can you expect me to make lemonade.
