New Luxuries

I’ve been in my new job for just over a month, but after two years in a public school I am still constantly shocked by the everyday luxuries that I now have access to.  For the first time in my adult working life, I have unfettered access to a photocopy machine. At my old school, if I wanted something copied I had to fill out a copy slip, get it signed by an administrator, and submit it at least 24 hours ahead of when I wanted the copies. If I wanted something hole-punched or stapled, I had to bribe a kid to stay up at lunch and do it for me. If I wanted something in color, then I was obviously insane. I also had to rely on Ben to smuggle me reams of paper from MIT, so I didn’t have to buy it all myself.

But now if I want something copied, I can just walk over to the machine and do it. If I want it stapled, hole-punched, or in color, the machine can do all of those things for me. And if it’s out of paper, I can just grab a ream from the boxes of paper next to it. I feel like I am somehow stealing something or cheating when I make copies from this machine, and as such am in the habit of waiting to use it until no one is nearby, and glancing furtively around me the whole time to avoid being caught.

Even more exciting than the copy machine is the fact that I now have a desk. I spent the first semester of my teaching career with only a cart to my name, and the rest of it sharing a cramped classroom with another teacher. I had to use kids’ desks to grade papers and do other teacherly things, and they were too small and always had a bunch of gross gum stuck underneath them. Now I have an entire desk to myself, complete with drawers and a shelf above it and everything. I think I am the only person in the office, and possibly the world, who regards my cubicle as the height of corporate opulence.

But the most extravagant comfort of all is the fact that my new office is air-conditioned. When I taught in the summer months, I had to be careful about what bra I wore so that it wouldn’t become visible when I sweated all the way through my dress by lunch. But now it is the middle of August, and I have to pack a sweater with me so I don’t get too cold sitting at my desk. Take a minute to process that: it is over ninety degrees outside, and I have to bring a sweater to work to avoid being unpleasantly chilly. It’s obscene.