of new lunch mates, internet access at work, a phone on my desk, and a secretary named benny

when i was a kid, i'd play this game at my grandmother's house in cabanatuan. i'd commandeer her living room center table, put an old rotary phone on one corner and a typewriter on the other and pretend i was an office girl with loads and loads of work to do. i'd scribble for hours and hours on sheets of scratch paper, sometimes typing non-words (i didn't know how to properly form words yet) using the dilapidated typewriter, and force my aunts, uncles, cousins, and even my grandparents at times to come "visit" my office as if they were clients or guests.

clearly, i had a very specific idea of what an office ought to be like. no, scratch that. i had a very specific idea of how i wanted my work to be like.

of course everyone knows that i finished a degree in education so that meant faculty rooms for me. i never stayed long enough - now was even qualified enough - to get to the office-with-computer-and-phone level. so, i just hoped that since i switched over to law, i'd probably get my "dream office" when i finally become a lawyer.

when i got to the court of appeals, i sorta expected that i'd get some approximation of my dream office but what i got was a desk. yep, just a desk. since we didn't have enough computers, i had to bring my own. and the phone? well, there's a phone but not on my desk and almost always, it was never for me.

mark this day though because finally - yes finally - i got THE office.

i arrived at nine and it was not long before a secretary ushered me to my new "office". tiny as it may have been, my heart leapt a little when i noticed that it not only had a desk, it had a visitor's chair, my very own computer, and a complicated phone with lots of buttons. and when i turned the computer on, viola! internet access!

but wait, there's more! there's a secretary named benny :)

so, i may have taken a pay cut (yes, i can't stop talking about that, sorry) but by golly, i now have my own tiny space in the universe i can call my office. and if you need to reach me, well, you better get through benny first

p.s. i know my title begins with lunch mates and i haven't talked about lunch mates yet and i've ended my post already so here goes: i have lunch mates. yay.