I've become an "office rat"

About two weeks ago my career took a new direction. I left survey field work and became a survey CAD tech full-time. Since then I've kind of been adjusting to the office environment. It's been interesting so far.



I must say up front that I truly enjoy my job and I work with some great people. Ok, now that I've said that, let me say I don't think I completely enjoy what I am becoming a part of, or maybe I'm just scared to conform or grow up.

When I was working in the field as an Instrument Man, I really felt like I was working and accomplishing something. It was hard work, extreme temperatures, sharpening machetes, using chainsaws, walking through waist-deep swamps filled with water moccasins. The office feels almost sinful.

I'm sitting at a computer desk with my internet radio playing, eating my english muffin. At lunch time, everyone pops in and out of everyone else's office asking who's eating at Hunt's Oyster Bar, or going to Friday's. I get e-mails all day long of cutesy jokes about the difference between men and women throughout the work day, and I connect dots on a monitor screen to make survey drawings.

I know I went to school to be a CAD tech and NOT a field surveyor, but surveying is what I've been doing for the past 2 years of my life and I'm good at it. I was recently offered a raise to come to work for a company I left a year ago because they say they need someone who knows what they're doing. It's actually quite flattering for me since I started out only two years ago making only a little more than minimum wage and now I'm in demand.

I'm probably just over-reacting. I think my blue collar roots are just fuckin' with my head (most of my family fixes cars in some way, and dress like Cooter from The Dukes of Hazzard 24/7). I'm sure I'll get chemically dependent on the office air conditioning and I'll forget all about ever working outside again. It's just gonna take me a moment. Because I hate Yuppies, and I fear... I shall become one.