You know you wouldn't last more than a year or two in it. You know other people will follow you and have this office for a year or two as well.
Office 306 has been the same for 30 years now.
The first day you enter office 306 it is the shock of your life:
- The chairs are broken
- The desk is buried under tons of garbage and cigarettes
- The floor lodges hundreds of all sorts of bugs
- The windows are blackened by layers and layers of dust
- The room stinks like yesterday's dippers.
Maybe you're being too picky but you find this place "inappropriate for any sort of work conduction".
Yet, surprisingly, you realize it has been left like that for 30 years and not one employee's soul took the bold and daring decision to call the janitor or to simply, open the window to let some air inside.
Your colleagues pass by, some of them were past residents of this stinking office, others will pass by it in the very near future. They look at your office from outside and shout out-loud "what a mess... this place needs to undergo major change". Those who escaped from it say "thanks god I'm finally out of this mess" those who plan for a promotion have nightmares about having to spend a year in it.
You get the keys of office 306 and with it and this office becomes yours till the next "victim" is here. You get inside, sit on your chair, and discover on daily basis new species of spider, new colors of rotten food.
One day the chair your sitting on collapses on the floor while you're on it, rats eat your important documents and a piece of glass of your blackened window breaks missing your head by a millimeter. After your recover from this death defying incidence, and while attempting to reposition the broken glass in its place, you and your team take a look through this small break in the window's glass and see the most breathtaking view:
Yep, you see Disneyland... Your office had a direct view on Disneyland and no one realized it yet. Generations after generations of employees never tried to clean this window and therefore, never realized the real potentials of office 306. They were too busy celebrating HAVING an office and too busy making sure they got an even bigger office with a bigger chair next time, to the point that they didn't even think of "discovering" what this office can offer.
And that's it, the most outrageous idea pops into your mind. How about, RESTORING that office? Redecorating it? to return it to its real beauty? the initial state it had 30 years ago. A place that is encouraging for real work, satisfactory for all its guests, with a crystal clear window that enables everyone to see what this office can offer: A Disneyland. The idea takes its time in your team's minds. They think through, discuss every aspect of it, realize how effort-consumming something like this would be, but, they're willing to take that challenge. Some of them really care about the cause. Others want to join just to be on the "glorious side".
Immediately you draw sketches, you take measurements, you evaluate the time factor and how much it will cost. You go to your boss, explain to him the situation, tell him about the real potentials of this place and how great it would be if it returned to its full glory. The boss looks at you, takes your sketches and tells you: "This is office 306, it has always been like this and will always remain like this. I know it's crappy, but this is the way office 306 smells like, this is the way office 306 looks like. And this is how it will always be."
You return to office 306 and with an adrenaline rush that no one has ever had, you and your team decide "
ok then, we're gonna draw new sketches, buy the paint, buy the furniture, bring insecticide and buy a new window. BUT, we shall leave the old stuff, including the old window, intact. When everything is ready and waiting for the ok, we can present our plans to our colleagues and see if they want to work in a "stunning office" or in a piece of junkyard."
You spend your own money, you go up and down the stairs a million time, you buy everything, you draw your new sketches waiting for their actual execution once you have discussed it with your colleagues, all of this while doing your best to do your normal, routine work, as efficiently as possible. People feel the action going on inside office 306, they don't know what you're doing but they know you're doing something. You don't wanna spoil the whole thing so you just tell me "just wait and see". Of course, when it comes to real work, when it comes to real effort, the real "believers" of your team show up while the "I'm here for the glory" just watch the others work and comment.
And now here you go, you're almost ready to present your offer. But, what's this? apparently, your boss, together with some of your colleagues decided to sabotage your initiative before you even complete it. They go and declare your office, office 306, "not a part of the building". Does this make any sense? of course not. What does it even mean? well, they don't care, they just did it. As if this isn't enough, they go and "ban" you and your team from even accessing your office, doing your work, parking your park, talking to them, going to the toilet, and all sorts of absurdities you can't even imagine.
Of course, here the "passive" members of your team hurry to say they were against your initiative to begin with. Coincidence? of course not. They didn't believe in it from the start.
You say "fine, you banned me and decided office 306 is not part of your building? very well then, I will continue my dream and make it come true myself since it's not of your business anymore, and, once it's done, I'll AGAIN give you the choice of joining in". You know it might take you and your team more than the time you would have spent normally in that office in order to finish this work, but you also know that this exceptional state is the only way to make it. After all, it's not like the office was "a great place to be" to begin with. (Believe it or not, MANY of your colleagues thought so). Although you made it clear and they know very well you will leave it once it's done.
You are such a pitiful individual, you know?. You keep on getting slapped on the face day after day and, instead of being helped by your colleagues, encouraged by your boss, or even "left in peace", they go and tell security, they even plot to sabotage all what your doing, till the end, till the very end.
You're almost done. The New and LIVABLE office 306 is almost ready. The walls have been painted, the furniture has been replaced, the insects have been eradicated, you installed an air conditioner, you even put a voice commanded light switch. Now here you go, the final step, you're installing your new window. The window that will enable you, your team and every future cohabitant of this new and improved office 306, to discover a fantastic world of dreams come-true, believes, hard work, and magic. A world of family time, a world that will never be completed as long as there is imagination left in the world. A Disney world.
You stand on a ladder, hold the giant window with your team, puts it into position and begin installing. Finally, your efforts will see the light of day. Finally, the sacrifices you made will be rewarded by seeing an outcome: A place that will be suitable for all, organized, cozy and with no limits for work and progress potentials.
Yet, guess what, your non-believing team-mates are against you now. One of them looks from the other side of the building while you're focusing on installing the window. This guy simply takes a pair of scissors, jumps into your office and, before you even get the chance to turn back, he plants the scissors in your back.
You shout of the agonizing pain of betrayal and let yourself fall off the ladder, breaking through the glass you and your team were just installing. And you all fall through that broken window of your dream office.
The dream is gone.
You land on the floor, in the middle of street, with pieces of glass tearing your skin still barring the spots of the office's paint. With your past team-mate's pair of scissors in your back. With your dedicated team members corpes lying all around you. Their blood united for real this time. As you try to stand up, your work colleagues point at you through the broken glass you were just installing, lough out loud "a wicked victory laugh" and say "you wanted a glass window for office 306? Drink it ba2a".
You get up, thinking of the injuries you have on every side of your body, those martyrs lying next to you that sacrificed everything they had for this same cause, of the effort you did to make this place the way it really should be, all the money you have lost on the restoration material, the pay cheques you didn't get after being "banned", and, the work your team have done over this past year that was totally neglected by all.
You were wrong my dear.
You wanted to do the right thing, that's a good thing, it's true.
You wanted to offer big potentials to your future colleagues and a better working place, that's a good thing as well.
You had no trouble sacrificing your time, effort, money, credibility, honor and career for this cause, that's stupid but a good thing nevertheless.
But my dear, that's wasn't enough... not at all
No no, you thought past employees didn't do anything about office 306 because they were too lazy. The truth is, noone did anything about it because "they simply want to keep it this way".
Not only your collegues, but also your boss, your family, your brother and even, the building security... Why, the entire country prefers it this way. They don't care about REAL BIGTIME work, they don't care about what's right, they don't care about "seeing potentials", they don't care about a good working place. They only care about getting all the benifits they can get during their one year time in this office and then leave it to something else.
I hope you learned from your mistakes. I hope you realized that "dreaming", "believing", "morals", "integrities", "family", "support", "honnesty" and what you used to called "human emotions" are just the kind of things you shouldn't expect from 99% of the population. The remaining 1% are the real treasure your earned from this.
I know one thing though... You're the most stubborn person ever, and, as long as your real friends you have earned from this tragedy are next to you, you're not done you. You won't give it, maybe differently, but you won't... Maybe you'll correct your mistakes, but by all means, I know very well that "It ain't over till you say it's over". That's sooo typical of you.
