Robot Routines

Monday through Friday I have decided I am a robot.

I am a robot with a routine. Most robots are built to have routines right? I want that one that just vacuums your house all day. I think the dog would love playing with it. And as long as I don’t get too bored with my robot routine, then I am content with my life. Ever since mid-September since they moved me from the Redmond campus and sold it to MSFT, I’ve created a routine for myself that does a few things for me: 1) It helps me keep track of time. 2) It allows me to easily continue on through each day and not struggle with the fact that it’s only Tuesday and not Friday night. 3) I can list many more things here but seem insignificant in comparison to 1) and 2) so I’ll stop.

This may seem kind of sick to those out there who believe they are truly “spontaneous”. But I don’t care. If you’ve got a job you’ve more than likely got your own little routines. Even constant spontaneity is a routine in itself…not that I think that anyone could really accomplish that. I guess the sad thing is - is that I’ve taken time to sit here and type out things I’ve noticed that I do, every day, Monday through Friday. I don’t know if I’ve analyzed them per say, but I suppose it started to happen the moment I started working at 15 years old.

It started innocently, with the chimichanga and the Capri sun. Every day I worked I brought 500 calories of frozen Costco goodness, the chicken and cheese chimichanga. So every day during that 15 minute break (I only got 1 15 minute break because I only worked part time in 5 hours shifts) I would go down stairs to the kitchen, grab my chimichanga (that’s what she said) from out of the back of the fridge (people would steal it if I kept it near the front) unwrap it, throw it on a paper plate and heat for 1 minute and 30 seconds. I’d sit at a table near the walls of the cafeteria and grab a newspaper to avoid people talking to me while I eat. (I have this thing with people watching me eat. It’s ok if you’re eating too. But if you’re just talking to me and watching me eat and not eating yourself…well eating food, not yourself that is, then I feel awkward…mainly because I chew with my mouth open and like to talk with food in my mouth).

That was how I enjoyed every 15 minute break I had. So I guess, since then, I’ve related “routine” to “enjoyment” and haven’t looked back since. And the only reason I’m making this blog post? Is because those routines have blossomed (for lack of a better word) in to many more routines…maybe it’s OCD? Possibly – probably. At least I can look at myself and realize it. And at least I don’t throw fits when the routine is thrown off.

Every morning, Monday through Friday, I wake up at 5:40 am. On my old phone, I used to be able to switch the time at which I would wake up. So as a gift to myself for making it through another day of the week, I’d change my alarm to progressively later until I got to about 5:52 am. Unfortunately, my new phone does not allow that easy of a change (there are a lot of things about my phone that aren’t as easy as my old phone, but it’s got a camera – that I never use) to the alarm, so I now stick to 5:40 am every morning.

When my alarm goes off, I reach for it and turn off the alarm. I usually get to it by it’s 3rd “beep/vibrate”. I grab it and hold it close to my skin. The cold of the phone is usually enough to wake me up. If not, I hold it in my right hand and dangle the phone over the side of the bed. Typically if I start to fall asleep again my hand goes limp and I drop the phone, thus causing a surprise sensation to my body (another failsafe to wake me up). When I do finally decide to get up, I flex my legs and stretch my arms over my head and head towards the bathroom to create urine. Typically I fart – the most satisfying fart of the day – sad that it’s done that quickly.

I head towards my office, which is where my clothes are (the master closet is taken by Michelle along with the other two bedroom’s closets) with my right eye shut. Sometimes it’s easier to be “half asleep” and only allow light in to one eye. It eases my way in to the day. With eyes half shut, I glance at an unspectacular array of business casual, basketball shorts, sweat pants and jeans. Knowing my routine people would think that I was anal about what I wore each day. Not true. I only have two real “habits” of what I wear. And those include: Wearing something green on Tuesday. I don’t know what it is about Tuesday. Again, I haven’t analyzed this…yet. But I hate Tuesdays. In my opinion, Tuesdays are the worst day of the work week. Many people would say Monday, but on Mondays I usually feel a lot more refreshed from what’s hopefully a long, relaxing weekend. Tuesdays are not even Wednesday which is the middle of the week. There’s not even any solace in thinking it is the middle of the middle of the week. Tuesday is just the day I love to hate. And this is why I am typing this out today. To take my mind off of how much of a “struggle” getting through today will be. (And trying to force ourselves through a day should be meant for another post).

But I wear something green, usually a green shirt (what someone, or me would first look at when looking at my clothing) either a green button up or a green polo. And I think I wear green because it’s hard to have a bad attitude about green. There’s just nothing you can really dislike about a normal green. Thinking back, I have actually never heard anyone saying that they “hated the color green”. There are just too many good things about the color green to dislike it. Even in the most desolate of places, the green grass grows – and covers more than 1/4th of the land. (Thank you “Planet Earth” series) And for that reason, I feel that wearing a green shirt makes everything “right” in my world thus balancing my hatred of the day Tuesday.

The only other time I make a conscientious decision to change my attire for work is on Thursdays. Thursdays are the exact opposite of Tuesdays. Thursdays are one of my favorite days of the week. Thursdays are not a struggle. I look forward to Thursdays. Growing up, I always enjoyed Thursdays. The feeling of anticipation. The “it’s almost Friday” feeling. And the feeling of accomplishment once you got done with Thursday is unparalleled with any other day. “Only one more day to go” I would say to myself while falling asleep on Thursday nights. And there was a reason growing up that I knew that Thursdays were awesome. It was knowing that in the future I’d be part of the UW business school (really I didn’t know this, I’m being sarcastic), an outstanding place…a glorious institution that understood the value of the “work-life balance” (something that many employers should start taking in to more account…*cough*) by giving everyone included in the business school each Friday of each week off. Imagine my shock and surprise when I realized that 3 day weekends due to federal holidays would now become 4 day weekends. Never before in my life (other than summers as a child – but those don’t count) was I just given a day off for nothing.

Thus began the “dress for celebration/success” Thursday. Every Thursday in business school I’d make sure I was at least wearing something that could “button up” (instead of my normal wear of sweats/flip flops). Heck, I’d even be on the verge of business casual. Sometimes for presentations (because those were given usually on the last day of the week), I’d don a tie and wouldn’t be one bit embarrassed walking through those halls. (Sometimes I feel out of place wearing a tie in places like the grocery store). Thursdays I usually bust out the black slacks (I find them “dressier” than my khakis/chinos) with shiny black belt, black leather shoes (I usually wear the brown ones with my khakis) and freshly ironed button up shirt. Dressing up makes me feel like work actually means more (than it usually does to me) and for that reason I put my full energy in to making Thursdays a very good work day for myself.

Once I’m done with the clothes I head downstairs for the food. Ugh, what a bore this is becoming, I’m only at breakfast. Every morning, I start out by washing my hands (who knows where those hands have been while I’m sleeping!), and after washing my hands I cut open a bagel. Back in college it used to be 1 pop tart, but I’ve moved away from that towards bagels. And lately, it’s been Thomas Multi Grain bagels. The stuff gets stuck in your teeth and it’s kind of fun to play with (your tongue trying to get that shit out of your teeth, kind of like popcorn). Also, I believe the multi grain bagel, even with light cream cheese is still healthier for me than a pop tart.

While the bagel is toasting (all of 2 minutes) I prepare my lunch. Everyday at work (unless we’re out) I eat 1 banana in the morning and 1 apple with lunch. Since those are the staples of my day, I get them ready along with my “juice box” (minute maid sugar water) and throw them together in a pile. I wash the apple in steaming hot water (hoping to burn off any wax that may be on it) and wrap it in a paper towel. I use two paper towels every day. 1 for the apple, and 1 to wrap the bagel. Usually at 5:55 in the morning, I’m not too hungry, so I take 3-4 bites of my bagel which usually ends up being about 35-40% of it and then I wrap it and save the rest of it for work. The reason I bring my lunch to work every day is because I am not a baller and cannot go to the metropolitan grill for lunch every day. I wash the bagel down with roughly 8 ounces of Tropicana Orange Juice, or some sort of carrot juice from Trader Joe’s. Sometimes I’ll pop a Zyrtec too to help fight my allergies if I know it’s going to be a “high pollen count” day out there. There’s something satisfying about knowing that in that small amount of liquid I’ve already consumed my daily requirement for Vitamin C, but at the same time tasting better than some multivitamin would.

I head upstairs to clean my teeth – use the rubber pick to get out all of the bagel that’s now stuck in the cracks and crevices of my teeth and then brush my teeth until the blue toothpaste becomes baby blue – because that means I’ve been brushing for long enough and hopefully the toothpaste has done it’s job. After that, I might wet my bed-head down (since I take showers at night and if I lay for long enough on my side I get lines in my head), I could shave – which I do probably once every 4 days (one day I hope to hit puberty), maybe blow my nose one last time and then put my deodorant on and head out of the bathroom. One “Good morning” and “Have a good day – Love you darling” a kiss, and a good morning head scratch for the dog and I’m flying down the stairs.

Pack up my lunch, bagel and bottled water. Typically it’s 6:04-6:12 at this point depending on how slow I’ve been moving. Grab the clothes and shoes if I’m going to be working out after work, and then make my shoe decision. Typically the shoe decision is pretty easy. Khaki, or brown pants – brown leather shoes. Black pants, black shoes. Crazy enough, I think one of the biggest fashion mistakes that guys make is to wear white socks with black shoes. I hope that no one does that. If you do this, please stop as soon as possible. Unless you are too poor to buy black socks. But that doesn’t make any sense since you could afford white ones. I make it a point to wear black socks if I’m going to be wearing my black shoes. The shoe decision gets a little bit harder if it’s a “jeans” day. Ok, is it crappy outside? Maybe I’ll go with the Timbos. Am I wearing too much blue this morning? Maybe go for the black, orange and white Nikes. Do I not have any blue or very little blue on this morning? Or maybe I’m wearing my Adidas socks? Probably go for the brooks. I honestly believe there are certain “types” of people that can pull off the monochrome look. Not me, I like to have at least 3-4 different colors on.

Out to the garage, and in to the car as I watch the grass line carefully in my right mirror to make sure I’m backing down our driveway properly. If only I took this time to actually back in to my garage when I parked every afternoon/night, I wouldn’t have to back out in the mornings. It’s a real pain in the ass when it’s so dark out you can’t see the outline of the grass on each side of the driveway. I’ve driven in to the grass at least 3 times over the past year. The worst part is, I feel like such an idiot when I do that – driving is something I pride myself on. I might be a little bit too aggressive, but I only know of one male my age who isn’t.

I love people that drive in the mornings before 6:30 am. For some reason, I just feel like people who get up earlier are smarter about their driving. When I used to start at 9:30 am, I used to see people take their SWEET time getting to work. Is it because they were taking their sweet time to wake up? A coworker that starts at 9:30 am says that he gets up at “around 8”, makes himself an espresso, sits down to watch the news and check his email, then slowly hops in to the shower, eats a full breakfast and then moseys on in to work. On the opposite end of that, I roll out of bed and head to work basically. You can probably see how these two mentalities affect driving habits too. Anyway, it’s an excellent change of pace in comparison to what I used to go through, and it would be hard for me to ever give up this shift, or the location I’m in.

When I get to work, I try to park in the same spot every morning. Being one of the earliest morning shift – in fact THE earliest morning shift because if I worked any earlier they’d have to pay be a 10% differential (god forbid!) I get the closest spot to the front door minus all of the disabled and reserved carpool spots. It’s weird to me actually when I have to park in the spot next to “my spot”, or possibly even 2 spots down from there. When this happens, I know I was a bit later that usual. This morning, due to construction on my “usual” route to work, I decided to go down Maltby and then take the Bothell-Everett highway in. To my surprise it was just as fast as my back roads drive is, however not as fun (not as many curves). This dropped me off on the other side of the parking lot, so I decided to park in the first spot closest to the door on that side.

I guess sometimes a nice change of pace and scenery can keep things fresh. It’s terrible that these little “tweaks” I can make every day to my routine can decidedly keep me “fresh”, but I’ve got to have something that I can hold on to when I know I’ll be facing it roughly 48 weeks out of the year, 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. What I’ve just described is the beginning of my day. Imagine what the next 16 hours looks like…don’t worry for my sake at the least; I won’t include that here…yet. (Look! I used a semicolon! That’s different…)