Decorating when you're a dummy

A lot of my new co-workers, like me, are former teachers. Unlike me, however, they are quite skilled with those homey little touches teachers are known for -- bulletin board borders surrounding their cubicle, cute little pictures and inspirational sayings, rubber duckies, Kewpie dolls, flowers, flamingos, more flowers, pictures of naked babies sitting in pea pods, etc. The few men among us, more subdued in their tastes but not to be outdone by the women, have little model cars and airplanes lining the tops of their cubicles.

One woman has fastened fake tulips on the outside of a number of cubicles, mine included. For the first two weeks I was there, every time I looked up from my computer I caught this red tulip out of the corner of my eye and jumped, thinking it was someone watching me. This is a very real possibility in Cubicle Land, so I'm not just being paranoid.

One day a higher-up stopped at my cubicle to introduce herself. She had already done this the week before, as I was being led around for the obligatory New Employee Tour (whose purpose, ostensibly, is to introduce you to everyone, but which really is to confuse the heck out of you). But I guess she didn't remember me from the first time.

"How are things going?" was her first question.

I figured her second question would be something along the lines of "When are you going to start making money for us?"

Instead, she said, "When are you going to decorate your cubicle?"

She looked for any evidence that I intended to do so. "Oh, I see you brought a lamp," she said, encouragingly. "That's a start."

"Um, actually," I said, "that was already here."

She shook her head. "Don't admit that."

If my success at this new job depends on my decorating ability, I am doomed. A major reason for leaving the teaching profession was that I just never measured up to the other teachers in terms of classroom decorations. The only thing I was good at, decorating-wise, was window stickees. I had window stickees for every holiday, including your more obscure holidays, like National Sandwich Day. Other than that, the most decorative thing in my room was the poster showing what to do in a fire drill. Unfortunately I do not have any windows in my cubicle, so my skill with window stickees is wasted at this job.

Our house also bears witness to my lack of decorator genes. We have lived here almost two years, and many of our walls are still blank -- although not so many as were blank just last week, when Joe, tiring of the Empty Wall look, took advantage of my absence one day to hang 10 or 12 picture frames upstairs.

Of course, none of them have pictures in them yet -- at least, not any of us, nor of anyone we know. There is one picture of a distinguished-looking gentleman walking on a beach with an umbrella; through some whim of Joe's, the man is taking his stroll sideways. The man's pants are several inches above his shoes, giving the impression that he is a prudent man, ready for deluge both from above and from below.

My co-workers have also given hints about decorating my cube. I tried to joke about it by saying, "Well, I'm not very good at that sort of thing; I may have to contract that out."

"Well, there are a lot of people who freelance here," they said seriously. "You should be able to find someone you can hire to do it."

They left me alone after that, but I'm sure it won't be for long. My one hope is to bribe the woman who planted the fake tulips -- she is leaving the company soon -- to leave me all her decorations. I won't know what to do with them, but at least if people ask if I'm going to decorate, I can wave vaguely at the pile she left and say, "Oh, sure, I've just been too busy to get around to it."

Meanwhile, I have the lamp.