Adventures of a Happy (on the outside) Robot

Special guest The Actress talks to us about the difficulties of being a bot.

Hello Awkwordnaughts! Guest Blogger #1 here. Call me The Actress, for reasons soon to be revealed. I, like many of the others frequently mentioned in this blog, am affiliated with a certain gigantic, national non-profit organization. But I, unlike many of the other key players, am still working for them. The others have all departed its grasp in the past few months, and are living happy lives without it. We won't get into the reasons why people have left, but I now find myself in the same position my friends and former colleagues were in a few weeks or months ago: making the decision to quit.

This in and of itself is not awkward, but let me tell you from firsthand experience, trying to conceal this fact to your employers certainly is. In our organization, we spend pretty much every waking hour with our co-workers and employers; we eat, sleep, and breathe our work. And you HAVE to be enthusiastic about it, or else you just "aren't the right fit for the job." I, by nature, am not an incredibly outgoing or peppy person; I would say I lean more towards introversion and sarcasm. I realized a little while ago that I did not agree with much of what my organization espouses, but did not decide to quit until recently. This decision has led me to have many interactions where my inner self is screaming at my outer self because it can't believe what I am actually forcing myself to do.

Like I said, enthusiasm is a must in this job. I have found that in order to keep the charade up that I love this work, I have upped the tone of my voice approximately one octave, and have taken to inserting the words "Awesome!", "Super!", and "Great!" into my daily vernacular at least twenty times as frequently as I used to. We have to interact with hundreds of people every day, and with every one, right before the interaction happens, I feel slightly nauseous with dread, and then suck it up, put on a cheesy grin and start talking like I am the world's most optimistic robot. The scary part is that I do it quite well! I honestly believe that my co-workers have no idea that I am unhappy, and I am probably one of the best people in my office. I must admit, I am a little proud of my Oscar-worthy performance.

In addition to the awkward inner feelings I have when having to be fake enthusiastic about something I completely hate, I have to constantly be watching what I say so that I don't give any clues to my impending departure. Typical conversation A:

Co-Worker: "Hey! Aren't you excited about working on the campaign later this summer??"

What I want to answer: "Oh dear God, if I have to talk about this one more time I will go insane. No I'm not excited at all, in fact I am quitting soon and getting as far away from this organization as possible."

What I do answer, after holding back my nausea: "Oh man! It is going to be so awesome! We are going to get so much done!! This office is great!"

One of the things I hate is the expectation to always be recruiting. In fact, it is our mantra. So, of course, when I am training new staff, I never get to just be myself; I put on my Optimistic Robot mask and blabber on about how great the job is. My poor trainees get used to talking about the most inane things and they get it drilled into their heads that this work is amazing and every person who works here loves to devote their whole lives to it. I feel bad that they are sucked into it, but hey, if they actually like this, then more power to them. Typical conversation B:

Trainee: "Is this job hard?"

What I want to answer: "Please, just go home right now. Trust me, you do not want to stick around here. It would make your and my evenings both much easier and more enjoyable if you quit right now."

What I do answer: "It's hard work, but it's soooo much fun! And it's so important! If we don't do this work, there is no way we can win on this issue. I love the people I work with and it's so worth it!!"

I have a really hard time mustering up the motivation to do anything for this organization, but I am trying to act as enthusiastic as possible so that they do not get rid of me before I ditch them, even though the conversations and interactions I have are almost unbearable. I may be developing a stomach ulcer from forcing back the nausea multiple times a day, but what can I say? I am good at faking it. ;-)

-The Actress