desk job

I never pictured myself as having a job that would require me to sit behind a desk all day, but I guess no optimistic American youth really wishes that on themselves. Sure, it's preferable to blue-collar manual labor, but occupations that could be called desk jobs have a fair share of negative connotations; and in my opinion, those negative associations are well-founded. We as humans are created to have healthy, rich interaction with our natural surroundings and our peers. Yet everything about the environment of most professional offices in the U.S. seeks to prevent us from connecting in any real way with each other and the world outside our walls, and to at least some extent it's dehumanizing, which is probably why so many are resentful and why entertainment which parodies the white-collar experience - The Office, Dilbert, Parks and Recreation (poking fun at our nation's largest provider of desk jobs, government) - have become so popular.

Anyway, suddenly I'm required to sit at a desk from 9 to 5, when only 6 months ago in college, the longest class I ever had to sit through was 80 minutes long, so I can't help but feel a little restless and confined when I'm at the office. We're all separated in our little partitioned areas; clickity-clacking on our keyboards; exchanging, sharing, creating, and managing information; having complex and extensive dialogue with people hundreds of miles away, yet going hours on end without speaking a word to the person who is no further than an arm's reach.

And so I ask myself, "Can you handle something like this? Can you find contentment in this kind of environment? What kinds of modifications would you need to be able to tolerate this lifestyle, and what employers do you think would be willing to accommodate those modifications?

Some people get a potted plant, or put up pictures of their cats, or set up lamps with soft lighting, or add whatever homey touches they wish to their work space in attempts to regain their humanity, but I'm just not certain of my ability to cope with the typical desk job work environment. It remains to be seen.

Even a veteran white-collar employee like Dilbert does his best to forge some sort of connection  with  his natural surroundings.