Office Space

There is a chance that I will not be returning to the classroom next year and will be working full time for ClassMax beginning this June.  

This is very exciting.  

This is very stressful.

And since my brain doesn’t compute two emotions at one time well, I have been a freaking basket case for a few weeks now as we work through all these details and hammer out every contingency plan possible.  For anyone who has ever gone into business for themselves, you know first hand the terror and simultaneous excitement that comes with stepping from the safety of your salaried job with benefits and into the company that you have created for yourself.  

One time when I was in high school, I went to Venezuela on a mission trip one summer.  We had to sleep in hammocks in this little covered area outside and one of the things we had to learn to do was tie up our hammocks correctly and safely.  You had to hang your own hammock and so you wanted to make sure you did it correctly or else you might end up on the ground in the middle of the night.

That is exactly what this feels like right now.  I have hung my hammock and now I have to lay down in it and hope I have tied up it securely.  (Gulp)

In order to help my brain settle down from all this uncertainty and stress, I have been on Pinterest a lot, designing my new home office.  We have an office upstairs that doubles as a guest bedroom and so I intend to freshen up the room with a new desk, curtains, and a fresh coat of paint and turn it into our unofficial ClassMax headquarters.  This little mental break has done wonders for me this week and I can feel myself letting go of some of the stress and panic and moving a little more towards the excitement.

So, last night, I sat Chris down and shared something very important with him… My private ClassMax board on Pinterest.  It’s my only private board. Full of all my secret desires and plans for our company. Over the past year, I have pinned all kinds of pie-in-the-sky ideas to it, from trendy, industrial office space ideas to outfits for a CEO to tips and tricks for working in sales.  And, most recently, I have added my home office ideas. It’s my own little inspiration board and window into my heart for this company.

AND CHRIS SHIT ALL OVER IT.  

I mean, there’s just no other way to say it.  He just RUINED my home office dreams! First, I showed him this beautiful glass door that I want to put on my office.  

“That’s pretty,” he said casually.  “But we can’t have a glass door on our guest room.”

“Oh, but it’s not going to be a guest room anymore.  It’s my office.”

“Okay, but it’s still a guest room.”  

“But it’s my office.”

“…and guest room.”

“Office.”

“Guest room.”

This went on for quite a while.  Finally, I agreed that our pull out couch would have to stay in the room since we so often have company over (although, I tried arguing that maybe if we didn’t have a guest room, we wouldn’t have so many guests, but he didn’t go for that…).  So, now I have a desk, this huge Ikea bookshelf, and a floral pull out couch. This was looking NOTHING like the home office of my dreams.

“Fine,” I said.  “But I want a chandelier.”

“You can’t have a chandelier in a bedroom.”

“IT’S NOT A BEDROOM!  IT’S MY OFFICE!”

“Fine.  You can’t have a chandelier in YOUR OFFICE.  You get hot just sitting still. You’ll melt without a fan.”  

(This happens to be a true statement, but I had already lost the pull out couch argument, so I wasn’t backing down on my chandelier.)

“I don’t need a ceiling fan,” I insisted.  “I have a little box fan I can bring out if I get hot.”

“I still think it’s going to look weird to have a chandelier in a guest bedr…er… office,” he said, as I stared him down.  

I was so frustrated at this point that I slammed my laptop closed and announced, “YOU DON’T GET TO SEE MY SECRET PINTEREST BOARD ANYMORE!” and then we went upstairs to tuck the kids in.  While we were up there, I wandered into the current-guest-room-soon-to-be-office and started kind of getting a feel for where furniture could go.

And in walks Chris, like a ray of freaking sunshine.  

“Where would you want your desk to go?” he asked, trying to make peace and show some interest.

“Well, I think I’d like it to be out in the middle of the room so I’m not scrunched up against a wall.”  

“THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM?!” he laughed.  “That’s impractical.”

“That’s not impractical.  Every Pinterest home office I have found shows the desk out in the middle of the room with chairs in front of it for, like, meetings and stuff.  

“You’re not having any meetings in our guest room,” Chris said calmly.  

“Well, I KNOW, it’s just the LOOK I want…”  

“But that’s ridiculous.  Where would you plug in your laptop?”

“I’d charge it at night downstairs.”

“Your lamp?”

“Behind me…”

“Your printer?”

“Uh… behind me…”

But he was right.  Where WOULD I plug all those things in?  Come to think of it, where were all the wires and plugs on all those Pinterest images anyway?!?!  

“I just think it’s going to be weird to have furniture in the middle of the room.  What will we do when we have guests over? And where will the nightstand go?”

“NIGHTSTAND?!?! I shrieked.  “IT’S NOT A BEDROOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  IT’S MY OFFICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“…space.”  Chris said. “It’s your office space.  You can’t have the whole room. We need it.  It’s our guest room.”

And that’s why I am filing for divorce.  Everyone say goodbye to Chris.