Working in a glass cubicle and throwing stones at Jane
by Beth Teitell

Tuesday, May 29, 2001

A ``working'' maternity leave? Give the people of Massachusetts a break, Jane. Everyone knows you can't do your job right if you're not giving it your full . . .

. . . Oh, hold on a minute. I have to take this call. I'm planning a trip to Martha's Vineyard, and a friend whose cousin's boss went last year is calling to tell me the name of the inn he stayed at.

``He can't remember it exactly,'' she says. ``But if you go on the Internet and look for places that start with an `R' and are near Oak Bluffs, he'll recognize it.

``Call me back, I'm at work. Actually, give me two hours. I'm running to Newbury Street to find something to wear to that wedding we're going to. Who gets married on a Sunday night on the Cape? Everyone has to stay over. I won't even get to work until noon on Monday, and then we're having a going-away party for the temp - you know, the really nice one I told you about, she spent all that time copying my resume for me? She's leaving to work for a stockbroker.''

Stockbroker! That reminds me - it's getting late. No, not for deadline. But the market's going to close soon. I need to decide if today is the day to cut my losses and dump Cisco. ``Look,'' I say, ``I've got to go.''

I'm about to head into the Herald's library and jump on a computer with Internet access, but under my desk I spot the new ``hold everything'' catalog I've been looking for. I need somewhere to put all my shoes. Can't stand having them under the bed. Hmm. Maybe the ``over-door shoe holder'' would work. It's only $28. Or maybe I should forget that - it's just a Band-Aid. What I need is a walk-in closet. If we knocked down the wall between the closet and the bathroom, and turned the tub into a shower stall, we'd have a lot more space.

What that would do to resale value, though? I should go on one of those real estate sites and see what people want these days.

Oh, the Net! Cisco. I don't know what to do about that. I'll check my e-mail. Wow. Sara finally wrote back. She sounds kind of down. Maybe I'll call her.

``Hi. You busy?''

``Nah. I'm at work, but I should go in a minute because if I don't go to the gym, I'm going to go crazy. I'm just waiting for my boss to go into a meeting.''

She lowers her voice. ``I just got off the phone with the doctor's office. The nurse swears that with the kind of laser they use the bruising is minimal. They call it a `lunchtime' face lift. I could say I was going to visit Cara in Jersey and take the whole week off.

``Did I tell you what's going on with her, by the way? She met a guy at work. He's really nice, apparently. They send e-mails back and forth all day. And tell me this doesn't sound like fun: Next month they're both going to a convention in Chicago. I'm sure they won't even go to any of the meetings. Or if they do, I doubt they'll pay much attention.''

Attention? Oh, yeah, that's right. That's what's wrong with Jane Swift's plan to work from home, where there's no way she can give the job her full attention.

Everyone knows you need to be in the office to do that.