If one is to ask how I’m currently doing at work, I would probably answer either one or a combination of the following:

1. I’m stressed out!
2. I’m burnt out!
3. Work is toxic.
4. Work sucks!

I could go on and on ranting about the frustrations of my professional life but there’s really no need for that. I usually channel these complaints to my bestfriend, Cecille, everytime we see each other after office hours.

That’s one of the best things if you have your bestfriend working at the same area or vicinity. Since college, we have been each others’ waste baskets, taking turns from time to time. Lately, I’m the one blabbing tell – tales of a sorry, pitiful accountant’s life. I can only envy her for having the opposite case. That is, until…

She told me that she’s getting sick and tired of, take this – doing nothing. Not nothing nothing but nothing accounting - related works.

Her company is quite lenient on its staff that they can do the work at their own pace – without foregoing deadlines and needed reports. Aside from these requirements, their work is pretty much stress – free. Another thing is that their department is situated at a different unit/room excluded from the main office where all the other departments are. They have the room all for themselves.

Cecille told me that their officemates [from the other departments] has another, more popular name for their department – beauty parlor.

Since all of them in the department are girls, there’s an unlimited supply of vanity products if one of them had forgotten hers – pressed powder, foundation, lipstick, lip liner, eye shadow, eyelash curler, masscara, eyeliner, blush – on, lip gloss, lip balm, hair brush, comb, twissors [or is it twizzers?], eyebrow brush, facial cleansers, moisturizers, sunblock, concealers, etc.

But there’s more to their arsenal why it is called as such. Just imagine an office with these – life-size mirror, hair blower, hair straightening iron and beauty magazines. I have been there once and I was really in awe. I even had my hair ‘ironed’ and ‘straightened’ that day.

Most of the time, Cecille is looking for something productive to do, even if it’s not at all related to her everyday tasks. Like reading and reviewing her taxation, law and accounting books or just analyzing and dissecting the reports she made based on what she read.

But as she is already familiar and had gotten a good grasp of these ‘extra’ works, she finishes these in no time. What to do next? I was laughing my head off when she told me.

That they’re conducting spelling contests!

Amidst our laughter, I told her to start inventing other things to do before they find themselves playing poker or ‘tong-its’ next time around. I know for a fact that she doesn’t want this – for Cecille really is a serious and focused person. But it’s really good to see her letting her hair down and having fun once in a while.

It makes me feel guilty for having so much to do. Maybe it's true. That you really can’t have it all!