My Office

     The Office, as we like to call it, is home to some of the most gut-wrenchingly funny, excruciatingly embarrassing, and unmistakably demoralizing situations known to man. It contains the highest highs and the lowest lows. The room is configured to allow for privacy, but only when it is truly desired. It’s way easier to yell across the room at someone than to hide from someone yelling across the room at you. Its openness compares to that of a sports locker room. Each person has his or her private space, but, in reality, nothing at all is private. 

  

Fig. 1: View From the The Directors' Offices    

     The room is heavily adorned with MLS team gear. From the cardboard cutouts of team logos on the walls to supporter’s scarves hanging from the light fixtures to the team jerseys lined up along a heating pipe, the room yearns to have a vibrant, energetic feel to it, and, in the simplest way imaginable, it does. I believe everyone in the program showed up on the first day elated to be working in such a relevantly decorated room, but, like anything overdosed, found that it failed to further stimulate after week number one. At the same time, the jerseys and scarves do provide something: A reminder of our larger goal in promoting a “soccer nation.”                                     

                                                                                     Fig. 2: Looking at the Director's Offices

    
     Adding to the sports and games theme of the room is a roulette wheel that sits in the far corner near the directors’ offices. Conveniently equipped with 16 slots, this monster summons the name of some unfortunate soul in between fiery breaths. It is used to select trainees randomly, and we all hold our collective breaths when the familiar clicking noise starts. I may never look at Wheel of Fortune or Casino Roulette the same way ever again.

     In all, The Office’s appeal will never lie in what gimmicks are placed around it, but in the action of the day. If your calls are connecting on any particular day, the colors, shapes and symbols representing MLS teams become cheerful reminders of an electrifying future. On the other hand, if today’s voices aren’t being very talkative, they appear more like phony representations of something supposedly way more exciting.

     On our first day in Blaine, the program directors asked us to remember a phrase that would serve as the program’s motto: Deadly playful, but deadly serious. Overall, The Office’s set-up fits that theme to a tee.