My company is split between two buildings. Last spring they moved me from Glorious Main Building to Cast-off Building in the Boondocks. My company shares the Cast-off Building with a bunch of broadcasters. Since our offices are just cubicles, we can easily hear the sundry noises from the broadcast employees around us. Like a couple weeks ago when I listened to an hour-long heated telephone conversation between the guy across the hall and his apparently soon-to-be-ex-wife.

(And I have to add that I didn’t listen by choice. I was wearing earphones, but his voice carried over my music. )

Given the nature of the broadcasters’ jobs (or at least I assume that’s the excuse they use), there’s a TV at every desk. They can—and do—watch movies, the news, or sitcoms while they, ahem, work. This is very strange to me, especially coming from Glorious Main Building where we weren’t allowed to use instant messenger or even have personal photos as screen savers or desktop backgrounds.

You would think that the Big Head Broadcasters originally purchased the TVs so their employees would watch their TV station. The one they work for.

Hah.

Everyday I know it’s 10:30 a.m. when I hear the M.A.S.H. theme song coming from the broadcaster’s office behind my cubicle. We often work to the tunes of Disney movies or to the voice of Bob Barker on The Price is Right. Yesterday it was Dr. Phil. I overheard the movie Madagascar the day it was released on DVD because Loud Lady diagonal to my cubicle picked it up at Wal-Mart on her lunch break and apparently couldn’t wait to get home to watch it.

The day before Thanksgiving we threw a small shindig for our hard-working employees and projected the movie Madagascar onto the wall of our work room. One of my coworkers overheard Loud Lady griping to a fellow broadcaster, “What are they doing, watching a movie? What kind of work ethics does that company have anyway?”

My coworker couldn’t decide whether to laugh or confront the woman about all the TV-aholics working for her broadcasting company, including Loud Lady herself. She resigned herself to laughter.