“Where’s C.?”
“In the restroom.”
“…which one?”
– Hennessy and officer
Confused?
As I have ranted before, one of my most hated jobs is picking up and dropping of the laundry for the officers. The issues of managing laundry for forty grown men will not be further discussed here, but what will now be revealed is that, between hauling up to 20 bags in and out of the office three days a week, hanging up individual orders on lockers, wrangling excess hangers, and hunting for whatever goes missing, I probably spend more time in the men’s room than the ladies’.
And the funny thing is, all of the student officers have become completely immune to the sight of me in pencil skirt and heels, trotting in and out of their locker room. I knock first, naturally!
The first time I was doing the laundry by myself, a bunch of new student officers lumbered in, saw me hanging up uniforms, and jumped about a mile (squealing a little). Like I was a mouse. Bless them. These days we have nice conversations as they lace up their boots.
But every once in a while, I’ll skip on out of the men’s room and a reserve officer (who doesn’t normally work here) on his way in, will do a double take and give me a funny look. I usually just say hi and decline to explain. I think it’s good for them to be shaken up a bit every once and a while.
“There will be a rain dance friday night, weather permitting.”
– George Carlin
I have an extraordinary pair of shoes. Not in the Christian Louboutain sense, or even the “By Jupiter, what on earth is she wearing on her feet?!” sense. I mean truly out of this world, inexplicable, baffling-to-science bizarre.
See? Charming. Or so I thought...
They were discovered at Target, sitting prettily on a shelf and on sale. “Purple flats with a J. Crew like ruffle?” thought Small Dog to herself, “Sold!” I happily tossed them into my basket and continued shopping, little knowing the fate that lay ahead of me.
The first time I wore them, it started raining on the way to work and I had to make a mad dash for the office, carefully holding my trousers at my calves to minimize water damage. They are suede-like and therefore absorbed at least a couple of deep puddles as I crossed the parking lot, and didn’t let a single drop of moisture escape. I had the squishy, uncomfortable sensation of walking around in sopping moss all day long.
Undeterred I wore them again a few days later and it started raining while I was at work and didn’t let up until late in the night. Which meant that, due to running errands for the department and fetching the officers’ laundry, my feet were soaked for several hours before I got to go home.
Mere coincidence, surely! All the same, they were regulated to the back of my closet for a couple of weeks to be on the safe side. But the next time I wore them I still came home looking like a drowned duck (and that time it managed to both rain and snow), so they were unceremoniously flung back into the closet to learn how to behave better towards their patient, shoe-loving mistress.
We all know what's coming next, right?
However, this morning in the scramble to get ready, the inevitable happened. It was the day that I’d be assigning dozens of students their security gear for the 4th of July festivities and I knew better than to wear heels. I could only find one half of the pair of flats I intended to wear and so, at a loss, I pulled them out again, gave them a quick talking to, and popped them on. The day passed without incident and scorching desert summer temperatures until late afternoon when the clouds rolled in (seemingly from nowhere!) and unleashed a torrent. Lacking windows I hurried to Susie and Wise’s office to see for myself, just in time to see a river of rain come rushing down a walkway from the quad and a broken branch whiz by. A boy was walking against the wind, which was so fierce that his umbrella had wrapped around his head and shoulders, and nearly blew him off the sidewalk.
Really. Don't.
It was also time to go to the laundry to pick up the officers’ laundry. The three of us watched in dismay as it got worse and worse while it got closer and closer to closing time. Susie was a dear and said she’d help me as soon as we saw a break in the clouds and finally one came and we sprinted down the hall (much to the shock of a couple of officers who managed to dodge out of our way). We threw bags of laundry over our shoulders, pushed past two sets of doors at a dead run, and were halfway across the parking lot when the skies reopened. I managed to hit the unlock button on the key chain and yank open the van’s door and we both catapulted into its relative safety. And then, because she was wearing a white skirt that had been soaked and didn’t want to make the situation worse by walking through an office entirely of men, we both climbed over the seats (without a lot of dignity) and headed off to the cleaner together. By the time we got back the storm was over, though the city was littered with leaves and shattered branches. And I still had to go to dinner and do a presentation in dripping shoes, and shudder when Susie mentioned some sort of infection or other that she knew of that came from wet feet and was nastier than Athletes Foot.
Anyone suffering from a particularly bad drought? Because I have the perfect footwear for your next Rain Dance.
“Who can hope to be safe? Who sufficiently cautious?
Guard himself as he may, every moment is an ambush.”
-Horace
Small Dog struggles.
For the past almost-two years that I’ve worked here, there has been a large plastic mat residing beneath my chair and the corners of various desks and cabinets. This mat is clear, studded on the bottom, a quarter of and inch thick, sharp edged, and slippery. As you may imagine, this mat has been a sore trial for many office staff, but myself in particular as I am A) a sadklutz, and B) the person who practically lives on top of this thing.
We, meaning mostly I, have slipped, tripped, slid, glided, skidded, twisted ankles, and face planted because of this contraption without complaint or word until today.
Hennessy and I were walking back from the Administration Building when a perfect storm of un-coordination happened. First her heel caught the edge of the mat. Then she started to fall forward which both lifted the mat and tore her shoe off. Then behind her I stuttered my step trying not to collide with my flailing friend. And THEN the sharp corner of the plastic peril bit into my foot. When we managed to right ourselves and glance down to survey damages, I was bleeding.
That was it! We grabbed Susie, one of the officers to move heavy furniture, and dragged the whole thing back to the custodians closet (it weighed about as much as Brazil, was filthy underneath, and smelled horrid to boot). Good riddance.
“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.”
– Ovid
I must be looking my age. Yesterday Susie came up to my desk and asked what I was doing for my birthday (today).
“I’m not sure. Dinner with J.’s family I think, and my godmother is doing a friends and family dinner on Sunday.”
“That sounds nice,” Susie said. “But what are you doing the day of?”
“Er, not much.”
“Are you taking the day off?”
“Hadn’t really thought of it.”
“You can, you know.”
“Well, thanks, but I’m not sure. I mean, it would be lovely but it’s not like I’m sick or anything. I’m weird and feel guilty about not coming into work when nothing’s actually wrong.”
“Don’t. It’s good to have a day off. You should take one.”
“Uh, ok…”
“Good!”
So I am!
Either I’m looking haggard and everyone has commented to her about it, or she’s planning some kind of office coup and wants me out of the way for the day. No matter. Have a nice day, kittens, Small Dog is in the spa. And not taking phone calls, although you are welcome to join me.
“I’d have you lot up in front of the University authorities first thing in the morning, if it wasn’t for the fact that you are the University authorities…”
– Terry Prachett
We are moving into one of the worst months of year at work: June is the month building up to the annual July 4th celebration. This usually involves celebrity VIPs, nearly 100,000 additional people on campus, parades, hiring up to 100 more students for less than a week, and other assorted headaches. Last year I got lucky and got married instead so I was out of town for the final crisis.
This year I may not get as lucky unless J. and I can come up with a cheap vacation idea. And then there’s the guilt. I’d be leaving some of the other girls in an awful lurch skiving off like that. Plus Hennessy is getting married mere days before and it would rather shabby for both of us to disappear.
However, this nobility of purpose doesn’t make the impending event any less irksome. It’s my job to get those darling student employees outfitted and, more importantly, in fear of the personal Hell that will await them if they don’t return every last piece of gear to me. At the end of football season this past year, I was somehow seconded to be responsible for collecting and minding this stuff permanently even though I hadn’t been in charge of distributing it, recording who got what, or when it should be returned at the beginning of the year. You may imagine the resulting confusion. And my attitude about it.
Die.
This year will run much smoother since Hennessy and I have teamed up to tackle it, but problems are already creeping up. Such as the fact that the Special Events department hasn’t given us a time to distribute stuff, and has decided that these students need only three hours of training (to take place three days before this nearly 100,000 people plus pyrotechnics rolls into town).
The real problem with this university is, as I see it, is that it’s a combination of a business, a school district with too many children and not enough teachers, and (due to the religious background and funding) a monastery. Which doesn’t combine too well, professionally speaking. As a bureaucracy, resources are not always well-managed. Administration errors are overlooked in the spirit of Brotherly Kindness, but minor problems lower down on the chain of command are punished with all the fervor of an inquisition. And, completely at odds with religious teaching, good work is not rewarded while bad work is not scrutinized or punished. It’s baffling.
“If you wait a few minutes you can have a piece of cake. Baked it chock-full of love, actually chock-full of unrelenting, all-consuming rage and hostility. But still tasty.”
-Grey’s Anatomy
I made light of it but yesterday’s brush off (you know, when I delivered fifty years of an otherwise undocumented perspective on the growth of the university, state, and country through some of the most turbulent social decades of the previous century…nothing big) was a crushing blow. I’ve been coasting along blissfully at work ever since my rage stroke without caring too much about the administrative snafus that I seem to see everywhere.
But then this happened and my entire academic life flashed before my eyes. I wondered if all my education even mattered, if I’d ever be able to use it again, what would become of me, blah blah blah. It was rough. To make it worse it was compounded with hormones and J. wanting to talk about our future (grad school, loans, working now, internships). The overwhelming sense of uncertainty blended nicely into the tempest already brewing in my teapot.
Cue minor meltdown. I started baking immediately. I hate cooking of all forms so for me it’s the ultimate cathartic experience: I can take out my emotions by beating eggs, shredding carrots, and pummeling dough into submission, and come out with something sugary at the end. Perfect. Luckily Venice and I met somewhere in the middle – she needed butter, I needed Midol – and I got a nice heaping dose of perspective, as she’d had a pretty wretched day too.
She’s been suffering at work for years now. And unlike me, she doesn’t have lots of really great co-workers and supervisors to make the stupidity and drudgery less irksome. (Don’t go, Venice! Er…ahem…) Twenty minutes complaining about work, mutual resolve to learn to cope better, and I was ready to talk grad school with J.
Summary: Friends and muffins make everything, even the occasional crisis of faith, better.
“We have top men working on it right now.”
“Who?”
“Top men.”
– Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
Pictured: a villain immediately preceeding his revalation of exactly how badly he has been behaving for the last hour and a half.
In almost every movie there is that incredibly silly moment when the villain is confronted with the fruits of his or her destruction and, looking over the rivers of lava/ looming black hole/ annihilation of an entire civilization/ etc., murmurs in despair, “My god, what have I done?!”
I had one of those moments today. After getting all the archives into chronological order (which you’d think they’d already be in, right? Hah!), tagging them by date, pulling original photos and making notes on when/where they originally occurred in print, and hauling it one massive armload at a time to the library, I asked for the archivist. Student employees helped me carry the stacks of papers and binders and asked what I was doing. I couldn’t very well shout, “Saving history!” in the library, so I quietly whispered the tale of the iniquitous order to dispose of fifty years of information.
“He told you to shred it!” one girl squeaked in horror.
“I know,” I squeaked back.
We were all awash with the enthusiasm of the young until the archivist appeared. He looked like Eeyore the donkey in human form: droopy, awkward, exhausted, and less than thrilled to see me with my arms full of documents.
“Hi, I’m C. from the police department. We talked on the phone and–”
“Oh, right,” he sighed, “Follow me.”
The whole cavalcade meandered down some halls and through secured doors…to a lonely room, lined with shelves and piled with papers.
“Here’s a project for you,” he mumbled to what appeared to be a heinously overworked student employee, and ordered us to drop the whole pile on her (already covered) desk.
My project is somewhere alongside the Ark, I'm sure.
Which is when I had my cinema-villain-is-confronted-by-what-she’s-done moment. I’d committed the most rookie of cardinal sins: I’d just turned over fifty years of history to a bureaucracy!
I’ve gained all sorts of skills and experiences at this job, but law enforcement is not my calling, to say the least. But history! Oh, yes. And this project is the first thing in over a year and a half that’s come close to the things I’ve studied and feel passionate about. Certainly it’s the only thing that’s got me excited enough to annoy my co-workers with my near constant cries of, “Read this!” And now, I’ve an awful premonition that my precious bundles are only going to slowly decompose in the bowels of the library. There is no justice in the world.
“All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon.”
-Voltaire
Yesterday Lt. Citrus called me into his office and waved his hand at a pile of binders. It was the media files archives of our department, newspaper clippings mostly, and it went back to 1960.
“We don’t need these anymore,” he said. “Can you get rid of them and save the binders?”
?!?!?!?!
I stretched out my hands dumbly and let him plop a stack in my hands and then tottered back to my desk where I opened them up.
The Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, the first female officer to graduate from the state’s police academy…the earliest documented complaints about parking (an as yet unresolved problem!) when we had a fraction of the student number we do now…a completely unique perspective on the history of the campus was sitting on my desk and I was supposed to just shred it?! Clearly they forgot I majored in history!
I begged off my other chores and began putting things in order. I’ve spent the last day and a half scanning articles and photos that document the history of the department (beginning back when we had an ex-LA cop fish a bunch of wallets out of the campus pond and search for the owners, all the way to the 40+ full time, state-certified officers we have now along with nearly 200 student employees). And come across some real gems!
Throw this stuff away. Pfft! I’m already in contact with the university archivist.
Showing off items abandoned in the Lost and Found. The one on the right kind of looks like Peggy Olson from Mad Men.Contrary to popular belief, we neither live in Mayberry, nor whistle frequently.
In happier news, it would seem my Lord and Lady Stompington may have moved out! Building gossip suggests it, and the unnatural quiet we’ve been enjoying seconds the idea, but it has not been positively confirmed yet. Fingers crossed, all. Good fortune and goodbye!
Also, Sav and her husband CK may be moving into our building. Which would be lovely! When Venice basely abandons me, it would be nice to have someone I know and like in easy cup-of-sugar borrowing distance.
Small Dog Syndrome 