…stole my favorite kitchen implement ever, my orange peeler! The niftiest thing ever invented for a consummate citrus lover. I left it with an orange to chill in our (fortified and limited access) dispatch room’s refrigerator and when I returned a couple hours later, it, my orange, several salad dressing packagers, and a bag of carrot sticks had been snatched.
In spite of the jokes and sitcom stories of this sort of thing, this is my first incident of food being stolen in nearly 3 years of office work. Also, what sort of ruffian steals healthy food from the office fridge? Aren’t the soda cans labeled “Property of T-Dawg” and the “secret” candy bars in the freezer usually the first to go?
So, orange peeler thief, you’re on notice. Either return it unharmed and be spared, or suffer the vicious voodoo curse I am prepared to unleash on you!
“I’m at my best in a messy, middle-of-the-road muddle.” – Harold Wilson quotes
If I were a superhero, pumpkins, my skill would be earthquake-causing klutziness coupled with a magnetic attraction to things that stain.
Oh, you're no help!
Yesterday I barely left my desk due to working on a particularly patience-shattering project (Susie, Hennessy, Wise, and I all tried several times, but Mail Merge simply would not work for over an hour), which meant I took breaks at my desk. In a four hour period I spilled salad dressing, orange juice, copious amounts of water, and an open ink pad on my newish trousers. The true miracle is that nothing stained it!
“That’s disgusting…thanks for taking one for the team.” “But I don’t want to take one for the team. I want to leave the team to its moldy fate.” – Student employee, C.
Hm, a nice little murder. Or maybe a drug bust? Heck, just a lost textbook!
One of the downsides of working at a university is that everything is time is cyclical. The wheel of life and work turns by semesters and even though you are out of school, you are directly affected by this fact. For example, I do most of my hiring and firing of students at the beginning of new semesters – kids graduate, have tough schedules, or sometimes even drop out and have to be terminated or replaced. During Fall and Winter terms I’m involved with projects related to various athletic seasons. When Spring and Summer terms roll around I, and others, will be beating our heads on our desks for whole weeks at a time for lack of work – you can only reorganize the supply closet, update your all of your forms, and rearrange your staplers so many times before you’re quite longing for heinous crimes to be committed.
But there is a sneaky week or two in the middle of every semester, after you’ve finished hiring all of your new students and finished your major projects, and just before you have to start ordering next month’s supplies and prep next term’s spreadsheets, that you are stuck.
It is at this soul numbing point that I start wandering about the office begging for work. Susie is usually pretty good at giving me some filing or shredding, or handing one of her own projects over to me if she is swamped, but even her ideas can give out. And so it proved this mid-Winter.
I had my annual employee evaluation and told her that since I began working here I’ve tried to streamline and improve processes and I’ve been successful – to the point that I regularly don’t have enough to do, especially during mid-term deadlock. When she asked what sort of small project ideas I’ve come up with, I listed the various tasks I’ve given myself over the past year and declared without guilt that the idea well has run dry. After a moment she said she had a job that needed doing but didn’t want to offend me by asking. I told her I didn’t mind.
So today I spent an hour on hand and knees cleaning out the two refrigerators in the break area.
And let me just state for the record, there are mothers all over the United States today, wringing their hands and weeping as they try to figure out where they went wrong.
I pulled seven one litre bottles of soda that were up to a year old (and fermenting), three packages of cream cheese that had turned teal (and grown eyes), almost an entire pizza that had dried out months ago (and fossilized), and several tupperware filled with various rotting mush (that had apparently evolved highly enough to invent a rudimentary form of communication). Let us not speak of the fish I found. Really. Let’s not.
“Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.” — Marilyn Monroe
It’s official, poodles, winter turns your friendly household C. into a blithering idiot. I suspect I have a touch of Seasonal Affective Disorder – come the cold and dark I get moodier, need to sleep longer, and can stay on the sofa for hours doing nothing and seemingly only half awake. And my brain turns to mush. I am sure of it.
We got another coat of snow last night so when I finally managed to pull myself out of bed (which is not exactly an easy feat when your SAD-affected mind and body are yelling at you, “If you’d just give in you could have a nice little bout of depression and not have to go into work today. Come on, just because it takes you months to pull yourself out of it doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. Give in just a little…”), I reached for my trusty Hunter boots.
Stuffing legs and trousers into them haphazardly, I clumped about the flat grabbing fruit and granola bars (and maybe a couple of chocolate chip cookies) before J. and I dashed out into the cold to scrape off the car and gun it for work.
Pictured: said evil Being.
But midway to the office, I was hit with the nagging, suspicious feeling that somewhere in the vastness of the universe there was a Being chuckling at my expense.
I cataloged myself. Something was missing. Bag, phone, wallet, all present. Gym bag complete with gym clothes, check. Water bottle, snacks, diary, all in their proper places. My hair was done, I had no bra straps on display, I was even sporting a pretty new cardigan and fabulous bright red lipstick. What was it?
Bending down to rummage in my bag again, I glanced at my boots. The nagging, chuckling feeling got stronger. It became downright malicious in fact. Boots, I thought, why would that…drat! Because, naturally, I had not grabbed actual shoes to change into.
Thus, here I sit in sharp black trousers, red lipstick, freshly painted nails, lovely cardigan…and my old running trainers – which squeak badly when I walk. Much to the amusement of my co-workers.
“I’ve ridden the tiger ragged. That tiger, it’s rolled over on its blazing back and put up its paws and just asked me to stop.” – Glenn Duncan, I Lucifer
I really was expecting a slow day today, kittens. It’s below freezing so no one’s about, my phone has rung exactly twice, and until 11 this morning I was staring at my empty inbox wondering how I would fill the time. Woof, was I misled!
Hennessy and I are wrangling dozens of student uniforms that have gone “missing” over the past few months since we have nothing to give to the handfuls of new students we keep hiring. Shockingly, all these “missing” uniforms have turned up in the very locker rooms students and supervisors have sworn blind they’ve not been in for months.
I’m up to my elbows in paperwork finding arrest records, dating from before I was born, on microfiche, running background checks, and logging hours of training for our officers. Goodness knows whether or not I’ll get lunch before 3 at this point!
However, that quiet time was semi-productive. After a period of Wiki-surfing, it is now a driving ambition of my life to achieve this honor!
Can I manage this without moving to Nebraska? Somehow I feel as though I mingle well with the august company. Admiral C. Small Dog of the good ship HMS Guppy!
Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman – not the attitude of the prospect. – W. Clement Stone
Dear Salesperson Who Thinks You Are Clever,
You’re not. You are approximately the four hundred twenty-seventh person this week to try to get access to an administrator by claiming to be a close personal friend. I am not quite an idiot, thank you, and I have heard every single one of the techniques you will try to get around me.
“He’ll see me, he asked me to come in,” you say. I doubt that, since he’s been on vacation most of this week and plans on being out of the office for a good chunk of the next as well.
“He’s a very old friend of mine, but I don’t know how to get in touch with him,” you try next. That’s funny. I’ve got phone numbers, email, blogs, Facebook, googling, and any number of ways to get in touch with my “very old friends.”
“Don’t you know who I am?!” you cry in desperation. No. And since it’s my job to most relevant people, that ought to tell you something.
See, Small Dog may be a minor secretary way down on the totem pole, but she’s good at her job. And it would take a far cleverer salesman than you to get past the gates. You may leave your card and contact information like everybody else.
“Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottery.”
– Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson
For the love of chocolate, kittens! Yesterday there was a lovely covering of white muffling everything. Today there is a sprawling death trap of white, hell bent on destroying your elders and devouring your young! J. had to dig out our car this morning and I was over half an hour late because we could only move at a crawl through unploughed streets. Wise was an hour late. Lots of people still haven’t showed up, several probably just won’t. Cars are getting stuck all over the place.
In spite of the weather we are throwing Wise’s baby shower today, but if it keeps coming down, I wouldn’t be surprised if the administration orders people home early.
The practical upshot in this mess is that trying to climb in the car from the wrong side, carrying Christmas presents and baby shower gifts, using my heels as ice picks for traction, and J. having to drop me off in the middle of a parking lot to wade through a foot of snow and slush…means that I finally got up the gumption to buy a decent pair of boots.
Our department has quite the accumulated dating history and insight. Between the roller coaster romances of our student employees and the dozens of people we caution, cite, and arrest for stalking, we are connoisseurs of crazy love. Here’s some wisdom gleaned in the last two weeks.
(Discussing when to make a move to hold a girl’s hand)
Bebe: You just have to feel her vibe. If she wants you to hold her hand or kiss you, she’ll let you know.
Stuckford: Her vibe, huh?
Bebe: Yeah. Feel her vibe.
C.: Just, ah, don’t feel anything else!
(Know the correct name for foreign foods you intend to order. For example, when desiring polenta do not say…)
Random girl one of our officers went out with: I like Italian food. I’ll have the placenta.
And finally, if you’re married, don’t ask out one of your co-workers! Trust me, that news will travel
Michael: Yeah…the bishop’s going to have something to say about that.
C.: …And God. Daisy: Well, I hit him on the head with a book and said “Begone!” It worked.
“If you go to a costume party at your boss’s house, wouldn’t you think a good costume would be to dress up like the boss’s wife? Trust me, it’s not.” – Jack Handy
One fifties girl, a teacher/maiden aunt, two babies, Spiderman, and Liz Lemmon.An Identity Crisis (note: HAHAHAHA!)A costume from Pakistan, Identity Crisis (again, because I think it's hilarious), and yours truly as Joan Holloway!
So far we have also seen, two Avatar people (the blue ones), one Lord Voldemort, and several Waldos (as “Where’s…”). Also a green plastic army guy, a BP oil spill, and the entire Monty Python crew.
And, speaking of clothes, the winner of our giveaway is…
Amanda who said her favorite thing about herself was: “my skin tone. I’m extremely white, but I’ve got enough on my mom’s olive hues to pull off pretty much any hair color. And changing up the hair is fun stuff.”
Congratulations Amanda! I’ll be contacting you to ship your prize to you!
“It occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility.” – Joseph Conrad
I was given a project today. One that I’m still trying to make sense of. It can best be summarized by my puzzled response to Lt. Figaro when he gave it to me. At the time of assignment, Susie’s and my eyebrows were having a contest to see whose could climb higher.
“So you want me to run reports.”
“Yes.”
“From a database I don’t have access to, using a program that hasn’t worked form months, to organize information that no one can find, with query requests that don’t exist.”
“Yes.”
Small Dog Syndrome 