“Fellows who know all about that sort of thing – dectives and so on – will tell you that the most difficult thing in the world is to get rid of the body…”
– P.G. Wodehouse
So, on Friday we had a majorly important visitor. One of international consequence, influence, and meddling. His security detail/entourage/People were on campus days in advance and had to be herded around the whole university. I had to put together information packets for them detailing our VIP’s time down to minute increments. It was a well-knit, flawless operation.
Until the grounds crew, digging around the Law School, unearthed a large plastic bag of large bones: partial leg bones, ribs, and coccyx.
Cue flashes of Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper, Dexter, and Hannibal Lecter. As you can imagine, it was a thrilling, suspenseful hour or so until we got an Anthropologist to inspect them (Sidenote: I really think all police departments should be located on university campuses. Think of the treasure trove of experts at your fingertips!).
They turned out to belong to a deer. What a let down.
Nevertheless, the weekend was a welcome event after the excitement. Monday has come way too early.
“Work is the curse of the drinking classes.”
– Oscar Wilde.
It's definitely a rage stroke.
I haven’t complained about work in a while, and there is a very simple reason for that. I had a rage stroke. Seriously. I got so angry that the rage literally had nowhere to go so it just retreated to a corner of my brain and fizzled. Between what I consider to be bad management with our pet project (which is still giving us a ridiculous amount of grief), and ego running our office in terms of funding, personnel relations, and department communication and day-to-day running, I was just FED UP.
Then, suddenly and blissfully, I just didn’t care anymore. Of course I’m not so foolish as to think the apathy is permanent. Just a few days later our copy machine threw up its metaphoric hands and said, “To hell with it,” Hennessy and I got so stressed that she had a minor meltdown and I spent a cathartic ten minutes kicking a brick wall before I went home, and self-entitled people began pouring out the woodwork (think they’ve been hibernating?).
To top it off, Dilbert™ for the past couple of days has been frighteningly like our department. Either Scott Adams secretly works here, or my worst fears have been confirmed and every job in the world is exactly the same.
And still they don't get it...I promise this isn't an exaggeration. Really. No. REALLY.
“The trouble with troubleshooting is that trouble shoots back.”
– Unknown
So, while documenting records in our database, I must have tapped some keys in just the right order to summon the devil. Or something. Because this popped up in that scary font only techie types use:
This version requires a [something or other thing that I don’t understand] directory to store your alias files. Shall I create it for you? Y/N
At a loss, I type “N” and assumed it would all go away. The response…
Very well. I won’t create it.
But you may run into difficulties later.
Die, evil computer program, die! Help, my computer has become self aware!
“I came up with direct marketing. Well, someone else already had, but I came up with it independently.”
– Mad Men (Pete Campbell)
“I love your necklace!” said a patron to me today. “Did you get the idea from Ugly Betty?”
“Er, no,” I answered, having never watched the show. “Anne Boleyn.”
“Oh. Who’s that?”
Sigh. Stupid history degree. Nobody has a clue what I’m talking about half the time.
“Demosthenes overcame and rendered more distinct his inarticulate and stammering pronunciation by speaking with pebbles in his mouth.”
– Plutarch
Our supplier’s secretary would have done well to copy the ancient orator. Quoth her voicemail message:
Pictured: a testicle handcuff key
“Hey this is [name] with [supplier], just calling to let you know your testicle handcuff keys are ready to ship, please let me know when you’d like me to proceed.”
Susie called Wise, Hennessy, and I all in to consult and figure out what on earth she was talking about (amidst some mock horror, “Susie! What did you order?”) but we finally managed to deduce she meant tactical handcuffs. Which isn’t nearly as intriguing.
“Always be nice to secretaries. They are the real gatekeepers in the world.”
– Anthony J. D’Angelo
Not an hour into work and with stacks of paperwork already piled high on our desks, both the copier and shredder broke causing a swell of panic on the secretaries’ part. Wise, Susie, and I dove into action. After the right combination of kicking, bashing, praying, and human sacrifice was accomplished the copier shuddered, whirred, and started working again and we moved our attention to the shredder. Then my phone rang and there was a grouchy state attorney on the line, and Amanda was dragged off to do a record expungement leaving Susie to wrestle with the machinery.
In sauntered Lt. Figaro (late as usual) and he meandered up to Susie and started talking.
I imagine that if the officers ever did take the initiative to fix their own problems, the secretaries' reaction to the resulting chaos would look something like this.
While I looked up records for the attorney I watched her stick her arm and fingers into the mechanisms to fix a blockage while he told the story of an African student he knew (which is really inspirational, don’t get me wrong). As she dragged the whole thing away from the wall to poke around the electrical hookups he led into the differences of education in multiple countries, which turned naturally to American politics. When she dragged the bag of shredded paper out of its compartment (which was nearly as big as she is and threatened to spill out everywhere) he reached his crescendo:
“And that is just what the terrorists want! They want to make us feel inferior and inadequate! We can’t let the terrorists win!”
At which point the attorney let me go and I was able to scurry back in time to keep the mess from tipping over and shove the whole contraption back into place.
“Good job, girls,” Figaro said and went back to his office to take a nap or something.
“The reward for a job well done, is usually a harder job.”
-Lois McMaster Bujold
For all of my supervisors’ shifting and sorting in order to keep me steadily busy (which, by the way, is absolutely impossible with police work: you’re either swamped or drooling on your keyboard while the minutes laugh at you as they snail on by) I still managed to finish my jobs months ahead of schedule and can now apparently recommence drooling undisturbed.
Obviously, I’m having another bout of feeling frustrated by my job. They come and go. Each attack gets less vitriolic and more resigned, but the feeling still boomerangs, and probably will continue doing so until J.’s done with school and we move, I finally toss off all restraints and throw myself into writing professionally (bankrupting and starving us both in the process), or until I succumb to the idea that resistance to my fate is futile (never!).
I make this go away. You're welcome.
If ever I’m not outrageously busy, somebody wanders by and makes snarky comments about how they’re paying me and Hennessy to sit on our bums and do nothing. Regardless of the fact that I do all of the department’s customer service, or whatever it’s referred to in police work, maintain all department records, do all the mindless projects they dump on my desk simply because they don’t want to do them, keep the office clean, maintain all of their schedules, have attended all the trainings and obtained all the certifications, skills, and accesses they’ve required of me, manage all our 150 student employees, work with courts, lawyers, and insurance companies constantly, and still do their bloody laundry three days a week! I’ve also identified and fixed procedural problems of my own volition and been commended for it!
Click here to recieve your reward.
Obviously this deserves punishment, scorn, and snark from my co-workers/supervisors.
If I’m capable of keeping up my normal duties and still managed to clean, resort, restock, and reorganize our huge office supplies/police gear/self-defense class items/parking equipment storage closet in three days, rewrite the entire procedure manual in four, and set up Chief’s email contact sheets in ten minutes…shouldn’t that mean that I can go to the vending machines for a snack without someone getting in a snit?
I deeply apologize for being a fast and thorough worker. I’m even considering stopping it. Because apparently all it gets me is frustrated in the long-term, and lectured and punished in the short.
“Technology makes it possible for people to gain control over everything, except technology.”
– John Tudor
Our resident IT guy (a species who, as you may remember, is the ancient enemy of secretaries) coming up to me one day and saying, “I’m going to take your phone so that the dispatch center in the stadium can have it.”
C. asking quickly as he started walking away, “Um, can I get a new one?”
“Yeah, the old stadium one. It doesn’t work very well, so good luck with that.”
Irritation.
“New phone” being broken to the point that it isn’t recognizing picking up or hanging up, and the surface scratched so badly the screen is unreadable. Dozens of incoming messages being lost into the netherworld of dropped/missed calls. Calling up the IT gods where they wither in their dark, lonely cave and demand a solution. An actual New Phone getting installed and C. learning from the IT minions how to personally program the phone’s appearance.
Satisfaction.
Small Dog's means are few, but she takes what she can get!
The office IT guy strolling by and looking down at the screen, where he sees, “WHY ARE YOU READING THIS?!” blazoned across it, and jumps about a mile. C. seeing the whole thing.
“I want a pet!”
“We can’t have one.”
“I know, but can’t we get a fish or something?”
“No.”
“Why not?!”
“Because of the plant by the front door.”
“It was as good as dead when it came to me!”
-C. and J.
A day of freezing rain equals three days of kitties in the Police Department.
This is the season of animal escapades! The last three days in a row, some well-intentioned student has brought in a kitten to our office. And the last three days in a row, the sheer cuteness of these critters has ground the entire office to a halt. Of course…when does a series of isolated events stop being a series of isolated events and start becoming a pattern? apparently there’s a small…herd? Pod? Pride?…of feral cats on campus that all decided to spawn right before the temperature dropped forty degrees overnight. So these hapless little babies just keep turning up so we now have Animal Services on speed dial and we lose an hour’s worth of work every morning putting them in front of heaters, buying milk to feed them, and cuddling them (risking who knows how many communicable diseases).
The downside is that my puppy-lust has been enflamed and I want a pet even more now!
Never would think she was an ocelot wannabe, huh?Granted I don’t have the best luck with plants…but I do have a history with feral cats! When we lived in the Pacific there were hordes of cats in the jungle. A particularly nasty one that haunted our street had a kitten we decided to rescue from the evil mother. It took weeks of feeding it in order to trick it inside. The minute the door closed behind her, she attacked the glass in terror and then hunkered down shivering, her tail the size of a baseball bat. Twenty minutes later, she decided she was “our housecat” and that was the end of the matter. And in a continuing Egyptian theme, we named her Nefertiti because of the heavy black marks around her eyes.
Of course, we were all mildly allergic to her (Buddy was catastrophically so) but we refused to get rid of her. And she repaid our generosity by having kittens under my bed while my parents were out of town.
You can’t handle the cuteness!
Since scrubbing cat placenta out of my carpet isn’t an expirience I’d like to repeat, I don’t think I’ll want a cat ever again, but I do want a puppy. A border collie puppy! Want want!
Small Dog Syndrome 