items not on the agenda

A month into my job and already I have perfected both the art of the Rolodex spin and my ability to white out whole sentences. I’m quite sure that there’s a job description somewhere for my position, but I don’t know where it is or what I should be doing, so until I’m called upon to produce actual results, I’ll continue spinning and white outing.

However, I’ve found that you can only spin and white out for so many hours until both activities become incredibly dull. Being that our company internet is closely monitored for illegitimate use, I have been forced to find other time consuming activities. This being said, the discovery of the paper shredder in a nearby storeroom has been a godsend. Now, once I’ve whited out all possible letters, words, and sentences on the varying papers I find in my desk, I can finish the task by shredding the whole page.

Now generally I hate meetings of all kinds. But upon receiving an email stating that there was a staff meeting this afternoon, I was overjoyed. A meeting, I figured, would be the perfect way to waste some additional time following lunch, and would provide a much needed break from my excessive paper shredding.

Upon filing into the meeting, I sat myself across from another newly hired employee in the purchasing department. She’s a young girl, straight out of college, and if there’s one thing that I’ve learned in my numerous jobs, it’s that recent graduates in the workforce don’t have a clear concept of ‘too much information’. She was no different, and had yet to learn to keep a finger on the edit button and maintain a two second delay between the brain and the mouth.

And as we sat waiting for the meeting to start, she began telling the other staff members who were seated around the table how, a few weeks prior, she had been to a strip club. It turns out, that one of the male strippers chose her to be a part of his act, and unzipped the zipper on her jeans. Either by his over exuberance or premature dezippering, he broke the seal which separated her panties from the nighttime air.

“I was, like, totally embarrassed,” she told the now seat squirming staff members…many of whom are well into their fifties…“I don’t even find male strippers all that exciting, and then he, like, breaks my zipper! My jeans were ruined! Well, you better believe that I’m never going to a strip club again! If I want to see a naked guy, I’ll tell my boyfriend to undress!”

It’s a shame, really, that she didn’t get her job at the office supply company just a few months earlier. Because we just happen to sell staplers that could have remedied the situation.

a single strand

I found a long, black hair on the bathroom floor the other day. And this wasn’t just any long, black hair. This was the Wilt Chamberlin of long, black hairs.

Generally, I don’t mind hairs all that much. Granted, I’d rather not find them caked into a hamburger patty that I’m about to eat or poking out of a bowl of pudding, but this black hair was troublesome for reasons that extended beyond the edible realm. This hair worried me because I have neither black nor long hair.

Which led me to wonder where, exactly, this hair came from.

I’d like to think that this hair was left over from a group of Playboy Bunnies that got lost while driving through Pittsburgh, having become hot and sweaty due to a faulty air conditioner in their Bunnymobile. And that they just happened to finally decide to pull over at my apartment complex, where they begged and pleaded with my landlord to please let them use a shower…any shower. And of all the showers in all the apartments, he chose mine. Thus, for a few brief hours while I was at work, the Bunnies splashed and lathered and frolicked in my tub, leaving one lone hair behind as they toweled off and continued on their drive…perhaps to the Playboy mansion, perhaps to Cleveland. Either way, that sexy hair was left by them.

It’s much more likely, however, that this hair came to be on my floor because the strange, antisocial guy down the hall chose my apartment to murder someone in. And instead of being a sexy Playboy hair, it’s a gross dead body hair.

While I know this is all stupid speculation and that I’m probably over-reacting, I still have no idea how this mysterious hair ended up on my tile floor. But just to be safe, every day after work I nervously pull back my shower curtain to and check the tub to make sure that there’s no dead body lying there.

layers

I used to date a girl that had a strict layering policy. Her family and friends were rarely permitted to mix, unless a thorough background search, personality profile, and physical were all passed with flying colors. The fact that these social layers were seldom allowed to cross over and seep into one another meant that I, as the datee, was rarely given permission to extend beyond my prescribed boundaries. Slowly, I was allowed to meet a few of her friends, but her family had only the foggiest concept of me. To them, I remained a blurry, shadowy figure, much like Bigfoot. They were aware that there might be ‘someone she’s seeing’, but hard evidence was scant…thus my existence was always in question.

And while I’ve never held strict rules about layering my various social acquaintances, assigning them a number and then ranking them accordingly, I can understand the need for layering on some level. This level being food. Because I’m a big believer in the separation of foods upon my dinner plate. Simply put, certain foods should not be permitted to mix. And while those people who constantly fight for food equality will most likely call me a foodist and throw mustard on me as I approach the salad bar, I hold firm to this belief.

When filling my plate, all foods must adhere to their separate sections…though there are exceptions. The baked beans are allowed to co-mingle with the barbequed chicken, and the cole slaw is welcome to rub up against the potato salad…not too much, mind you, but I do allow them a bit of physical contact. But the baked beans and the cole slaw, however, are strictly forbidden to be near each other. And the potato salad is never, ever allowed to be seen associating with the Jell-O.

And nothing is ever allowed to touch a single piece of broccoli. Any contact with this vegetable is immediately punishable by imprisonment within the nearest trash can…starving kids in China or not, no food of mine is permitted to play with the broccoli. Personally, I’ve always felt that the sole purpose of mashed potatoes was to conveniently cover the broccoli, thus giving the impression that it had been eaten, until it could safely be disposed of.

So while I can’t quite grasp the concept of separating the people you know into different layers, I do understand the importance of segregation to some extent. Unfortunately, the relationship didn’t pass the layer test. I ended up being the baked beans and she turned out to be broccoli.

musical chairs...and desks...and offices

Yesterday, my two and a half week ‘training period’ finally ended. Which means that I am now suppose to know practically everything about the job. Truthfully, though, the only thing I know for certain is that I now have to buy my own lunches. For the entire orientation process, the company bought my lunch. The food is now gone. And while the week after week of training continually numbed my mind, at least my stomach was full. For this, I am sorry to see my training end. That and the fact that I still have no idea what my actual function will be.

I had been at a remote site for the duration of my training period, and upon returning I found that many changes had occurred. The Director of Operations, who was in charge at the time of my hiring, was gone upon my return. Apparently, a better job offer was offered and she left. The Assistant Director of Operations was promoted into the Director position. It seems that on the day prior to his Directatorship becoming official, he left all of his keys on the President’s desk and never returned. Phone calls were made only to find that his phone had been disconnected. No one has heard from him since. So with no Director of Operations to direct the operating of the operations, the entire operation was inoperable.

Naturally, a new director had to be found. So the Assistant Marketing Director was named as the new Director of Operations…which left his old spot unfilled. A billing administrator was moved into the Assistant Marketing Director position, which now leaves me as the sole member of the billing and collections department. Which is big trouble for me…but more so for the company…because I have no idea what I’m doing.

Despite this, however, I’ve got a nice office with a fancy desk. And on this desk is a very cool Rolodex that I have spent countless hours spinning around and around. I have also discovered the joy of white out tape and, when finished with my Rolodex spinning tasks, I have been whiting out countless line items from various sheets that I have found in my desk drawers.

But I can’t help but think that a company where people shift from title to title, department to department, and where some disappear completely, may not make for the most secure and stable working environment. On the other hand, there is clearly room for advancement. Especially for a skilled Rolodex spinning, white outer like myself.

there's comfort in carpeting

The elevators in my apartment building are old, rickety, and covered from floor to ceiling in green shag carpeting. The kind of carpeting where, if you rub it in one direction the carpet looks light green, and when rubbed in the opposite direction it looks dark green.

And while this carpeting is truly ugly, it has proven to be extremely useful in connecting the tenants of my building. The insides of these elevators have become a sort of community bulletin board, building a sense of family amongst the elevator riding population in the complex.

Every morning as I step into the elevator, I’m greeted with a cheery ‘Hi!’ that someone wrote by rubbing against the grain on the shaggy carpeted walls. Naturally, I respond with a ‘Hi’ of my own, right next to their original ‘Hi!’

And each afternoon when I return from work, I can tell what type of day my neighbors have had by the little smiley or frowny faces that have been drawn on the walls of the elevator.

Some days I’ll take part in a game of Tic-Tac-Toe by affixing an X or O on the makeshift board that has been drawn on the green carpeting. And, on the Fourth of July, in the spirit of the holiday, I drew a firecracker on the elevator wall as I rode down, heading out for the afternoon. Upon returning home later that evening, someone had written ‘Yay’ right next to my firecracker. And it pleased me to be living in such a friendly place. A place where you were cared for and had close, personal relationships with your neighbors…if not in the ‘reality’ sense, then at least in the ‘message on the carpeting of the elevator wall’ sense.

Now, however, they have started repairing and updating the apartment elevators. The other day, I caught a glimpse of the one that they’ve started working on. It was carpetless. And in stripping the elevator of its green shaggy interior, these elevator technicians have also stripped us of our sense of family. There will be no more sharing of daily trials and tribulations through the drawn smiley and frowny faces, and no friendly ‘Hi!’s to greet me each morning.

Sure, I won’t wonder anymore if this will be the day that the elevator cables finally snap, sending me plunging down eight stories to my death. But is this really worth losing the sense of community that has been woven into the green shag carpeting in these old rickety elevators?

Of course, there’s other ways to build a sense of community…but that would require actually having to talk to the people that live around me. And I’m just not willing to put that much effort into getting to know a bunch of strangers.

technology can be tricky

My great-aunt Sophie is well into her eighties, and the sweltering temperatures of late have convinced her to get an air conditioner. She had a window air conditioner before this, but as anybody with a window air conditioner will tell you, they simply aren’t able to cool a whole house. Despite this, she was determined to make this little air conditioner work overtime until it finally decided to give in and bring the temperature of her entire house down to comfortable levels. Being the stubborn air conditioner that it was, however, rather than agree to Aunt Sophie’s terms, it chose instead to simply stop working.

“It’s so darn hot in this house that I’m sweating through my pantyhose,” my aunt would complain…still wearing pantyhose because it’s ‘lady-like’ even though it’s summer and people are long past the stage of looking, or caring, much about her legs. “I’ve lived a long life and I think that I deserve to spend my remaining days in the comfort of a cool house!” And with this proclamation, central air found its way into Aunt Sophie’s house.

All in all, this is quite a step into modern life for my aunt…the same aunt who still refers to her refrigerator as an ‘ice box’. She’s never been a ‘gadget’ person, and complicated devices such as cell phones, answering machines, and remote controls, have never interested her in the least. Years ago, we bought her a VCR, thinking that she might enjoy watching a movie every now and then. That VCR sat on her television set, blinking 12:00, for two months, until one day it mysteriously disappeared to the back of her closet, having been replaced by a plant.

“It just wasn’t getting enough light in the kitchen,” she told us. The VCR was never seen again, and I can only hope that it learned to enjoy its life of rest and relaxation in the closet, right beside an old Scrabble game and a box containing an odd assortment of brass candle holders.

Still, weeks of ninety degree weather have convinced her that some gadgets are actually pretty nice, and central air conditioning was installed. I dropped by to see her the other day, yet another blistering hot afternoon, and I found her sitting out on the porch in a lawn chair.

“Why aren’t you inside enjoying your new air conditioner?” I asked.

“The doggone thing doesn’t work right! It’s hotter in there than it is out here, so I decided just to enjoy the afternoon on my porch.”

Over the years, I have found that I’m much more skilled at taking things apart rather than actually fixing things. However, I decided to take a look at the air conditioner in the hopes that the problem would reveal itself to me.

Shortly after heading in, she joined me and asked, “can you tell what’s wrong with it?”

I looked at her and said, “aunt Sophie, you've got the heat on. It's been running all afternoon.”

She stuck her nose up against the thermostat and squinted, in an attempt to read the settings differentiating between ‘hot’ and ‘cold’, until she finally gave up and said, “well who in the world can tell when they make those words so small!”

I put a blue dot in permanent marker by the ‘cold’ setting in the hopes that this would help with her future cooling needs. Though I worry that I’ll return one day to find Aunt Sophie passed out in a puddle of sweat, having mistaken the blue dot for red. Because judging from the odd hues of blue and pink that tints her hair after she goes to the store to buy hair dye, I’m not sure that colors are quite as bright as they once were.

But this may just be due to the tiny lettering on the package.

obsessions

Every morning on my way to work, I pass two people who represent opposite ends of the obsession spectrum. A few miles from my apartment, I pass a guy who is always outside enjoying his 7am cigarette, regardless of the weather. Even in the rain, he stands in his driveway, shielding his lit cigarette with the morning paper, and puffs happily away. I often wonder whether he should be more concerned with lung cancer or pneumonia, but far be it from me to ruin anyone’s happiness by pointing out their impending death.

Further along in my commute I pass another guy who clearly has a more healthy obsession, because every morning I see this guy jogging all around the town. If I drive by at seven, he can be seen jogging past Eckerd on the main road. If I’m running late, I’ll usually see him jogging by the Krispy Kreme, five miles from where the Eckerd is. If I’m running EXTREMELY late, I can usually find him out near the library…which is practically in a whole different time zone from civilization.

The guy is always out running, each and every morning, in his tiny little jogging shorts and a muscle shirt that is five sizes too large and billows in the wind behind him…much like a parachute that can be seen behind drag racers once they’ve crossed the finish line. In fact, the guy is so very concerned about his health, that even during the winter, when the temperature is well below the freezing point, he’s out there running in his skimpy shorts and sagging shirt. Monsoon season came and went, and the man jogged right on through, splashing and wading through his daily routine.

And for the life of me, I simply cannot comprehend the will power and sheer dedication it would take to be this obsessed about something. Whether it be jogging or smoking, at some point I would reason that it’s either too cold, early, dark, or wet, and simply give up and find a new hobby. And every single morning, as I head into Starbucks to get my morning mocha café latte with a shot of espresso and sugar, I feel grateful that I don’t have some type of obsessive compulsion like these two weirdos do.

Because coffee is clearly not an obsession but a necessity.