On the Other Hand, I Can Belch When I Feel Like It

Hello hello hello!  Acme Gravel and Grommets Corporate lackey here!  I’m so glad you dropped by!

You know, I don’t always come into work on time, but when I do, rest assured it coincides with the days that there is no one else on the floor.  People on vacations, people working from home (WFH, or as those in the know say, “whiffing”), people working from, oh, who knows where.  It’s the anything-goes 21^st century, where people take conference calls from the beach and people in the office are alone with their computers and overcome with the sound of the heating/cooling system, a gentle whoosh that makes you grab last winter’s shawl and contemplate the under-desk nap you’ve been meaning to take for the last 30 years.

An intern skulks by. Backpacked and pale, she heads toward the elevator bank, beaten down through long hours (here and at school) and a propensity for introversion.  Poor thing.  She hasn’t built up any work defenses yet. Shall I tell her of “the ropes”?  Tell her where the good pens are hidden?  Would she possibly be interested in knowing of the offices most likely to produce quality, under-desk naptime?

Far down the hall, the World’s Busiest Assistant is whistling.  She’s been in this line of work since certain fish took to land and is remarkably unwilling to learn anything beyond what she already knows.  But oh!  The pressure!  Has she told you of the time she had to order lunch for 20 and THEY FORGOT THE NAPKINS?

She will.  

And on the day she tells me again, I shall smite her.

Note to Self:  Must warn intern of making eye contact with the WBA, that to agree to lunch is madness, that she should never leave with her to a third location. 

Ah. 

So there was a reason for me coming in today, after all.

Who Do You Gotta Know to Get a Snack Around Here?

There are lemon bars in the work lunchroom, leftovers from yesterday’s Birthday Celebration and Monthly Placation.

We’re a cared-for little group, those of us at Acme Grommets, Gravel and Industry (a world-wide Octopi).  In the fall, there are apples every Wednesday.  Once a month there are “treats”.  And almost quarterly someone from the mailroom runs up and down the halls shouting “There are leftovers in the breakroom!  Leftovers in the breakroom!” whereupon we lurch from our desks and stampede toward free food. 

You have to be fast.  Some of the departments here are frighteningly young but many are on the plump side.  Disturbed middle-aged desk monkeys such as myself use guile and experience to edge them out.  I find that cutting through the bathroom and throwing elbows when necessary to be a winning strategy.

Get away from that stale donut, you pup!

I’ve been working for an uncomfortably long time.  I’ve gone from electric typewriters and, so help me, carbon paper, to a docked laptop that I can take home with me, should the urge to work come over me whilst cooking dinner.  I’ve seen dress codes move from panty hose and enclosed-toed shoes to bare legs and flip flops.  I’ve seen numerous people changing their pants in the obliviousness of their open-doored offices. 

I once knew a woman who kept a tiny TV hidden at her desk and watched her “shows” during her lunch break in the bathroom. 

The bathroom.

I said all that to say this:  There are lemon bars in the lunchroom.  To my similarly experienced, randomly hungry coworkers, we will meet in the bathroom immediately. 

As in all things, get it while you can.

But Sometimes it IS Cold

It’s layoff season over here at Acme Shovels, Grommets, and Rope (A Worldwide Octopi Corporation, Pty, LTD, M-O-U-S-E) and the bell?

For whom does she toll?

The bell tolls for Jerry.

A 26-year veteran of these carpeted halls, Jerry got the ol’ corporate heave-ho yesterday. 

I like Jerry.  He once walked blocks out of his way on a bitterly windy January night to ensure I got to the bus stop free of the unwieldy encumbrances of the city, ie., panhandlers, skeeves, and earnestly entitled executives. 

He confesses that he has lost the ability to feel cold, something I have never heard of.

“What do you mean, you don’t feel the cold?”

He shrugs.  “I was working in the barn one night –“

“Wait,” I say.  “The barn?”

“I have a place in South Dakota.”

“Ah.”

“And it was, I don’t know, January?  February?  Super cold.  I mean, I knew it was cold?  But I wasn’t.  I stood in the barn in just a tee shirt and long pants and threw hay for a good two hours before I felt even remotely cold…”  He trails off.  “That can’t be right, can it?”

“Well,” I say, “you were doing physical labor.”

“No,” he says.  “Come on.  Ten degrees.  And that barn’s not heated.” 

We cross Marquette at the lights and I notice that while it is probably 10 degrees right now, he’s not wearing a coat.

We’ve been walking for several blocks, and he isn’t shivering.  I reach out, pull a glove off, and lay my hand on his bare arm. 

Warm.

There's a crowd as he leaves.  It is no longer winter, and yet there's a nip in the air at the elevator banks.  The same man who once called me "honey" in a meeting ("It's what I call my girlfriend.  I'm so sorry!  Please don't call HR!") waves good-bye.  

"I hope you feel cold some day!" I say.

And the others in the office turn to stare.

Please Accept this Individually Packaged Coffee Creamer as a Token of my Esteem

I don’t want to get bogged down in the facts – as one does – but I’ve been working for a little more than 100 years now.

What?  Sure I’m including the door-to-door selling of greetings cards in second grade.

I’m also including the clarinet-polka stylings of my misbegotten teenage years.

As my father once confided to me over a can of Pabst (his, not mine), “You work and you work and then you die.  Are you writing this down?”

I was not - I was six, after all - but I recall the words as if spoken yesterday; and I relay this to you now:  HELP ME.

Not big help.  Not pay-my-bills help.  A joke, maybe.  A Netflix recommendation.  Because if there’s one thing I think we could all use, every now and then, is a distraction.

My new boss has been wonderfully distracting. 

We are in our honeymoon period, and I'm thinking of buying her flowers.

“Can I just tell you that I feel we could be friends outside of work?”

I grin at her.  “And can I just tell you that I feel that we are friends, inside of work?”

She smiles.  Rochelle is attractive and slim, a quick-witted chick.  She stands.  "I know this is our touchbase, but can I leave you here while I run to the bathroom?  Sorry."

"Of course," I say.

She leaves.  I rifle through her drawers, take out a credit card in her name, and send her husband a picture of my feet.

"Sorry about that," she says.  "I have no bladder."

"Really?" I say.  "None at all?"

She sits down at her desk, frowns at her phone and puts it back in her purse.  "Not really,"  she says.  "I am just the peeing-ist person you'll ever meet."

"We should do a Happy Hour," I say.

"In the bathroom," she beams.

We laugh; and for a moment, we're both distracted. 

It Was Either That or A Tote Bag

Every now and then, we here at Acme Gravel and Sprockets take a quiet moment to reflect that, hey, there are worse jobs.

Delivering food on roller skates, for example.  Or crime-scene sanitation. 

Or working where Margaret does.

“Don’t,” she says, “Tell anyone where this came from, but this is a gen-u-wine email from our VP.  Oh, and don’t tell them I work at Global Stickers.”

Sure, I say.  That’s safe with me, Miss Margaret Olson, 5248 Lefse Boulevard.

Random Capitalization and Punctuation included for your Pleasure.

Team,

Recently I noted on the company bulletin board that the TPS reduction goal for 2016 was met!  This was a great accomplishment.  We here at Global Stickers had committed to providing a Pizza Party to the Company in the event we reached our Goal, and since we did, Global Stickers is excited to be providing that Pizza Party. 

Organizing the Pizza's for your team will be the responsibility of the Manager and supervisor. You will have this party on April 1.  Two pieces of pizza per person will be purchased.  Drinks will not be provided.  Multiply the number of people by 2 and divide by 8 to get the number of large Pizza's to order.   Pizza’s must be cheese, pepperoni, or sausage. 

You may order from anywhere in town as long as it is Domino’s, Costco, or Pizza Hut.  No other’s allowed! I would order them in the morning or even the day before to give them time to fill the order.  I have a script if anyone need’s it.

The supervisor or manager should pay for the Pizza's and expect to be reimbursed.   Write clearly, using black or blue ink.  Be sure to include the name of your department, if anyone took more than two pieces, and the exact start and end time of your celebration.  I will review. 

Thanks for the determination you’ve shown this last year, and I look forward to posting this coming year’s next initiative.  Fingers crossed for next year’s reward:  tee-shirt’s from last year’s Inventory Lock-In!

Best regards,

Snidely W. Lash, PhD, OCD, SOB

Long Time No See! What Are YOU Doing on This Floor? or The Bathroom’s Where Now?

The bathroom at work, for the next three weeks, is on the 54th floor.

Coinciding with this is the introduction of an espresso machine, mere yards from my desk, on the 53^rd.

To further layer these events, the bathroom on 54 requires a security badge, both to get in and out of the room.

You see, we here at Acme Gravel and Grommets take our security very seriously.  Sure, you claim to be yourself on the way in to the bathroom, but can you say the same on the way out? 

Can you? 

Can you prove it?

The cries of those who get in on the tails of others and are now stranded, card-less, are piteous.

I consider all of this from my desk, late Thursday morning.  Tweaked on espresso, I simultaneously compose an e-mail, take a soapy toothbrush to some of the last file folders on the planet, and, wide-eyed and twitchy, plan my next trip to the bathroom.

There’s something about having to walk down a flight of stairs and then further in to the bowels, as it were, of another floor for something so simple as relieving one’s self that makes one pause.

Wait too long – as all American office workers do – and you may find yourself doing an interesting and potentially undignified dance.

We take for granted the little things, don’t we?  Heating.  Tarred roads.  Rooves and/or roofs.  Plumbing. 

I check the ceilings for cameras.  In a world of self-locking bathrooms, perhaps the simultaneous arrival of both the updating of the bathrooms and the espresso machine are a test of some sort.  But of what?  Project management?  Spatial awareness?  Bladder control? 

Shaking a clenched fist at the ceiling, I vow to endure this latest first-world problem.  Like one-ply toilet paper and lotion that smells like lavender, not the geranium I prefer, a bathroom one floor down is really nothing.

Still.  I shall shake my fist.

And like my pioneering foremothers, I shall rise to the occasion. 

Welcome? To the Meeting? or What Really Goes on During a Conference Call

Beep!  Beep-beep-beep-boo-beep-beep-beep.

“… and so I told him? that with the significant amount of scope-creep we were experiencing?  that we’d just have to throw it over the fence at some point?  Hello!  Who just joined us?”

“Hi, everyone.  It’s Pearl.  So sorry I'm late.”

“There she is!  Welcome, Pearl.  Let’s go ahead and start, shall we?

“I just want to thank everyone for calling in today?  We have so much to do? And so little time to do it?”

And just like that, I’ve stopped listening.  Because if there’s one thing that bothers me?  Is the upward inflection?  When none is called for?  It's her voice?  Causing me to reflect upon possible personal symptoms?  That would lead me to believe that I might have a need for high blood pressure medication?

WHAT DOES SHE WANT FROM ME?

The short, squat man in my head, the one prone to belching the alphabet in quiet spaces and waggling his eyebrows at passersby, perks up.

“Is that a question?  Pearl!  Psst!  Pearl!"

I sigh silently, distractedly.

"Pearl!  Is she, like, asking us, you know, a question?”

I try to tune him out, of course, as all right-thinking people should.  But he will not be denied.  "Her name?" he hisses.  "Is it, like, Psienna?  With a silent P at the front?"

I smirk, then stifle said smirk.  "Shut up,"

The phone crackles.  "... as you can see on Slide 17?  The blarf-hinged heinie-swaddler? is currently at..."

Hi giggles, digs into an ear with a hopeful and ultimately disappointed forefinger.  "Maybe it's Gnatalie."

I smile, picturing the silent G.  "Shut up."

"Can we make a grocery list?" he says.  "We're out of cat treats."

"... thus clearly indicating a need? for benchmarking?..."

I frown.  "I thought you said that cats didn't deserve treats."

The short, squat man in my head leans against the inside of my skull, wiping out third grade.  "They don't," he whispers.  "They're for me."

The phone makes a noise, something akin to a marble rolling around the inside of mayonnaise jar.  "So that is pretty much what we have time for?  Pearl?  Go ahead and set some time up and we'll go over this?  My calendar is open."

The short, squat man in my head howls with laughter.  "What?" I whisper to him.  "What the?"

He backs away, wiggling his blunt, pudgy fingers at me.  "Gotta run," he says.  "But your confusion?  Has made my day?"

"Shut up," I hiss.

I clear my throat.  "Sure thing," I say into the phone.  "If you could send me a quick e-mail, let me know any agenda or how you'd like the subject line to read..."

"Of course," she says.  "I'll send the materials as well."

Whew!

Good ol' Psienna.

I Must Keep an Eye on This One

Jeff walks past me, arching his back and rolling his head from shoulder to shoulder.  “So how are you running your chunk blocks?”

I turn to see Allen – my double-wide cube mate, my introverted source of wry amusement – lean into his chair, raise both arms above his head and settle into a clasped hand cradle at the back of his head.  “I haven’t.  I’ve been working on the gooey.”

Allen is working on a gooey.

I laugh aloud, which they both ignore.  Being a highly trained perfessional and knower of many things, I understand that he is referring to a GUI, and not a gooey, but I prefer my own interpretation.

And I shall insist upon using it.

The truth is that I am daily confronted by things that I do not understand.  Gooeys, for example.  The popularity of Looney Tunes leather jackets.  The people who walk barefoot downtown.  The woman on the bus whose hair maintains seemingly permanent three-inch black roots in a sea of white cotton-candy fluff. 

There is so much to know.

Jeff leaves, and I turn to Allen.

“How do you do it?” I say.  “How do you know so much?”

He smiles.  “Do I?”

I frown at him.  “Are you saying you don’t?”

“Well I know I know the difference between a GUI and a gooey,” he says.

My mouth drops.  “What?  How do you – “

He holds up a hand.  “Pearl,” he says.  “Please.”

A Veritable Well of Untapped Potential

You wouldn’t know it to look at me now, but I was a straight-A student.

No, really! Spelling? No problem. Math? Yep. Science, philosophy, music? You bet.

And now -- well, so what? Spellcheck has relieved us of the need to spell it correctly in the first place. Calculators are on everything from phones to, well, calculators. Science comes in handy during Trivial Pursuit and while watching Cash Cab, philosophy makes me a thoughtful and open-minded drunk, and my music knowledge – well, again with the Trivial Pursuit.

I made a mistake in not going directly from high school to college.

And I made a mistake in learning to type.

This is probably going to blow your mind, so you may want to brace yourself against a large bit of furniture, but I type like the ever-lovin' wind.

Cool, huh?

No. Not really. Because once it’s been discovered that you’re good at something, suddenly, no matter where you are, if there's a need for a typist, no one else in the room can do it.

“Could you just do the typing? I type with two fingers. It’ll go so much faster if you do it.”

A number of years ago we had a college student, an intern, at work. Nice guy, probably 22 or so. He was young and unblemished and wore earnest business casual sweaters with khaki pants. We called him “Intern Boy” in our discussions of him over the lunch hour.

I wouldn’t say he and I were friends. But we were colleagues; and at work, that’s enough, don’t you think?

He stops by my desk one day.

“Hey,” he says.

I look up from the report I am furiously typing. Can I get a 25-page report typed and proofread in an hour? My boss seems to think so.

He places a pile of papers on my desk. “I’m going to need these faxed by the end of the day.”

I frown slightly. “You are, huh?”

His face takes on a cautious appearance.  “Um.”  Am I one of those saucy, quirky secretaries he's seen on prime time TV?   He isn’t sure.

I cock my head slightly and continue to look at him.

“I don’t know how to fax,” he says.

“It’s easy,” I say. “You see that machine over there? You put the papers, face-down, in the feed. Then you punch the fax number in on the keypad and press the big green button.”

He doesn't move.

Perhaps he hasn’t noticed that the fax machine tutorial is over.

"So voila,” I conclude. “Fish and chips.”

He smiles flirtatiously. “Oh, come on. I’ll just mess it up if I do it,” he says coyly. “I’m sure you do it better than I ever could.”

I think about the As, the gold stars. I think about the Pythagorean Theorem, my interest in Russian literature, about how great I had been on those Word Find puzzles in elementary school.

Whatever he had been studying the last four years, there had not been time spent on office equipment – or office etiquette.

I sigh.  “I support four of the people on this floor,” I say. “I’m sorry, but you’re not one of them. You’re going to have to learn to operate the fax machine for yourself.”

And I go back to typing.

Poor Intern Boy. He walks over to the fax machine, and I lose track of what he is doing. I hope he had taken that as simply and as directly as I had phrased it.



There is a large frosted cookie on my desk the next morning.

“Thanks for the Advice,” it says.

Good ol’ Intern Boy.

Wherein Pearl Enjoys a Good, All-Day Fright

These people look really put together.

I back out of the room, check the signage. 

It’s the right room.  I slowly re-enter and take a set at one end of a long table. 

Welcome, my friends, to eight hours of corporate learning, where an innocuously titled course on “Communications” reveals itself, in dizzying, slow-motion horror, to be the stuff of nightmares.

All that was missing was my entering naked and forgetting my locker combination on the Day of the Big Test.

I turn to the woman next to me.  “Why am I here?” I whisper.

She grins, and I like her immediately.  “Because someone loves you very, very much.”

And we burst into laughter.

It is close to the truth.  My boss, a lovely woman who now owes me an adult beverage the size of a day-long lesson in humility, had hoped only to enroll me in a course that would help me resist the urge to send e-mails with the salutation “Dear Inconsiderate Boob”.

In actuality, however, I have been thrust amongst people who speak for a living, the course being designed to teach them how to move across a stage effectively, how to gesture without appearing to have T-Rex arms, how to make eye contact without frightening the audience.

Now why don’t you come to the front of the room – hold on, we’ll be videotaping you several times to go over in your one-on-one coaching sessions – and give us a couple minutes on, oh, let’s see.  How about the rodeo?

One would think that I, personally-renowned writer loved by absolutely tens of people, would have quite the stage presence.  And you’d be right – as long as I am at a podium and reading. 

But this?  Suddenly, I cannot tell a story and walk.  I have forgotten how to blink, I am rocking on my heels, I am holding my arms out as if to play an invisible piano. 

The word “um” comes to my lips and stays.

The room is supportive and generous, the applause genuine.

I have wandered into a room holding a kazoo, and I have been taken in by the violin section.

And I am looking forward to the drink that is surely in my immediate future. 

Impactful!

I spent all of yesterday (yes, from nine to five) in a communications class.  Was it about effective business communications?  Why yes it was.  Did it involve writing?  Or did it unexpectedly involve -- and here are where the low strings threaten balefully in the background while a lone oboe strikes up a a single plaintive note -- presentation styles and being filmed whilst speaking extemporaneously?  Join us tomorrow when I regale you with tales of humility and fear; but until then, I bring you today's conference call.  Join us, won't you?



I have a conference call to dial into and I’m already late. Shoot.

This is no way to start the day.

Beep. Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep boop boop bee boop.

“…and thank you for carving out this time for this meeting. Who just joined?”

“Hey, everyone. Sorry I’m late. This is Pearl.”

“Good morning, Pearl. We were just playing a little catch-up on what we were doing before we called in, what we’ll be doing once we can get back to our jobs, and what we’ll be doing in the meantime while pretending to participate in this call. Who wants to go next?”

Dead silence.

“Anyone?”

Profound and utter silence.

“OK, I’ll go next then. This last week, I’ve been executing a number of strategic moves. I am also looking at orchestrating the need for you all to take a nose-deep dive into how well you think I’m doing and how this will affect your future here at Acme Napkins and Grommets. This will involve several hours’ worth of pre-work created by renowned thought leaders on the subject of obedience, conformity, and group-think.

Any questions?”

Dead silence.

“Excellent. So does anyone want to update us on what you’ve been working on this week?”

More silence.

“Anyone?”

“I guess I’ll go.” It is Gayle, working from home out of our Boston office. “Um, this week I’ve been logging in on time but have been unavailable on e-mail, taking two-hour lunches, and leaving early for various “appointments”. I’d encourage everyone to leave messages on my voice-mail if you need me and I’ll get back to you when I can.”

“Excellent. Thank you, Gayle. Did everyone catch that? Did everyone catch the apostrophes around the word “appointments”?”

Various static-y sounds of assent are heard.

“Good. Thank you. Anyone else?”

Silence.

“Please?”

“Hi, this is Mark from the Tucson office, working from home. And I just want to say what a great idea these meetings are. My multitasking during meetings is up dramatically, frankly; and I’m procrastinating well into the next fiscal year. I owe it all to this bunch.”

The ether comes alive with the sound of agreement and the working-from-home people finishing their dishes and letting their dogs in from the patio.

“It’s a great time to be alive. Anyone else?”

Silence.

“OK. That’s it then. Everyone have a – oh, one other thing. Remember when we talked about raises and how they would be limited to the monetary equivalent of a pack of smokes a week? Well you’ll find that pack of smokes in your mail slot.”

Nothingness crackles across the phone lines as various people silently consider taking up smoking.

“Anything else? Everyone good?”

Silence.

“Excellent! Have a great week, everyone!”

Bee-boop!

Starch? At the Ready!

It’s a flurry of excitement, here at Casa de Pearl, as I ready myself for another foray into black-pantsed-and-white-shirted encounters of the catering kind. My shirt has been starched into crisp yet bland submission; my practical shoes have been located; my favorite underwear, a trusted pair with a strict no-ride policy, have been set aside.

And my black pants are ready.

Funny thing about those black pants, though: they’re actually Mary’s. We’ve decided, in that quirky, kinda endearing but kinda weird way that women have, that I look better in her pants and she looks better in mine.

There’s a joke in there somewhere, but we’ll let it ride for a bit.

I don’t think men trade pants. Then again, I’m not sure.

I text T. “Have you ever traded pants with a friend?”

“Why,” he writes. “What have you heard?”

So that’s probably the answer right there.

Serving jobs are a fertile land of stress, hustle, and humor. It is a world of shouted jokes, often in Spanish; of carefully balanced plates and mysteriously crusted and rejected forks. There will be glasses to fill with ice and water, place settings to be set, napkins to be napped. I don’t want to get too detailed here – it’s all very technical – but suffice it to say that at the end of the night, I will be several inches shorter and several twenties richer.

Hey. Who has more fun than me?

Mary Be Squeezy

Neatly coiffed, hands clasped behind our backs, Mary and I rock gently on our heels, striving for a look that says both “I’m here to serve” and “Please don’t ask me for anything”.

We are standing in the banquet hall, just outside the swinging kitchen doors.

Church service over, a 30-minute bar/reception follows.

Christmas dinner is right around the corner.

“You look nice,” I say.

“No, you look nice,” Mary says.

Ice waters filled to a three-quarters height, butter pats and creams center-table, silverware inspected, we await the storm that will be the next four hours.

“Oy vey,” Mary says.

A man in a suit, comfortably nestled between “old” and “elderly”, is approaching with a surprisingly sturdy gait.

“Mary!” he shouts.

My head swivels to the right, where I watch a blush creep up Mary’s neck.

“You know this guy?” I say out of the side of my mouth.

“Everybody knows me,” she mutters.

The man in the suit wraps an arm around Mary’s shoulders, rubs her upper arm vigorously. “How’re ya, sweetheart? Say, I’m wondering what a guy’s gotta do around here to get a glass of ice water. Can you do that for me, sweetheart?”

Mary, ever the sweetheart, can indeed get this guy a glass of ice water.

I follow her into the back. “No, seriously,” I say, “How does he know your name?”

She shakes her head. “When I was setting up that table just outside the double doors, he was out there.”

“Did he hug you then, too?”

“I’m irresistible to the old guys,” she says, wide-eyed. “They want to squeeze me.”

It’s true. “You’ll probably get a proposal out of the evening.”

“Shaddap,” she says pleasantly.

Thirty minutes later, and Mary comes flying into the back kitchen. “Ack!” We’d just finished serving the salads: huge, glass-bowled affairs passed around tables of eight, family-style. I hold out a piece of fresh fruit to calm her nerves.

“That’s not going to help,” she says, popping it into her mouth. “Mmmm,” she says, “pineapple.”

“So what’s going on?”

She dabs at her lips, checks her lipstick in the polished steel of the hand-towel dispenser. “Do I look like I want to be hugged to you?”

“I personally find you almost indescribably attractive,” I say.

She narrows her eyes at me. “Why I oughta…”

“Why you little…”

We laugh.

“You busy? Come with me. Watch this.”

I follow her out to the floor, where she is engulfed by old- to elderly men. “Mary!” they shout.

“You gotta meet Pearl,” she says, grinning. She pushes me forward.

“Pearl!” they shout.

One of them throws an arm around Mary, rubs her on the back. “You’re nice people, you know that? You’re just nice people.”

And we smile at each other.

Because, darn it. We’re just nice people.

Nice, huggable people.

You There! With the Shiny Eyes!

We here at Acme Napkins and Grommets believe in keeping in touch, whether you like it or not.

Got something to say? NOT got something to say? It’s all the same to us, because here at Acme Napkins and Grommets, it’s not about getting things done so much as it is cultivating the appearance of getting things done.

Except for you, of course. Or me. You and I, we have things to do.

You know where your big mistake was, don’t you?

Yep. It was the day you did your work and asked for more. It was in the way you said, “I don’t know, but let me find out”. It was when you consistently met your goals and did so while maintaining that gleam in your eye and that smile on your lips. Yes, as drunk as you appeared to be, you with your shiny eyes and your attention to the smallest detail, your performance was top rate, causing you to be handed larger and more complex projects.

You’d think you’d have learned by now, wouldn’t you?

That’s the problem right there. You continue to work at a respectable speed, continue to be held responsible for outcomes, continue to put your best foot forward while stifling the urge to test the tensile strength of the 44th floor windows with your ergonomic chair.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Why do you make us punish you?

Facilities, of course, is against the hurling of office furniture. Trust me on this one. And frankly, who wants to be the “scary” one at work?

Well, actually, you might. You’ll have to trust me on this one as well. There’s nothing like a well flung in/out basket to get someone’s attention. Like the subtle pounding of a forehead on a paper-strewn surface – which no doubt prefaced the flinging of the in/out basket – it says “I’m quite stressed out, yet I remain relatively harmless. Please get me a margarita.”

Well, that’s what I think it says, anyway.

And I always reflect upon this at my next job.

Bruised forehead and scattered in/out box aside, the weekend is almost here; and just in time. There are floors to vacuum, glasses to rim with salt, kitties accompanying one to the bathroom for reasons known only to them.

Just remember:  we've done it to ourselves.  

The Small Indignities; or I Could Just Step Outside with It, I Suppose

There are many reasons for my continued employment at Acme Grommets and Gravel, very few of which have anything to do with financial security.

Firstly, there’s my love of the pre-dawn alarm clock. 

Then there’s my goodly skills with English. 

Srsly.

And of course there’s my reputation as a sprightly and energetic dancer.

Truth be told, however, the real reason I continue to appear EVERY DAY, ALL DAY at Acme Grommets and Gravel, is because of the 25-cent sodies in the break room.

Canned pop!  For a quarter!  Coke, both Diet and Regular; Orange Fanta; Diet Dew and, somewhat seditiously, both regular and diet Pepsi, the temperature is proudly displayed right there near the coin slot.

Ooooh, but there’s nothing like a 34-degree Diet Coke. 

So you can imagine my dismay when I walked into the break room the other day, pulled a quarter from my back pocket, raised the coin to the slot – and noticed the glowing red light of the temperature display.

Forty-two degrees.

Well.

I barely skirt having my eyeballs freeze every morning at the bus stop,  my love of gravy has ensured that my thighs bear the imprint of the seams of my pants and now my pop is at 42?

It’s all I can do to keep from marching down to HR

One of my Many Great Contributions; or, Oh, so THAT'S How the Blog Got Its Name

Until the Great Re-Org of 2009–

May continued employment be with you

And also with you

–I was an Executive Admin. With typing skills that pushed me into hurricane-like velocities, the punctuality of the Amish, and the increasingly rare office skill of knowing when to just shut up and listen, I cut a dashing figure in my Executively Administrating outfits. 

I was acutely aware of the kind of stress that went into being the Vice President of Stuff.  The people I supported were busy people, expected to work 70 hours a week.  They relied on me to keep their best interests in mind.

At one time I had a wonderful boss, a handsome, fabulous man we’ll call George.  At six foot four, George had a bad hip, the cumulative effect of having been an aggressive athlete throughout his life.  We’d discussed this in one of our initial meetings insofar as it would be reflected in any travel plans made, even if it meant taking two flights where one was possible. 

I’d been working for him for less than a month when he found himself in two, back-to-back all-day meetings. Two days of serious nodding, of listening intently and generally trying to stay “engaged” over long periods of time.

Limited breaks, working lunch.

Yuck.

At 10:00 on the first day of this meeting, I take a liberty.

Knocking briskly on the door of the conference room, I walk in. A dozen suits turn to look at me as I stride into the room and hand George a note.

“Please see me immediately in the hall.”

George stands, nods to those at the table as he leaves the room: “Gentlemen.”

Once in the hall he looks at me expectantly.

“I thought you might enjoy a good stretch,” I say, smiling.

George stares at me and then smiles back. “Pearl, why you little…” he mock-threatens.

“Why I oughta…” I counter.

Over the course of the afternoon and the next day, I pop in a couple more times:

“George, will need to reschedule your elbow-bleaching appointment so as to accommodate your appointment with your aroma therapist. Please advise.”

“George, your office chair is on fire. Permission to put it out?”

And every time, George would stand, nod to those at the conference table:  “Gentlemen”.

Then he would leave, walking the halls for 10, 15 minutes, working out the kinks in his knees and hips.

Happy Tuesday, everyone.  Here’s hoping someone passes you a note, excusing you from pain and boredom.

I Just Keep Thinking of Those Gauchos

Some things never go out of style. A black pencil skirt, for example. Buy a good lined skirt, try not to gain any weight, and you’re going to get a lot of use out of it.

But some things kinda came and went, didn’t they? Is there a Nehru jacket in your closet? A dashiki? A pair of gauchos? (Which amuses me to this day, as I believe a “gaucho” is Spanish for “cowboy”, in which case I may not have a pair of gauchos in my closet but would certainly entertain the idea of adopting a couple – for altruistic purposes, of course.)

I told someone once that I would wholeheartedly endorse a work uniform; and I’m still up for it. Hell – I’m thinking of doing it without it being a requirement. Would anyone notice if I were to, say, come in to work every day in a blue skirt, a white blouse, and maybe a scarf around my neck, just for a bit of “look-how-I’ve-dressed-this-up” jauntiness?

But it’s not just clothing. Even foods seem to have eras. At one time in the U.S. every fast food joint had a “potato bar”. Chili on your tater? Cheese? Sour cream? Jellied eel? Hey!  Just how much crap can you pile on a tuber, anyway?

That reminds me:  when was the last time we had fondue? Don’t you think it’s time?

We get bored, I think. How else to explain that this year’s “teal” is different than last year’s “aquamarine” or that the square-toed sturdiness of a Birkenstock differs from the square-toed sturdiness of a pair of Börns?

Or maybe it’s not boredom. Maybe it’s the need to be able to judge others based solely on having the right shade of blue on. Or maybe it’s a way of generating year-over-year profit.

Either way, I’m thinking a nice, proletariat “work uniform” never goes out of style.

I'll Be Awake by Noon -- Talk to Me Then

“Did you have a good weekend? You all ready for work?”

Well, no. As a matter of fact, I’m not.

I would love to tell you that I am. Ready for work, that is. But the truth is, I am woefully unprepared.

I meant to be. I meant to be ready. But there was watching movies I'd already seen on Friday night. And then there was the washing and folding bonanza that was Saturday. There was the writing, the cooking, the refrigerator detailing, the transporting of the cats to their tap-dancing lessons.

Would you believe I completely forgot to leave time to get worked up about being a productive member of corporate America?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m one punctual and competent SOB; but I’m no good at that “You all ready for work?” question. It just doesn’t seem that there’s a good answer to it.

Small talk is not my forte.

I should work on having prepared answers.

“Work? I’m at work?”

“Ready for work? Oh, now, yeah. I can’t remember what they called it, but the doctors said that I can continue with my regular routine as long as I use a hand sanitizer and don't – oh, shoot – have you seen my face mask?”

“Yep! All ready for work! Say, could you cover for me for a couple hours this afternoon? The police – well, the less you know the better; but now that they’ve got the court order they’re going to take that sample whether I like it or not.”

It’s so important to have a good attitude, don’t you think?

Happy Monday, everyone.

Would You Please Take Your Pants Down?

Maryna, the woman for whom there can never be enough jewelry, enough clothing, delights in giving it away.  Dark haired, dark eyed, her English gets better every year, while my Ukrainian remains limited to asking for the ashtray and mistakenly calling men “machines”. 

A bottle of wine into the evening, we find ourselves in her closet.

So far, measured against the four pair of earrings I have brought her, I am up five pair of earrings, three rings, and two necklaces.

And holy Hannah, now we’re in her closet.

“Seriously,” I say, “you don’t have to give me clothing.”

She dismisses my concerns with an elegant wave of a small, white hand.  “Try,” she says.  She holds out a long, form-fitting dress.

“Hmm,” I say.  “I don’t really feel like –“

“Do,” she says.  “Please.”

“I have stitches on my back,” I say, a smallish whine creeping in.  “I mean, there’s a bandage, but –“ 

Maryna is not interested in excuses as to why my modest, Minnesota self is reluctant to get undressed in front of this slender, sophisticated woman.

“Come, come,” she says.  I pull my shirt off, and she pulls the dress up, pulls it over my head. 

I hold my arms up like a child.

We pull the dress down over my hips.

She steps back, evaluates what she see, then shakes her head.  “No,” she says.  “Pants down.”

I laugh, just a little drunkenly.

“No, no, no,” she says.  “Look een mirror.  The lines.  You see?  Ees no good, like this.  You take pants down, we see dress and your beautiful shape.”  She pats my ass appreciatively.  “I weesh I had.”

“And I,” I say, lifting my wine glass from her night stand, “would be pleased to take some of your bust.”

But Maryna will not be swayed by flattery.  “Pants down!”

What am I to do?

When a beautiful woman demands that pants are removed, one does what one must.

Particularly when there are free dresses involved. 

Maryna’s daughter, all five years of her, nods solemnly from the bed, then returns to her iPad, where animated pastel creatures gambol about in an hypnotic fashion. 

Fifteen minutes later, I am up three dresses.

“Beautiful,” she says.   She grins at me.  “You like Turkish/Ukrainian coffee?”

I ponder this.  “I don’t know,” I admit.

“I make,” she says.  “Maybe you like, maybe not.”

“Maybe you give me the recipe,” I say.

She smiles, and I am reminded of a small, dark-haired cat.  “Maybe,” she says, eyes shining, “maybe not.”

Come back tomorrow, where we learn about Turkish coffee!