Dubya

Just when the world thought it was rid of George W. Bush...he shows up in my office.

Not really.

But one of the new Temps, the one that started on Tuesday, has a nervous work laugh that sounds exactly like an impression of dubya. I can't even begin to tell you how irritating it is. At first Anna and I mocked him, because on his first day it was a lot louder. But now its kind of settled and like lightening this morning I realized that it reminded me of something.

And now I know what it is.

Also, unfortunately for him because I haven't really talked to him and have already formed a base judgement that's going to be hard to shake, he reminds me forcefully of a more compact version of my least favourite person. That's right ladies and gentlemen, while John suns himself on a cruise (hopefully he's already fallen off the boat), the Universe has sent his mini-me to torment me in his stead.

So in addition to his looks and his irritating laugh, apparently he is a chatter. Not to me. I have this habit of terrifying the newbies, kind of intimidating them with my stone face, until I can be sure that they aren't tools. So Veronica is telling me about the new kid last week before he starts and she seems like she has doubts. I'm like well what is his deal?

"He seems like he might be too chatty"

Quite the criticism from our own social butterfly. It took a lot for me not to say something like "OK Kettle". Not to be outdone she spent pretty much all day with him yesterday, "showing him the ropes". Do you know what she had him do? Do you know what she had to show him? How to deconstruct cardboard boxes for garbage. And then they kept walking back and forth through the hallways. I only heard snippets of conversation, all from her with his Dubya laugh encouraging her.

"I thought it was a really grown up decision" (I have no idea what it was)

"The doors are black"

"I'm really good at using my rear mirror"

"Do you know someone that does good tinting?"

That's right kids. Veronica got a car. I'm not really sure why. She lives with her parents. Who drive her everywhere and she takes the Skytrain to work. But she needs a car? And she wants to "pimp it out" too. She carried her new car keys in her pocket all day. I'm pretty sure she still took transit to work, but probably just liked the feeling of her car keys.

So fresh off her car buying high, Veronica had her very own meeting with "her" team. She wanted to tell us that we're making a lot of mistakes that she has to deal with and she already has "a million things to do" so she wants us to know this. She kept mentioning how stressed she was, buzz words like "overwhelmed" and "workload" were thrown out a lot. The best part was that people were asking intelligent questions and not only did she not have the answers, she acted like she did and just answered a question that wasn't asked. An excellent way to spend a half hour of my life.

Then again there was cake. Which would have cancelled out the meeting and the new Temp (whom I hereby christen Dennis) except that my bra just broke. So now I have underwire poking into my flesh.

Good thing I didn't wear my new boots.

Or would they have made me feel better?