The Office Warrior

This morning my internal clock woke me up at 4.31am. Just so that I could open my eyes, look at the clock, note the time and congratulate myself that, thank God it was Saturday.

Those of you that aren't delirious with sleep will of course know that it is not Saturday, that we are still 2 days away from Saturday.

Strike one.

A couple of hours later, I get out of bed, slightly unbalanced (for someone like me that is balance challenged, those first few steps can be precarious, kind of like you are slightly drunk. drunk with sleep). I followed the line of the bed, walked out the bedroom door right into the open closet door. I had a fight with said closet door, loudly slamming it back in its place. I'm sure I woke The Boyfriend (he has since e-mailed me telling me he heard my "fight with the closet") but at that point I was trying to sooth the rage that was already bubbling inside me. It was only 6.45 and already rage was bubbling.

Strike two.

I got overcharged for my tea misto yesterday and then made to wait as they realized that I said earl grey tea misto, not vanilla latte. No free drink though. Because I'm actually nice in my real life. Walked back to the office with Anna, who was bewildered because whenever that happens to her she gets a coupon for a free drink. This morning Anna got a coupon for a free drink at Starbucks.

Strike three.

Any sane person would have called it a day, but I am a glutton for punishment. Mostly I don't want to go all the way home again and then have schlep my stuff all the way back and then some to go to my Dutch class tonight.

So here I am, an office warrior.

And Anna sacrificed her free drink for me. Said I needed it more. And I do really appreciate that.

And if I had gone home, I would have missed the following.

I needed to go find John because he left out kind of an important step on this new project of ours. I found him talking to a co-worker who works part time (because he is in school full time). John was saying that the guy would need to start sharing his workspace because we have so many people here and we don't want to start "putting peope in the hall" (Oh John, you're hilarious). And that he would have to disinfect his workspace at the end of every day. I understand that there is flu going around. But telling someone to disinfect their workspace seems unduly harsh. Maybe let him know that he could wipe it down when he came in in the morning- insinuating that you think the other person is diseased. Or make it a policy for everyone.

Oh and I most certainly wanted to tell you about the showdown yesterday. Just another example of how messed up my office is. No big deal.

Basically because we're going through a changeover, processes are changing and evolving every single day. Its impossible to keep it all straight. And inevitably, as soon as you get used to one process, it changes. For the average bear this is a lot to take in and work with.

For Maurice, its basically a death knell.

Maurice really only has one duty. And they changed his process yesterday. And he made the mistake of doing the opposite one time. And Amy, who has been sick and therefore more stone faced than usual, came over yesterday afternoon and started berating him. I think she probably intended to just remind him about it but he became defensive and she kind of lost it a little bit. So I am sitting with my back to them and their voices are getting louder (I'm pretty damn uncomfortable, I mean Maurice is not my favourite person, but like when my brother got in trouble in front of me, the rage could get directed at me at any time!), Amy telling him that he should know better, that he has one job and she should be able to count on him to do it and do it 100% properly and Maurice countering that he was only told about it the day before and he made one mistake. It probably would have been over a lot sooner but Maurice kept fighting it. Amy was really ticked off.

Probably not appropriate to rip someone a new one in front of their co-workers.

It gets better though.

Right near the end, Veronica, who sits on the other side of the wall in a pod of 4 people, suddenly realizes what's going on and yells "oooooooo Maurice is getting in trouble!". She's totally delighted and says it loud enough for the whole office to stop and listen. So if you hadn't been aware of it before then, you certainly became aware.

I can't make this stuff up!

I hope it doesn't get any worse because I have 2 packages of my favourite Dutch treat in my bag (little iced cakes) and if it gets any worse my Dutch class isn't going to get any of them.