Oh, work. You pay my bills, which by default requires an ingratiating amount of gratitude. 'Tis fair enough to say thanks, for God only knows where I'd be without you. And you enable me to subsist (independent of my nonexistent familial financial safety net), though I sometimes wobble on the tightrope of adulthood for the perpetually young at heart. Still, I am capable and you enable me to be so and I appreciate that, but now I must ask for more.
I want more than "Welp, it keeps me from being destitute." I'd like to feel less Ernest about my job and more ... well ... earnest. And I know, I know, this entirely needs to be my doing, but I'm just putting it out here in a plea to the greater, higher-yielding dividending good. As I begin to move and shake from my cocoon, it surely would be grand if you could do a li'l shimmy shake on your end and help me out. But I'm not here to pine for my emancipation; I'm here to (oncetagain) rant observe and chat about folk.
Every office dweller--be you one who's been blessed with a physical stonewalling door or one of us cubicle captives--has his/her foes. There are millions of Dwights and Miltons, Chatty Cathys, Runteldats and micro-managing Mussolinis, and all of their antics are magnificently documented. I just want to welcome you into my sphere of indentured servitude for a brief while.
Are any of you aware whether it'd be possible for me to file respiratory assault charges? I know I've been guilty of a few too many spritzes in my day, but in general, when it comes to mist-ifying myself, I strive to abide by the following rule: One must anoint oneself; not baptize. Perfume should be applied with dabs and spritzes, not with sweeping Boston poppin', crescendo-inducing gestures. It ain't Aqua Net.
Goodness knows there is enough trial by fire in an 8-hour workday, but I'd appreciate it were my olfactory bulbs not subjected to sniffing for survival. Yesterday, a co-worker was complaining about the amount of time it took her snowblower to clear all the ice off her rather substantial driveway. "By the time I was finished," she breathily exclaimed, "I smelled entirely like gasoline! Can you imagine?!"
I for one couldn't imagine anything other than what my dying brain cells looked like as they wilted under the essence of gasoline, formaldehyde and patchouli. And then there's the girl swaddled in vanilla sugar cookie dough. Now I'm not a fan of enhancing my body's natural scent with food scents namely because [Warning: We're veering a tad close to the gutter. Steel your mind.] I don't want errybody who can smell me thinkin' I'm readily edible. Some people take shit literally these days. You just never know.
Anyhow. Vanilla sugar cookie dough girl. You can smell her from 10 yards away. As soon as you open the back door (which is followed by another door, mind you) you can smell her. Pepe Le Pew and a coon hound could find her come hell or swamp water. And she has the nerve to reapply throughout the day. I also suspect she's a huge fan of the gift set.
It's offensive and to my knowledge has been brought to the attention of human resources to no avail. People who sit in front and behind her claim to taste vanilla sugar cookie dough in their morning coffee and on hot wings. I'd have febreezed the dickens out of her by now.
Fair warning: The next bullet is about women and bathrooms. It gets nasty. You have the option to skip over it.
I now wonder about women all over our country. Are their bathrooms at home as disgusting as the ones they vandalize at work? For four years I've tried to reason with myself, citing boll weevil resurgences and handmade confetti operations to account for the shredded smattering of toilet paper and paper towels littering the ladies' room on any given day. And the butt paper (a.k.a. seat cover) spottings. You place it on the toilet seat; it crackles with applause as you sit (Queen that you are upon your throne); it applauds again as you rise; and yet somehow between you redressing yourself and opening the stall door you leave it there.
The toilet bowl has no arms. It is a bowl. It only flushes that which is within it, and in case you haven't noticed, Butt Paper Assailant, the entire sheet is soluble which means that li'l lip of paper you inserted into the toilet has already dissolved by the time the whirlpool whips its way around said bowl. What remains is in fact, I think, your ass hat. I have no interest in recycling that so in addition to handlin' your bidness, please handle all your bidness and tidy up after yourselves.
There shouldn't be any words for this, but I can't help myself. I'mma get crude because I have a point to make. Granted, it's a point one shouldn't have to make since we can all readily agree that the bathroom should be a place for discretion, but let me tell you somethin': some of you girls need to work on your tampon removal technique. It ain't a damn baton ... or a paint brush. No one other than you needs to know your lady business is in town. And for those who read that and are horrified, I'm sorry, but I'm also not kidding you. Yes, it's that damn nasty.
Cup and cough. That means put your sneezing, coughing, phlegm-wranglin' face in the crook of your elbow or your armpit and expel your germs there. I am (seriously, literally, completely beyond) sick of folk walking by my cubicle convertible Paul Revering their dat-blasted germs.
Oh, and if you or your kids or your husband have a stomach bug, stay home and hug it out amongst yourselves and the damn can. Stop coming up in here sighing and stopping to chit-chat. The latch on my gag reflex is sketchy and unpredictable enough without you buggin' me.
To my weight loss warriors and calorie counters. Stop sabotaging yourselves and others. You can't always be broadcasting your spin class or weigh-in results and turn around and bring in muffins the size of an entire Smurf village.
Beef up on your body language reading skills. A person wearing headphones is otherwise engaged and therefore is probably not immediately interested in speaking to you. If, however, you stop and this person raises their arms to remove said headphones, pray! Initiate your conversation. If the person gives you a 'sup nod, smile or nod back and keep walking. In the event that you receive a face like the following face:
Just keep walking. Don't stutter step. Don't frown. Don't smile like a snaggle-toothed first grader. Just move away. Don't challenge the Brow.
And stop loitering. If a person never turns their body or head to completely face you, they're not interested in carrying on a conversation. If I'm still typing on the keyboard while you're chatting, I'm not multi-tasking; I'm just not listening to you. Bye.
Mind your business. I know we're in open-air areas where conversations overlap into our consciousness, but if I show up at someone's desk I don't expect to see your head pop up gopher style and linger in my conversation. Especially if you're just staring and not saying anything. That's rude and don't expect me to account for yo' mama not showing you any manners. You will be ignored and my facial expression ain't gonna be polite.
I am not a morning person. It takes me a full hour before I feel like saying hello to anyone, even my mama. We've worked together for nearly a year now and somehow you still take offense to the fact that when you chirp "Good Morning" I give you a healthy harrumph in return. I come in later than you, but I expect to have the same grace period of silence that you get when you come in. My arrival is not an open invitation to play 20 questions with running commentary.
Eating at one's desk. Oh my lawd I think this one right here has caused me to come undone more than any other annoyance (and there are so many!). I know it's impossible to eat silently; I cannot manage it either. No one is the Golden Child with his little one leaf eatin' self. But my god. The Great Masticator (a.k.a. BICC - Bossy Interjecting Chatty Cathy) has caused me to completely re-evaluate how I ingest everything.
I got backhanded, slapped, side-eyed and hissed at for smacking when I was growing up. "God gave you those big lips to cover your mouth. Heed His gift." I remember food being snatched from in front of me for smacking my lips, licking my fingers noisily, crunching and chewing with my mouth open, burping like I was auditioning for Animal House, talking with my mouth full, etc. I already knew I was raised by a goddess, but I didn't think she was one off the few and the proud imploring her children to exercise some decorum while eating.
I ain't no Miss Post by far. French Onion soup vexes me terribly; my breast ledge catches more food than a Venus fly trap; and I am known to dance and Clump clap when the eatin's get really good to me. But you don't hear everything I taste. I have literally swiveled around slowly to stare at this co-worker like she was a zoo animal (and I use "like" loosely). The plexi-glass separating us added to the awesome allure. At some point me or my equally annoyed/offended co-worker in front of me have said:
"Wow, that popcorn smells good! And it must be some damn good popcorn, too."
"Does your husband know about your lollipop eatin' skills?"
"Those are some awfully fresh chips."
A set of six cubes and half of them are filled with obstinate chewers. In addition to The Great Masticator, we have Sucker of the Teefus (f.k.a Finger Licker). This Sucker also apparently only eats finger foods and descended from amphibians. Then we have Chomp Crisply. Pretzels never sounded so good and every chip is a symphony.
Their incessant eating threatens to drive me to the outskirts of paranoia. I can barely eat an apple now without wanting to kill myself ... or file down my teeth.
Extraneous and erroneous punctuation in e-mails. There are times when disbelief and excitement call for a little extra, but these times are rare and almost never occur in one's workplace--certainly not in an internal accounting department. I believe question marks and exclamation points should operate on a 1:1 ratio. One question warrants one question mark. Despite the fact that there could be myriad reasons why I failed to read your mind, you're still only asking one question when you type, "Is there any reason why this hasn't been processed ???? ?"Please note the extraneous spaces in between the family of displaced question marks.Is there any reason you were allowed to receive a high school diploma?
Work. No matter your industry, it's a strange, funky business dealing with people. As irrational as I probably sound, I really only want one thing from people--just a li'l Golden Rule-tinged effort.
Re-reading this it seems abundantly clear that my neurosis could best benefit if I were to begin working from home immediately ... perhaps permanently. I'mma go chew on that for a spell. Holla.