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The Best Laid Plans |
Go Back |
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hereby present, for your reading enjoyment, a morning in the life of the
Crazy Dog Lady.
9:00 The CDL is scheduled to start work at this time, but doesn’t show up. (Even though the management loses their shit if the rest of us are even a minute late, the Crazy Dog Lady somehow manages to come in at least 30 minutes late every single day without, to my knowledge, ever getting in trouble. When she finally turns up, she presents us with some story about how her electric bicycle ran out of battery power, or she saw a dead squirrel in the road and had to pick it up and give it a funeral, or whatever the hell. This story is re-told to every employee individually over the course of the day.) We wait for her arrival to determine what today’s excuse will be. 9:20 Irritated by her lateness, the rest of us begin plotting ways we can annoy her when she shows up. Joan took over CDL’s job yesterday, because the Dog Lady was on vacation for a day. Joan has written her notes in red ink on green paper. The CDL has expressed hatred for this before “I HATE that red pen! Aaaaoooh! I HATE IT!” so we know that will piss her off. I leave a set of papers on her desk that have—gasp!—not been alphabetized. She hates this, too. Finally, we know her day will be utterly ruined by the sign on the mailroom door. Backstory. The mailroom is adjacent to the room we work in. It’s a small, stuffy room, especially when the door is closed. The CDL sits about 30 feet away from the door. However, the slightest noise emitting from that room, whether it’s the sound of papers shuffling or the copy machine running, sends her into a hissy fit. Every time the door is open for more than two seconds, she runs up and closes it. Sometimes she even slams it shut. There has been something of a power struggle going on over this door. Pierre, who works in the room, has a rather unusual medical condition. He needs something called “air” in order to perform a function he likes to call “breathing”. Pierre asked if he could “keep the door open for 10 or 15 minutes per day” and the CDL got extremely upset at this unreasonable request. Pierre would never say, “Well then: fuck the bitch” but we all got the gist of it anyway when he decided to leave the door open all the time just to spite her. He put a sign on the door saying “This door will remain open during business hours.” That, we know, will pretty much ruin her day. 9:40 The CDL, wearing her bicycle helmet, enters the office. Some people say hello to her. I am not one of those people. 9:45 The Crazy Dog Lady takes off her helmet, frizzy hair scattering to the winds. She begins unpacking her bag, which includes a picture of her dog that she carries with her at all times, rubbing alcohol, old coffee grounds, a goblet for water, and a bunch of grapes. The strangest are the old coffee grounds, as I’ve never, ever seen her drink coffee. The familiar smell of stale old coffee wafts over. 9:50 She rushes off to find Russell, the new claims adjuster. She’s got a crush on Russell. “Is he married?” she keeps asking everyone who will listen to her. “Where does he live?” 9:55 Russell comes into the room, trailed by the Crazy Dog Lady, who is babbling about her bicycle and its battery. Russell smiles, nods politely and slowly edges towards the door. As soon as she isn’t looking, he bolts. 10:00 Sheila (the other person who works in our department) brings me some papers to approve. She has saved the papers until the CDL is here to see her bringing me something, which is sure to annoy her. The papers are supposed to come to the CDL, but Sheila says, “Since you were doing this yesterday, do you want to just finish up?” Sheila and I are very polite to each other, and our eyes are filled with mirth. Who the hell gets infuriated by something so stupid? 10:01 The answer seems to be the Crazy Dog Lady, as she bolts into Maritza’s office, shutting the door behind her. We congratulate each other on our effective annoyance techniques. 10:15 I am finished with my half of our mutual job. The CDL is still in Maritza’s office. 10:30 She emerges from Maritza’s office. She decides to tell Joan all about her day off, which involved pedaling her bicycle from Glendale to a church in Silverlake and officiating at a funeral for a young boy from Dublin. She was the only attendee at the funeral. (I would love to know more about this, but there are some sacrifices I am not prepared to make. Sacrifices in that category include eating live giant caterpillars and voluntarily talking to the Crazy Dog Lady.) 10:43 She is done with her inane story. She sits down to, presumably, work. Not so fast! As soon as she looks down at the notes (written in RED on GREEN paper) she finds a problem that requires her to speed across the office and talk to Russell. Would you like some cream and sugar with that pretext? 11:01 She returns to her desk and sits down. Finally, two hours after she is scheduled to begin work, she actually begins work. 12:00 She just got called into Maritza’s office. The grapevine seems to think she might be getting in trouble for her repeated lateness. That’s great, of course, but I wish she’d also get in trouble for being a vicious, unpleasant harpy who sucks all remaining pleasure out of working at this office. Pttth.
I finally talked to Tim last night. I told him all about my trip, and we made plans to get together tonight. I have to also add how jealous I am of Tim. You all know that my pride in him usually beats out my jealousy of him, but when he told me about his new job, jealousy totally won out. He is making obscene amounts of money at this job. His official title is “consultant” and he takes different jobs as they come up. He’s had the job for three weeks. He’s worked one day. One. Day. And the worst part about it is that he is bored. He doesn’t know what to do with himself, with ALL that money and ALL that free time. I told him that if he would give me half his paycheck, I’d keep him company professionally. But he didn’t go for it. Aah well. Seeing Tim tonight. Happy, happy, happy.
I’m also anxious to get cracking on part two of the travelogue. Unfortunately I can’t do it at work. There are some things I can get away with here, but opening my wizard and transcribing my notes into Word is not one of them. And the picture scanning is also right out. I have been assured that I will get one day of computer time this weekend, and that’s one of my planned uses of the time. In other news,
I’m sorry xoom is so fucking slow. But you and I will be escaping
the hell that is xoom on July 1, the scheduled launch date of mopie.com
and my one year journalversary. I don’t have a new design or anything
yet, but at least it will be faster and not have those annoying banners.
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marku:
 What I'm Reading: MightyBigTV. Addictive as hell. frantic! purple! yes!Journal Quote of the Day: “I promise to sneak you into the occasional loud dumb summer movie when your mom isn't looking. I promise to load you up at the snack bar. ”Random Tidbit: I'll make it through the day with some help from Johnny Walker red. Please click these links. It doesn’t cost you a dime, but it gets me one. Mo at the Movies: Where The Heart Is |
