Work Hell

[isadora]

I heard the craziest office story today--and I have more than my fair share--and I have to spread this one far and wide (like Britney's vagina).

Okay, so my coworker--Sales Chick--goes to the bathroom to relieve her bladder at around 11 a.m. She walks in (there is a door that you push to open and then it s l o w l y closes itself behind you so you'd better not rip a huge fart or anything because the dude's toity is DIRECTLY across the way).

She opens the door to see the World's Most Incompetent IT Professional at the hand dryer. WMIITP is standing at the dryer with her panties in hand--drying them. On top of that, the WMIITP is bare-assed at the dryer.

Sales Chick is like: "OMG! Pardon Me! So sorry!" (how she didn't just FLIP the hell out is beyond me--I'm guessing she thought the WMIITP was having some sort of psychotic break?

WMIITP says, "Oh, heh, I had an accident with my period."

Okay, there are SO MANY THINGS that are fucked about this story that it's taken me all day to process it.

First of all: WHO gets bare-assed at work (period leakage or any other bathroom "accident"--assuming you're an adult who is in charge of your most basic faculties)?

WHO would get bared-assed in ANY public toilet (one with stalls; I'm not even counting ones that have just a toilet and lock)?

WHO, faced with an embarrassing situation such as period leakage, would think it made sense to TAKE OFF HER PANTIES? And then WASH THEM IN THE WORK SINK? And then DRY THEM AT WORK? I just can't even PROCESS this story, as I mentioned previously.

BARE ASSED AT WORK! I can't TAKE IT. What if our CEO had walked in on her bare-assed? We only have one ladies room and we are located in our own building! It's not like she was in the remote "crapping" bathroom we had at the Evil Empire!

Let's pretend it's not batshit to do all of the above. You wash your panties in the sink at work, dry them (with your PANTS OFF) at the hand dryer. Have I mentioned that the men's toilet is DIRECTLY across from the women's? And that the door closes VERY slowly? And that the dryer is located on the wall opposite the door and anyone walking by when the door was open would see whomever was washing their hands?

I will NEVER be over this story. EVER.

Also? Yesterday? A different coworker witnessed our manager picking his nose and eating it.

I work with animals!

[Ginni]

Oh my fucking god! That's INSANE!!!

It's worse than the woman who once gave me a wedgie at work who used to come out the stall with her pants around her knees as she tucked her shirt into her underwear before buckling up her belt and stuff.

You need to write a book.

[NeoMaxy]

You would think she would either go pantiless and trash the panties at work or find a handicapped bathroom that has its own sink and hand-dryer in it to do said business privately.

We had this industrial TURBO dryer at my last job and every morning I would go in there and dry my hair. It saved me about 30 mins of extra sleep in the morning. My younger co-workers would always laugh but hell, I need my sleep yo.

[isadora]

Did I neglect to mention there is a secret second bathroom that is a single? No chance of anyone walking in! It's apparently a little-known toity because it's in this new section of the office--you'd have to walk through the designers/production people to get to it. I would do it if I knew I'd need some privacy and some room for...whatever!

This incident has left me DEEPLY perplexed on multiple levels! Hee!

[ophy]

I totally can't get this story out of my head. So weird.

Also, I the word "toity". We're at the stage where we have to decide how to start introducing the ophykid to the whole toilet concept, and I have been looking for a way to reference it. The word "potty" seems silly to me, so I've been just using the sign language for it. Her signing abilities are hit or miss . . .usually it just looks like she's flashing us gang sings. Very disturbing. But badass!

[isadora]

I have a new manager at work and she's a little, well, cold. I don't need her to be my BFF--far from it. I'm just happy she seems competent (so far).

Anyway, me and coworker peeps have been comparing stories of new manager's occassionally odd behavior. For example, my coworker said that the routing forms we use to move paper through the office are sadly outdated--so outdated the name of someone who died before coworker even started is on the routing form. Coworker felt the disrespectful to the dearly departed and was about to say so when New Manager starts LAUGHING and says, "That's so funny! We had a guy die at my last job. One day he's there and the next...gone! Ha!"

So we were a little perplexed by that. I wasn't that offended. I often laugh at inappropriate things/times. It's an affliction!

Anyway, today, we're having our weekly status meeting and we make a couple of jokes about the poor quality of work we've seen from vendors from India (and worry that perhaps we're getting production work from children.

New Manager goes on to tell his "kinda scary" story about how her husband is a designer (of some sort) and he went to China to see the production line for whatever it was he designed (a book or something) and, sure enough, there were very young teens literally putting it all together by hand. And I was HORRIFIED. And her husband was like: On one hand: look at how cool it is that I created this! And on the other hand: Ugh, child labor!

But mostly she was just bemused by it. While I sat there staring at her like she had a fish on her head.

I can honestly say that I would probably run out screaming if I saw CHILDREN assembling something *I* had a hand in creating. Perhaps I'm being too sensitive but SERIOUSLY how could you stand knowing that? And NOT say anything to the corporate overlords?

Christ, I'm not cut out for the corporate world!

[isadora]

I'm project manager on The Worst Romance Book Ever Written and I have to review the copyeditor's marks and the author's response to the copyeditor. I didn't realize it at first but this book is set in Wilmy. And there's a hurricane of great contrivance that is going to force the hero and the heroine to spend some time together (I'm starting to think this person was a Creek fan--they're everywhere!). Along the way to hurricane closeness/contrivance, the "hero" is kicked to the curb by TWO hotels. In the middle of a hurricane. The first hotel refused to honor his reservation because of the hurricane (which made no sense to me) and then the second hotel kicked him out because the hero's son ran out of his hotel room and into the street. And that was reason to kick them out. During a hurricane.

I am very tempted to query the author and ask her if she's had a bad stay in Wilmy and tell her that most of my hotel stays were very positive. I should also tell her the Wilmy CVB is considering sponsoring her book.

Hmm, we did stay at the shitty hotel the very first night on the first trip (my girls called it the Karate Kid apartment hotel because of the filthy swimming pool) but after that it was smooth sailing, minus a few ants.

[Ginni]

So the bastards have gone and promoted me to the next grade. Yay? you would think? No. While they have doubled my bonus %age and given me 'management discretion' over my attendance at work (i.e. no core hours for me - I can work when I feel it appropriate), they've taken away my overtime pay.

I'm going to be at least £10K worse off next year.

*sob*

[isadora]

Ouch!

That said, I'd take a 10k pay cut to have flexible hours and the kind of vacation time you bastards get. Hee!

[ophy]

Congrats, Ginni! Flex hours is way cool. If I ever work again, it'll have to be a flex hours sitch.

But I don't know if I'll ever work again! I'm telling people that I'm actually retired. Once the ophykid goes to school, I *could* work. But I don't drive! And now I live in one of those parts of the country where you kind of have to drive in order to work a job. The only place I could walk to work would be . . . hmm . . . Micky D's, or the library. I'd like to work at the library someday, but I don't think I'm qualified. You have to have the right degree, right?

I'm crossing my fingers that I'll still have enough pull at my last company to negotiate some kind of part time work-from-home. But by the time the kid is in school, I doubt I'll still know anyone left at that company.

It's weird not to have any kind of career plan at all.

We're both unemployed, but mr.o has to find a job in a couple of months when all of our renovations are done, so we will finally (after 8 months!) have a paycheck coming in. I'm encouraging him to ask the construction company who has been working on our house to hire him (after we are no longer employing them, of course). He's basically been working alongside them for the past year full time, so they know what kind of work he can do. And it's the kind of work that won't interfere much with his opera singing.

[Chef]

OMG! Bwah!
Name Concealed to Keep Is from Getting Fired...

Is, this is the book you worked on, right?

You poor thing!

[isadora]

Eh, no comment? *blink*

[Chef]

Um, sorry Is.

*puppyeyes*

[Ginni]

BWAH!

[Herman]

I really like the cover.