Where, oh where, Has My Twiggy Gone?

First of all, I should probably change her nickname. But it suits her and I'm too lazy to do so today, so I will let it lie.

I have a new person to talk about. We're going to call her Hairspray. She's an executive assistant back in the TRULY executive area…ie she supports a real executive and occasionally backs up the other EAs who support real executives. And we're calling her Hairspray because her hair is always perfectly in place; she has a incurable case of helmet hair in that it never moves and she never touches it. And you shouldn't either. Not just because it's an office setting so there's no reason to touch anyone's hair, but because, having seen the hair, you'd probably be afraid to touch it and mess up its pristine perfection. And she might bite your hand off.

Not sure why, but I feel compelled to add 'just kidding' onto that last one. Probably because she seems like an actual nice person. :o) You know, this fairly charitable attitude of late is doing nothing to improve the entertainment value of my writing. People like unfettered sarcasm much better.

Moving on…

Hairspray walks past my cube. "Hey Secretary, where's Twiggy?"

"Oh, she's inhabiting the former glorious Adminzilla's cube."

"Wha…?"

"She's standing in as Napoleon's assistant."

"Oh. Lucky girl," she says in a tone that conveys sympathy for Twiggy.

I catch on immediately, because we all have the same sort of attitude about that.

"Mmmm, yeah. She actually seems happy to see me sometimes, which I consider to be an accurate measure of her happiness in that situation."

And I'm not kidding. Our interactions have taken a decidedly positive turn. Yet I know that when she comes back up here, they will go back to their previous frigidity.

I was talking to Supervisor yesterday and I said, "Why don't you guys just throw a big raise at her? Everyone loves money."

Then the death knell to that suggestion. "Well, there's other things."

Like what? Oh, maybe that she knows close to zilch about Excel or PowerPoint or any one of myriad common pieces of office software. Of course, no way am I going to ask Supervisor that little question.

They went through another round of candidates for the EA position left vacant by the lunatic. Nitpicker's still 'in the running' but if she was going to be hired, trust me, they'd have hired her already. I don't know why, but they aren't going to hire her. Maybe it's because she's too nice or perhaps it's the missing index finger. Perhaps it's because Nitpicker and I actually get along ok and have been seen conversing. They don't want someone who's prone to office friendships. After all, how could they trust that the person would remain confidential even when they're going to axe one of her friends?

I think Napoleon just likes the status quo right now. Why shouldn't he? Frankly, I'm quite fine with it too. Nitpicker's more human than Twiggy.