Conscientious Employees

Are they what makes this office tick, or are they just annoying to the would-be slacker?

Twiggy was out all last week. That was nice. It was nice not having to sit next to her royal highness for a week. I also enjoyed being able to go to lunch early without getting the North Chicago evil eye, which is a sight to behold. You don't want to get caught in that gaze.

11:30 strikes. "Hey Twiggy, I'm going to lunch, ok?!"

"I GUESS." Aw shit.

"You don't sound too happy; what's up?"

She pauses to think of something that conveys her displeasure at not having the world revolve around her while not displaying too much venom. "It's just been a long morning."

So f'in what? Every time she says she's going to take early lunch, she doesn't end up going until her lunch period is half over and then I end up having to wait for her to come back. Makes me want to tear my hair out sometimes.

"Oh ok, no sweat. I was just going to Wal-Mart. If you want to go now, you're more than welcome; I don't have anything pressing." I'm doing my best to keep my demeanor as kind and helpful as possible.

"No, it's ok."

"You sure? I can wait."

"No, I'm fine."

Score. "Alrighty, see you soon then."

Anyway, Twiggy has a lot of cute little duties that she does for the office.

She orders the office supplies. Actually, she over-orders the office supplies. Must be her QVC penchant rearing its ugly, Black Hills Gold, Diamonique- encrusted head. When we run out of an item, it's not just replaced; future scarcity of said item is insured against by ordering two backups of the item.

I mentioned that she's a packrat, right? Her cube has piles of paper and old, old software books on almost every square inch. It makes sense that her supply closets would be stuffed to overflowing with ancient office supplies that predate the age of the computer.

I had to put some of her booty away while she was gone. Unfortunately, the world has come to an end, because my officemates, who are mostly helpless males apparently, will have to group their own manila file folders into groupings of the three different tabs. Do you understand what I'm getting at?

Allow me to spell it out: when she orders manila file folders, she sorts the f*ckers into sets of three. The whole box, mi amigo. WTF?

More proof of her search for ways to wipe the rearends of the male members of the species can be found in the fact that she doesn't trust them to be able to sniff out where the coffee is kept. She has to extract the little packets from the boxes and gently place them in the drawers next to the coffeemakers. She actually asked me to make sure that coffee stays in the drawers while she was out. Easy enough, I won't complain. Miraculously, the ravenous coffee drinkers did not manage to run themselves out of easily accessible coffee packets. Thank God!

Next up -- making the coffee in the morning. Twiggy does not drink coffee. Ever. Yet, she shows up here at about 7:30 to make the coffee every morning. Yeaaah.

When people steal batteries, pop, CDs, etc., out of the supply closet, I swear she takes that sh*t personally. It's kind of admirable, really. I mean, she's a very honest sort. Except for the part about plotting behind the backs of her coworkers via malicious gossip.

So I really wish she'd leave her desk so I could get a CD out of the closet and make myself a copy of this CD I'm listening to. Geez, lady, can't you go get some chips or pop or SOMETHING in another region of the office? Hmmm...I do hear coins bumping against one another over there. Perhaps she will soon fulfill my wish?

*sigh*

I really wish I was more like Twiggy. Not an exact copy -- I'd hate to be that hooked on QVC, with bill collectors calling so much...but hey, that *was* me, without the QVC part.

Hmmmm...better wrap this up. Damn Program is starting to ruin my snark!