Spray Can It!

I am an office dweller by need and definitely not by choice. There are aspects to the office and work culture that I like (although I can’t think of what they are right now) and a longer list of what I wish would disappear. 

After moving to our new location, co-workers were cleaning and preparing their new desks for tenants and day-to-day usage. Since I had been making the trek to Jersey for a while, my desk has been serving its purpose for a while. I also got dual monitors (WOOOO HOOOO! And really that’s the only cool thing about this move.)! I saw some paper towels make their way across desks and wet wipes picking up dirt and germs. 

A day after everyone moved in, I was sitting quietly and working on some analysis when I heard a hiss. I freaked out thinking that a snake had somehow become one of my cubicle mates (and I don’t mean it symbolically!) But there was no such sign. Shortly after the hiss, I got a whiff of a particularly pungent and antiseptic smell. I looked around but couldn’t place where it was coming from so I let it be.

Perhaps an hour or two later, I heard the hiss again. This time I placed it. The person sitting in the cubicle on the other side of me was spraying Lysol all over her desk. This baffled me for a couple of reasons:

• Why would someone spray their desk in an office when it clearly is inconsiderate to those around them?
• How many germs had invaded the desk in the span of 2 hours?
• Why were wipes not a more appropriate form of germ banishing?
• Was this person sick in the first place? Why did they come to the office – to contaminate the rest of us?

A few hours later (no more than 3 hours, I can guarantee), the Lysol can popped out again and I flipped out after hacking the top portion of my lung onto my desk. I honestly didn’t know how to handle this situation because I’ve never experienced this behavior in an office before. I walked over to one of my colleagues to ask if this person acted in this manner in the Brooklyn office as well or if this was a ‘new cubicle’ behavior. She didn’t recall any smell of Lysol in the other location. 

Speaking to someone else about it calmed me down a bit. The fact that this person was not in the office the next day helped my rage a bunch too. However, the day after, it was take-after-take of a Lysol commercial gone awry.

I contemplated getting Lysol wipes for this woman and leaving them on her desk with a note saying, “Stop Spraying!” I am not sure if it would work. Thought about approaching my boss to talk to her boss but it seems silly. Perhaps I will just get up every time she sprays or if it becomes increasingly difficult to breathe, I will tell her to stop. 

This is the kind of stuff that makes me abhor the office. I feel as though as I get older the office annoyances list grows and I wonder if I am not turning into the regular office curmudgeon. But I do wonder why people insist on this kind of comportment when others are around them?

Location Frustration

Hurricane Sandy came through the Tri-State area more than a year ago but she left quite an impression in more ways than one. Even after all this time, there are still impacts to her wrath. Although I was not touched directly by the storm, it has indirectly damaged my life. 

I mentioned in an older entry how my building was flooded by Sandy’s rain and rising tides. My group was not allowed to move back to that building until an inspection by the EPA was completed. Then just when we thought it was safe to go back, we got news that my company was determining a different location strategy. We were told we would be moving to the Brooklyn offices whenever the space was allocated. For months we waited and nothing seemed to progress. I made my way back and forth between Jersey City and Brooklyn because we did not have enough seats in any one location. 

Then a few weeks ago we were told we would be moving to Jersey City permanently. Happy I was not! Although I had been coming into Jersey City all along, I did so with the idea that it was a temporary location. Now that it was permanent, I wasn’t thrilled. 

The building itself is much nicer than the Brooklyn building but there is really only one viable commuter way in and out of Jersey. With all the snow and tempestuous weather, I don’t want to be stuck on Garden State side of the Holland Tunnel. Since we’ve moved, they’ve also become stricter about the work from home policy. That flexibility made the job decent but it has since made it a bit unbearable. Not to mention that we were never compensated for this change of venue decision. 

This has really brought out the worst in everyone in lots of ways. I’ll definitely detail more of the reasons in future entries. Aren’t you excited to see that I’m writing again? 

I know I shouldn’t complain since there was so much direct damage that people had due to Sandy’s hiccup. But it’s interesting to see that a natural disaster how far reaching a natural disaster can be.

Occupational Hazards

I understand the purpose, in theory, to meetings. However in practice they tend to take a very different avenue. I used to think that meetings were to give information or come to a decision about something, even the occasional collaboration and brainstorming session would happen. But the longer I work the more I see that those logical reasons for people to come together have gone down the toilet pipe. 

Case in point are my almost weekly meetings with someone that I’ve called “Annoying Boy (AB)”. The name alone should explain it all but there are so many reasons why someone is annoying so let me explain why he holds this moniker. 

AB is on the technical side of the business, meaning he does a lot of the coding and fixes to the systems that I use every day at work. AB probably really knows his stuff but he sure as fudge can’t explain it to a lay person or even a non-lay person (like me) with any remote clarity. Whenever we come to a meeting with AB, we go away with 2 of a number of things:

A migraine

The desire to hurt him immensely

Utter and complete general befuddlement

Confusion about what the point of the meeting was in the first place

The doubt that we actually accomplished anything we set out to do in the meeting

It’s definitely a skill because everyone is completely lost when we meet with him. In order to get clarity, we ask questions. But I am certain that clarity is never attained. It seems that the more questions we ask the further down the confusion hole we become. He’s a master of verbal illusion and slight of word. The David Blaine of Data and Business Analysis!

I have mentioned this to my boss, who agrees with me wholeheartedly. Yet, he’s still around. Go figure!

Some people have to pick up boxes or patients and that’s an occupational hazard for their jobs. I, on the other hand, have meetings and AB to deal with on a pretty consistent basis. It all is part of a day’s work!

Yes, Dear

I love to get to the office early so that I can leave at a relatively decent time, meaning early. It was the first real day back in the office after the New Year. It was 7:30 and all was quiet. I was getting through my emails and planning my work for the day. All was quiet on the eastern work front until I heard someone yelling to someone else on the phone in a undecipherable language.

When did this person walk into this group of desk? Who the hell were they yelling at this early in the morning? Why is this something anyone (even the mice) should be subjected to at any point in the day much less the quiet of the morning?

I complained about this via instant message to an old co-worker friend who greeted me with wishes for a wonderful 2014. I told him that it sounded like this person was yelling at his wife. And he responded “Doesn’t he know the only thing he should be saying to his wife is ‘Yes, Dear’?”

I told him that obviously this guy had no clue on how to have a happy marriage. My fried reminded me that he had been married for 19 years. Evidently my friend knew exactly how to be successful at home and at work. He told me that “Yes, Dear” even applies at work but the phrasing is slightly different.

Sometimes you have to disguise it- “You’re right!”….”Great idea!”….”Why didn’t I think of that!”

That explained to me how he recently got promoted. Here I was thinking that maybe coming up with efficiency plans and cleaning up old outstanding issues would get me further along in the work hierarchy. I think that also explains how men get ahead. They have a lot of practice saying “Yes, Dear”. I definitely can’t say I’ve mastered that turn of phrase in the least. Sounds to me like Mr. Early Bird hadn’t mastered it either.

Angie's Rib

There is very little that I remember of the daily ins and outs of my pregnancy. I do recall an awful lot, don’t get my wrong, but those typical complaints and cravings that you hear about with regards to pregnant women don’t come to mind. (You can ask my husband though. I’m sure he has a whole list!)

One particular complaint that I had towards the end was that I would repeatedly get kicked in the ribs every night. It was incredibly painful to the point where I would have a bodily reaction as if someone were kicking me in the stomach. A number of times I thought the force and repeated nature of the kicks would eventually break a rib. I even remember one night when the relentless kickboxing class made me cry. I thought at that particular moment, I would feel the bone(s) give way. Turned out it just hurt a lot and I didn’t sustain any broken ribs. 

As I said to a doctor early on when my daughter didn’t want to cooperate during her anatomy scan:

 “I have my work cut out for me, don’t I?”

 He replied, ‘Yes, you do.”

From that moment on, I knew M was going to be interesting. (There was another moment before that but this was the point when I knew I’d have my hands full!)  She definitely showed it through my pregnancy, especially every night as she auditioned for the Rockettes, and now that she’s outside my stomach as well.  

My little stunt double apprentice has taken a liking to the bathtub. Not entirely sure why but she could sit there for hours playing with toys and inspecting the material of which the tub is composed. One morning after finishing a bath, I turned to get the towel on the sink. I discovered on turning back that mini-spidergirl was climbing up the shower caddy, which gave way right under her. Acting quickly, I grabbed her with my right hand and held the caddy from falling with my left. In doing this acrobatic move, my foot slipped from under me and I crashed into the edge of the tub. I heard a crack and felt pretty intense pain. I was pretty certain that I broke a rib. As I was trying to compose myself, stop crying and attempt to move, my daughter looked at me like “Let’s do it again!” I turned to see the dog sniffing at my body. Maybe she knew something I didn’t know about my bones. 

Luckily nothing broke which is a blessing. Even with bruised/cracked ribs, it’s hard for them to heal when you have to pick up a munchkin who insists on moving at warp speeds. I just hope this is the last bit of torture my ribs will have to sustain for a while. But I’m definitely not holding my breath (frankly, because it hurts!).