Give Time if Over Have Street

I have attempted, with only moderate success, to describe just how bloody frustrating my secretary is. I hope the following illustration of her incompetence will allow you to feel my angst (thanks for the great word, Sturdy Girl (formerly Love Monkey)).

I was out of the office most of the day yesterday, and I returned to find several telephone messages on my desk. On one of them, the secretary had written only the gentleman’s first name, no telephone number, and this delightful message: “call put you won’t here.” That is exactly what she wrote. I have no idea what it means, either. Even my secretary seemed to be confused at what she had written.

Sigh.

In other news, I have fixed Jen Mck’s and mel’s new blog addresses in my 40-Man Roster. I also added Guilty Secret and Have the T-Shirt. If you check them out, tell them Lefty sent you. They’ll send me a case of beer for any referrals.

Do You Think They Have Indoor Plumbing?

I’m leaving again. This time I will be jetting to lovely Cherry Log, Georgia, just north of Atlanta. I’ve never been, so I am assuming it is lovely because that’s what the Cherry Log Chamber of Commerce tells me.

I’ll be at a two-day seminar. Five of us will spend time with the top person in our field. He may be the top person in the last 100 years. Or ever. In other words, he’s good. The other four people are some of my closest colleagues, and we always have fun together.

There may be wine. Maybe even beer. Possibly, if we’re lucky, basketball. I’ll tell you all the great stories when I get back.

On the home front, things have been very stressful at the Lefty home. That’s mainly because I am the only one there who is perfect in every way. I’ll share about some of that when I return, too.

In other news, the Cubs take their ringless streak to 100 years. And the West proves best in the National League.

College football is generally annoying the hell out of me.

See y’all when I get back.

It's Like Working in a Carnival Sideshow

Does anybody have any advice for handling people who have fragile egos? And by that, I mean the people who feel the need to gain attention and gather accolades to themselves, and who fume and pout at every perceived slight? And all of this, despite the fact (or perhaps, because of the fact) that they produce few actual results except to drive everyone around them completely nuts.

One of these days I'm going to snap and put them all into the wood chipper.

Return of the King

Yes, I’m finally back. No, I didn’t retire. Nor did I do a stint in the slammer.

Vacation was very nice. Mrs. Lefty and I took two of our kids to San Francisco for a short visit. We did all the typical tourist things—cable cars, Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown, beating up homeless people.

When I arrived back at the office there was the usual pile of extra work and emergencies to clean up. I don’t know the name of the physical law involved, but whenever you leave for two weeks of vacation, you always come back to six weeks of work on your desk. Plus, as you know, I have staff people with a gift for creating emergencies unless I am holding their hands.

I’ve been working my ass off, which is why you’ve not heard from me lately. I’m also moving into my busiest quarter of the year, so my goal is to post two to three times a week, probably no more for a while.

Of course, I’ll be as witty and charming as ever.

Note to Tink: I saw a Landshark Lager billboard.

Note to American League fans: Scott Proctor's not bad; Esteban Loaiza sucks.

It's a Dry Heat

Each June, my employer sends all of its employees to one of the hottest locations within driving distance for a week-long series of meetings. (By “hottest” I do not mean “coolest and hippest,” but “just this side of Hell”.) In any given year there are 800 to 1,000 of us gathered for the most pointless, long-winded sessions imaginable. But it’s not all bad. The meetings are held on a university campus, so we get to stay in old, smelly dorms with no air conditioning.

I get to see cherished colleagues there every year, and that almost makes the rest of the nonsense worth enduring. Of course, I always hunt down my best friends in the group to find the coldest beer in town.

My oldest friend there is a guy I first met in college. We played on the same intramural softball team and had lots of other common interests before we became colleagues. He was kind enough to rub in my face the fact that he plays on an adult baseball team once or twice a week. Bastard.

The good news is that I haven’t yet been purged from the company, and I still have a job. The bad news is that I’ll have to go to these meetings again next year.

Take This Job and...

My job is people-centered. Every single day I have to talk to people, and what’s worse, listen to people. I have to pay attention to what they need and want and care about. I must work side-by-side with them. I must respond to their fears, frustrations and complaints (and boy, do they have complaints!).

It will surprise no one that I hate people. Actually, that may be too harsh. I am not a people person. I need my space. If I were the last person on earth, I’d say “Finally!” I like to work alone. Coordination, compromise and teamwork are just too much trouble.

On the other hand, despite my severe annoyance at the fact that there are other people on this planet and that I have to work with some of them every day, I love people. Despite myself, I genuinely care about what’s happening in their lives. When things are great, I celebrate with them. When they are lousy, I feel for them.

I often think that I need a new career. I’ve been doing this for nearly 15 years, and I have moments when I’d love to leave it all behind me. But I don’t think I can. There’s something about this job that’s got a hold on me. You might say it’s a calling (whatever that means).

Besides, it’s probably good for me that every day I come to work, the part of me that seeks to avoid other human beings is stretched and exercised. And sometimes--only at a moment when I am working with other people--I really believe in my job, that what I’m doing makes a real difference in this world.

Two things would make my job a whole lot more satisfying, though: more money and a mute button that works on complainers.

Who's Your Daddy?

There is a preschool immediately adjacent to my office, and throughout the day I am serenaded by kids--mostly happy ones, but the occasional screamer, too. Even though I generally hate to be around people of any kind, I make an exception for young children. I don’t know why that is, perhaps because I feel like such an intellectual giant in the presence of a 3-year-old. Or maybe they have the inherent cheerfulness that I lack.

I often chat with the kids and their parents, and have come to know one mother and her daughter. They are both from Yugoslavia. Though the woman is still married to the girl’s father and seems to have a decent relationship, the father remains in Yugoslavia. It’s an odd family situation and, frankly, none of my business.

The girl has been in the United States for most of her 3 years, and though she could identify her father in a photo, didn’t really seem to know him. She’s a tiny little thing, and absolutely adorable, though a little shy.

That’s why, yesterday, I was startled (and a little terrified) that when she saw me, she ran up to me and said in a loud, happy voice, “Daddy!” Her mother said to me, “She looks like you.”

Now, this is not a complication I need. I can tell you for a fact that I am not this girl’s daddy. But if my wife (who leans toward jealousy and paranoia in these matters) heard that exchange, I’d have my eyes scratched out in nothing flat. Then, she would proceed to kill me in an excruciatingly painful way every day for the rest of my life. Plus, there might be other rumormongers wandering around. Not helpful.

I think I’ll have to make myself a little scarce around the preschoolers for a while.

I'll Be Back

I am traveling to a series of business meetings this week (yes, in a sunny clime!), and so I probably won’t update this most important blog for a while. Instead, see one of my friends at the blogroll to the right, and I’ll be back before you know it.

You won’t even miss me.

(Hey, you’re supposed to argue with me. I say, “You won’t even miss me,” and you say, “Sure we will,” not “Good point.” Sheesh.)

I'm More Childish Than I Realized

I’m not proud about it, but I did take your suggestions to play a prank on my secretary. I hid her cordless phone in a file cabinet. (I stole the idea from that episode of The Office when Pam and Jim hid Andy’s cell phone in the ceiling above his desk and kept calling.) It didn’t take her too long to find it, but it did give me a moment’s pleasure and a strange rush of adrenaline.

I’m looking for some good photos to put on her computer desktop. Any suggestions? Other prank ideas?

Death by Stapler

You should be glad you don’t work in the same office I do. Today, you’d have a very unpleasant Lefty around to make your life miserable.

First, I’m sick. It isn’t the steaming fever, raging sore throat and exploding sinuses (to steal a line from Dave Barry, the Exploding Sinuses would be a great name for a rock band) sort of cold. It is the slight drip, dripping runny nose that reminds me of a leaky sink, the “Dad, can I? can I? can I? CAN I, huh, please?” sort of sore throat that is more irritating than painful, and enough of a fever to make me weak and weary. So that’s got me pissed.

And then, did I mention, there is a secretary that works here?

Each week, on the very same day every single bloody week, she is to go to a particular drawer in another office and pick up two forms that were filled out the previous afternoon. She is to then fax the forms and put the originals in a file.

You’d think it would be a simple task, right? You would be totally WRONG. It is more complicated than assembling the entire Earth using only a box of matchsticks and a piece of gum. About every other week, the secretary comes in to tell me that one or more of the reports is not in the drawer where it is supposed to be. What she really means is that the form was not RIGHT ON TOP with a Sherpa guide nearby to help her locate the form.

It is true, that for some unexplained reason--probably ghosts or mice with superpowers--the people who fill out the forms do not always put them in the right drawer. Sometimes one form is in the correct drawer and one is not, and sometimes neither form is in the right drawer. But always--ALWAYS, damn it!--if the “missing” form is not in the correct drawer, it is in a drawer precisely adjacent to the correct drawer. That means there are a maximum of three additional drawers in which to search for the form.

“But,” says the secretary, “I can’t go ALL OVER THE PLACE looking for the form.”

It gets better, though, because this week she couldn’t find one of the forms. So, like the idiot I am, I went in to look for it. I opened the drawer. On top was the empty clipboard that holds the form she had already collected. I lifted up the clipboard. And there, like the Golden Ticket from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was the blessed form. She DIDN’T EVEN LOOK!

Now on to part two.

Our office answering machine had a message from an employee at another location stating that she needed certain supplies. When that happens, the secretary purchases the supplies, and I take them to the other location because I am over that way quite often. Did I mention that the employee said she urgently needed the supplies?

After a couple of days had passed and there were no supplies for me to deliver, I said to my secretary, “Please let me know when you have bought the supplies so I can take them over.”

“You didn’t tell me to buy them.”

Somebody else was in the office, so I didn’t say what was really on my mind, which was “Waaaaaaaaagh!” as I plunged a stapler into her heart.

I also wanted to say, “And I didn’t tell you to breathe, but you managed that. And I didn’t tell you to pick up your paycheck, but you did that. And I certainly didn’t tell you to leave the office early last Friday but still put on your time card that you worked a full shift, but you sure as hell did that.”

Instead, I said nothing, and several arteries in my brain disintegrated.

So be glad you don’t work here. I might just kill you with a stapler.

Working 9 to 5...or Thereabouts

I review the hourly employees’ timecards every Monday. We do not have a time clock, so the times are filled in by hand.

Here’s the conversation I had with my secretary this morning.

Me: Are the hours you filled in for Friday correct?

Secretary: Yes.

Normally, I am not in the office on Friday afternoons, and so I cannot observe whether or not she is in the office. Guess what: last Friday, I was in the office for a short time.

Me: I was here from 2:45 to about 3:15. I didn’t see you here. When I left, I locked up your computer and the copy room. They were still locked when I arrived Sunday.

I work on Sunday, but the secretary doesn’t, and she almost never locks her computer or the copy room.

S: I was here. Maybe I took my lunch at a different time, but that’s when I thought I took lunch.

She had marked her lunch as 1:30-2:30pm.

Me: When it comes to your timecard, you can’t think you’ve got it right. You must fill it out accurately.

She was lying through her teeth.

Additional note: my e-mail inbox has 666 messages. Could that mean anything?

Separated at Birth?

There is a Korean woman who works in the same building I do. She is probably in her 50s. The other day, we passed one another and she said, “You’re so clean cut. You look like Jesus.”

That is definitely not the look I was going for.

You Want Me to Do WHAT?

This is turning out to be a busy week at the office. It seems as if they want me to do actual work.

That means, of course, that I can’t put as much effort into keeping up with your lives, learning about the sounds your various body parts make, looking at pictures of the insides of your refrigerators, or getting detailed descriptions of the snot and/or vomit that comes from your children.

It also means that you will also be deprived of reading about my fascinating existence. Most of you just can’t get through the day without reading my complaints about cats or a careful description of my stapler, pretending it is actually something interesting, such as an ancient fossil.

I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything. After all, I’ve got to pay for my coke habit.

Only the Strong Survive in This Harsh Land

As I write, I am looking out across a majestic landscape. In front of me are towering mountains with sheer cliff sides that drop into deep valleys, ancient forests and gently rolling hills. I see a rugged wilderness full of danger into which only the most adventurous traveler would dare trek.

I am describing the wilderness that is my office desk.

Away to the south are stacks of books, folders and reports that reach to the heavens, the Paperwork Rockies. The tops, I’m sure (since the summit cannot be seen from my chair), are covered in snow, and fierce winds scour the surface. I have even heard rumors of the yeti--the abominable snowman--scavenging the mighty slopes. Two years ago, I lost a secretary when she attempted to conquer the alpine stacks but never returned.

To the north, spilling off my desk and onto my bookshelf is the venerable Greeting Card Forest. This is a land time has forgotten. Old greeting cards given on the occasion of birthdays, anniversaries, V-E Day and Jesus’ original birthday stand as silent sentries of an earlier era. Those who wander towards its deepest recesses will discover a place where the canopy is so thick light does not reach the desktop. Fell creatures surely make their homes there in the shadows.

To the west is grand Inbox Canyon, built over countless millennia. Deposits are laid down at regular intervals each day, and are then swept away once every month or so by a torrential downpour of false enthusiasm. The sunsets over this landmark are world-renowned.

Finally, at the eastern fringes of my desk are the gently rolling hills of Work in Progress. In some cases, near the bases of these vast grazing lands, the most recent progress took place at the same time Napoleon raced across Europe. Atop these hills roam the vast herds of Yellow Sticky Notes that the native peoples once hunted for food. Every part of the Sticky Note was used for some purpose, from clothing to shelter to making tools.

This is a harmonious land, practically unchanged for tens of thousands of years. It is a place where human beings are not masters, but simply one more species of animal that must struggle each day to survive.

It is the untamed wilderness. It is my desk.

Guess Who Is Ranting and Raving Again

There are some days (like today), when I wonder “what in the world am I doing here?” This isn’t a metaphysical question, but a work-related one. What the hell am I doing in this job?

Yes, there are some upsides to the job. Earning money to buy food and thus avoiding starvation comes to mind. Though the pay isn’t particularly good, the benefits are exceptional. I have job security. I am very low on the list with the title “People to Fire When the Going Gets Tough.” Those are all great things to have, especially when the one thing my wife doesn’t have right now is a job.

Some days, however, the downsides seem overwhelming. High on that list is the fact that I work with a pack of slobbering, underachieving lunatics. I feel as if nothing will get done with a high level of precision and quality unless I do it. Some things won’t get done at all. And it is clearly not good for the company if I am doing things like changing light bulbs because the custodian is afraid of heights. (I’m not making that up, folks.)

Part of the reason I work with people who can’t (or won’t) do their jobs is that I am a poor people manager. I don’t particularly like people in the first place, and my attitude toward the employees I supervise is that they should do their damn jobs and leave me alone so I can do mine. Unfortunately, they don’t want to do their own work, and I’m the one that has to ride their butts if they don’t perform.

The best solution would be to fire the biggest idiots and hire other people who will work. The firing part is proving to be a hassle because our human resources advisor wants to be sure we jump through all the right hoops so we won’t get sued. The hiring part is also problematic because we can’t afford to hire good people, just ones who will work for low pay because they are not good enough to get a better job somewhere else.

What to do? I’ve considered jumping out of my office window. That isn’t an effective solution either, because my office is on the ground floor and I’d probably just sprain my ankle.