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I attended a Christmas gathering yesterday for employees of an apartment complex where I help my father to clear snow. I know two people who work there, older guys on the maintenance staff. They can be fun to listen to, but I wouldn’t make a point to do so every day. I only showed up at the party for two reasons. Dad asked me if I wanted to go, and there was to be free food. Score. I didn’t intend to mingle with the rest of the staff, which was all well and good since they were too busy playing drinking games to even notice someone new had come in.

After feeding on some chips and veggies, I witnessed a rather odd gift exchange among some of the employees. It was a sort of unorganized Secret Santa where all the gifts were pretty much useless and/or embarrassing. I couldn’t understand how it worked, and neither did my brother. We just sat and watched the hilarity ensue as each gift was unwrapped. These gifts ranged from candy to kids toys, deodorant to pregnancy tests and douche. Yes, feminine wash. And yes, a guy got the gift.

No one wanted the Summer’s Eve wash, but it was the “hot” gift at the table. The box passed through as many hands as the pregnancy test, and eventually was opened with wide eyed curiosity. How the hell does this work was a question posed by several drunk males along with What is it as in, what is it made of. Old Ed, probably in his sixties, looking more like seventies, was drunk. I assume. I only hope he was because he had walked over to the table, unwrapped a bottle of the douche and took a swig of it. Several NO ED’s were called out but it was too late. We were all sickened by the mere thought of what we just saw and many scurried from the room, presumably to the restrooms for a gagfest. Gross Ed.

After about ten minutes had passed and we’d had our laugh over Ed, one of the other guys grabbed the bottle and began messing around with it. He was trying to figure out how the bottle actually worked “in there”. Well, he found out the hard way as he gave the bottle a good squeeze and sprayed liquid all over his face and shirt. Now that was funny. It was made funnier still to see it happen a second time as one of the ladies tried to spray yet another guy with the douche and got herself all wet instead.

About this time I had the beginnings of thoughts to leave the party. I ate free food and drank free soda. I witnessed the highlights of the afternoon. It couldn’t really get more entertaining, so I figured leaving on the high note would be a good way to go. Nope. As I’m discussing my exit strategy with my brother, Ed comes back in the room(he’d been gone for a good fifteen minutes) and grabs the bottle again, downing the rest of it like it’s his beer. I didn’t know whether to laugh or vomit.

An overheard conversation:

The Whale: But isn’t that illegal?
boss: It’s only illegal if you’re discriminating based on race or gender.
The Whale: …and sex
boss: sex is gender

cont’d…

Back in my high school German class we had a teacher that over used the word “ok”. Every pause, every sentence, she would end it “ok” and classmates quickly took notice to this. So much so that someone would often times burst into a giggle fit during class and have to make excuses for the laughter. See, we liked the Frau and didn’t want to upset her, but it was too funny to not pick up on. We used to tally how many times she would use the word “ok” and see who came closest to predicting the right number. It seems mean, but it was the only way to keep focussed.

Why am I rambling about my old German class when I’m telling a story about The Whale? Because once I noticed how many times he’d mention the phrase “water spigot” I couldn’t help but giggle as I kept a mental tally in my head. I’d often think back to the Frau and her “ok’s” and have to try ever so hard not to laugh at The Whale, else I’d be put on the spot for a rather embarrassing explanation.

On it went for several months. Water spigot conversations were even haunting my dreams. At work I dreaded being called to his office for fear of yet another conversation revolving around hand scribbled building designs and water mains. I can tell you that it happened more times than I would have liked, but fortunately it all stopped one afternoon when he “dipped” into a conversation(aka: butted in a conversation that didn’t concern him) between myself and the other gal about toilet paper, with my sister sitting in the shadows trying hard to suppress her laughter as we endured the most TMI topic from The Whale ever.

Backtracking once again, the initial conversation went like this:

windy: I’m going for lunch. Should a four pack of TP tide us over until you order more from the supply company?
Nonster: Yeah. Just get some of the cheap stuff and I’ll repay you with petty cash.
[Whale walks by and stops to listen]
windy: Cool. It’s the hippie grocer, but I’m sure they have some recycled eco-friendly brand that doesn’t cost eight bucks per pack.
The Whale: [butting in] You don’t want to waste your money on the Charmin or anything like that.
windy: Uh, I’m just getting like a four-pack of something cheap until the order comes in.
The Whale: When it comes to toilet paper you want to watch what you buy because sometimes you don’t get as much for what you pay for because they double it up, you see.

At this point the other gal slinks behind her desk and I’m left talking to mister spigot.

windy: Look, I’m running to lunch and offered to pick some up, that’s all. I’ll get whatever the heck is in stock just so we have something. There are only two rolls left and the order probably won’t come in till next week.
The Whale: See, what you don’t want to do is waste your money be-
windy: I’m getting reimbursed. I don’t honestly care how much it costs.
The Whale: See, if you get the two ply sheets sometimes its too thick and you don’t always realize how much you’re usin’. And sometimes you can clog up the toilets and then you got yourself a big mess. [he laughs, I cringe, the other two are stifling laughter]

The Whale: But if you just go and buy the cheapest stuff sometimes you get a better deal. See, you get more sheets per roll with the one ply, and that way you can always be sure you have the right amount per use. You just gotta watch out in case you don’t have enough and then your fingers can poke through the paper when you’re wiping up a mess.
windy: I better go, I only have thirty minutes for lunch and all.

Oh, GAG me with a SPOON! I practically bolted out of the office into the fresh cool winter air. He totally went where no one ever wanted to go. It was worse than the conversation about him and his girlfriend sleeping together in a cabin. There are just some things you never want to hear about. I spent the last four hours of the day trying so hard to will away that mental thought.

The story could end there, but it doesn’t. I found out the next morning that The Whale was going to take it upon himself to shop for bulk toilet paper at the local mega warehouse club, where you can find shampoo in packs of fifteen and gallon sized jars of salsa. Nonster informed me that he had called her up at home twice, and finally got a hold of her on her cell phone around 8:30PM. She thought it was an emergency, but The Whale just wanted to talk over which toilet paper would be the best bargain. I didn’t ask for the sordid details, but I know she was stuck on the phone for roughly fifteen minutes while he went on about tissues.

cont’d…

Just a brief aside of office procedure that the other gal and I have set in place for each other. Whenever The Whale talks to one of us, we have an automatic time-limit “safety” set in place. Kind of like for blind dates. You have a set time for a friend to call just in case there is a reason to bail. Anyway, our limit is five minutes unless otherwise stated. After the five minutes are up either page a call or something like walk over and say “the boss needs you” - anything to bail the other out of an endless lecture of water spigots or such nonsense as how to deal with the phone company(a topic totally unrelated to either of our jobs but sadly enough, happens almost weekly)

Now, as part of my job, I do all the paperwork for a construction company. I am the entire accounting department. This tedious regime for such an unorganized company is helping to create an ulcer whom I shall soon name after said company as a symbolic gesture of gratitude. Because of the nature of my work, I have to listen to The Whale describe every minute detail of every action done for the construction company, from drawing up plans to picking out paint for the walls. It’s disturbing. Ever read the Hobbit? Remember how Tolkein went on for pages to describe the shire and how each blade of grass looks while blowing over in a mid-day breeze? The Whale is something like that, made worse by his not-so-minty-fresh breath and stale smell from the clothing he wore just the day before.

One of the longest running jokes with the other gal and I revolves around water spigots. Several months ago while the company was building a retail center somewhere off in Wisconsin, the utilities were messed up and two of the offices in that center were charing a water main. This poses a problem because as owners, we do not know how to charge each office fairly for use of water. Well, The Whale would constantly go into great detail to both the other gal(who has nothing to do with the construction company) and myself about these water mains which he often just called the water spigots. Now, I can handle having to listen to diatribes about spigots, in fact I’ve had to endure the lectures on at least 15 different occasions. But, the one thing that made them unbearable were the diagrams. Yes, diagrams. The Whale would grab any old piece of paper, even current invoices flipped over, and start drawing out the building plans and how the utilities are mapped out, all while talking about the issues with the water. I tried, oh man I tried to get a word in edgewise and failed every time. And these drawings were always less than accurate, and it was somewhat entertaining to watch him try to draw the layouts to scale. But that was the only entertaining part. Well, until the game…

To be continued…..

It pains me to say, but I have rather enjoyed having my sister working with me part time. She was hired to take some of the pressure off the other gal that I work with, but I’ll be able to pawn off some of my simpler duties onto her soon enough.

Not everyone knows this, but for roughly the entire first 17 years of her life, my sister and I didn’t get along. At all. We were like cats and dogs, always bickering, saving momentary cease-fires for holidays and birthdays. She’s 22 now, and we get along better than ever before. This relatively new siblingship deal we’ve got going on is still rather weird, but I enjoy it at times. When I need someone to go to a concert with, she’s almost always available, and vice versa.

She used to IM me daily with family gossip and for the longest time, was the only one who would believe my stories about the crazy people I work with. While a hint of doubt rung with every “uh huh” and “no kidding”, she understood the antics I put up with, probably assuming I embellish the truth a bit. I think that is part of the reason I am happy to have her with me now, because there is finally an “outsider” to witness the hell that is my job, but also to partake in the shenanigans. Someone to see that I am not making stories up as I go along in an effort to create a fantasy office world that isn’t so mind-numbingly painful to work in. She gets to see first hand how much work I actually do, and how much hell the Whale puts me through.

My sister has taken to the job quite well. Though she isn’t working full days, she is completing more work that her predecessor, the crazy lady, used to accomplish in three days time. Granted my sister isn’t researching government conspiracies and talking to the voices in the ceiling all day. She is, however, making me proud, and also making me look like a slacker. She has also been witness to one of the most epic Whale stories in the history of the office, and that is a long history.

To be continued…..

I don’t like it when someone tries to act all smart and wave their knowledge around like a big flag to draw attention. In fact, when possible, I will do whatever I can to knock that person off their high horse and send them away crying. Especially in the workplace. Why? Because I can.

There is a kid who works here part time and he’s one of those “techy geeks” who live for new gadgets and thirst for knowledge surrounding said gadgets. Then, when the brain is full of all this new information he seeks out the one person least likely to know what he is talking about so he can spew forth the information and look like a freaking genius. Well, I don’t tolerate this. Ok, I do, but I don’t like this kid so I have my fun.

Yesterday he walked up to one of the secretaries as she was making photocopies and saw an ad for a new mp3 device. He started spouting off some nonsense about the iPod to her, describing all the features and weighing the pro’s and con’s of both the iPod and this other device. He was off on a lot of the features, and was also complaining about software that “needed” to be used which he didn’t care for. Seeing as how I know what I’m talking about 90% of the time, I had to correct him. Actually, I interrupted, you’re wrong. I have both of those devices… and i went on to explain where he was wrong in his initial commentary. Obviously miffed he just sat and listened until I was finished then retorted as he walked out the door, Well not everyone is you.

Now, I know that in that instance I appeared the know-it-all. But the difference is that I wasn’t bragging so-to-speak. I was correcting his mistakes.

One day I will look back on my many years of employment here and just cry because I have wasted so much time working with individuals who are most definitely lacking in the basic social graces that life requires of them. I completely support individuality and defying the “norm” that society places upon us. However, at times it helps to be somewhat less eccentric.

This morning, the giant man brought in a flyswatter. It was one of those cheap floppy plastic-headed ones that you find in a multitude of colors at Walgreens on special for twenty-five cents and buy it even though the twisted wire handle is quite uncomfortable for gripping. It was an unnecessary expense paid out of pocket by an employee primarily for use at work, a use which he will not be compensated for because it is, as I stated, an unnecessary expense. Also, there is no need for a flyswatter as the only flies in the building are swift, tiny fruit flies that narrowly escape death-by-swatter because 1) they fit through the holes and 2) the Whale can’t swing his meaty arms fast enough.

My new desk at work is in quite the unfortunate place, as I have discussed before. While it is pleasing to be situated in a temperature controlled environment, the placement adjacent to the mens lavatory is not the most ideal location for my tiny piece of real estate. In my rather unscientific observations, women make less noise in the restroom than men do, presumably from wanting to appear proper at all times and avoid embarrassment. Men don’t care. They close the door behind them and let loose with all manner of bodily noises, including, but not limited to farts, belches, and coughs.

Usually the Whale has a routine that includes using the lavatory approximately ten times in an eight hour workday. Keep in mind that on most days he is out of the office on an hour long(or more) lunch trip. Due to my prime location, I am treated to his delightfully disgusting symphony. Hark, but what doth mine ears perceive? ‘Twas a passing wind, blowing with the might of one-thousand midgets pounding on a hollowed-out pine. With such wonderment is bestowed upon me, dare I ask, is more to come? But of course! A chorus of twenty lads blowing bubbles mightily into their ice-cream shakes.

I was sitting at my desk as always, working on entering my stacks of overdue invoices when I hear the heavy footsteps of our friend, the Whale. Immediately my already irritated stomach turns, dreading the upcoming event which was twenty minutes early. One can set a clock by the Whales bowel movements. I had failed to come up with an excuse to leave the area, and so I sat, waiting, dreading the next eight minutes of expulsion. I did my best to block out the noises. Carry the four, add in the 5.1 percent sales tax, late fees, where is that ledger number…

SMACK!

I heard some scuffling emanating from the deep recesses of the lavatory. SlapSlapSlap! What in the hell was going on in there? Against my better judgment I had stopped my fingers from typing so that I could listen to the noises that obviously were out of place. Smack!…Whack! Then it dawned on me. The Whale had taken a flyswatter into the lavatory with him. Bewildered by the fury at which he was swatting after the tiny flies, I couldn’t help but engage in a quick conversation upon his exit.

windy: What the hell was all that noise
The Whale: I was killing the big ol’ flies
windy: Sure seems like a lot of work, killing flies and all.
The Whale: Well, yes. But there’s a lot of them in the bathroom.
windy: Ever thought about hanging a pest strip in there? It’ll spare you the workout.
The Whale: There’s been one up for pud’near(yeah, I dunno either) two weeks now. It’s not working too well apparently.
windy: Mmmhmm
The Whale: Would you like me to bring you a swatter too?
windy: No thank you. I’ve been safe from the wicked flies of the west thanks to my lucky bamboo here.

The whale continues to torment me. Seriously. This is getting to the point where I have begun to make up tutorials on how to do the specifics of my job so that it’s easier on both the company and myself when I decide to quit.

Many invoices have gone missing randomly and I generally get blamed for losing them. I do not lose my paperwork. People[the whale] rifle through my desk when I’m not here and take papers without asking or leaving a note, then proceed to hang onto it or lose it. This is a very bad bad thing he’s doing because:

There were two invoices for a company that I posted last week and couldn’t pay because of a lack of funds. I was interested in paying the invoices fist thing on Monday when I returned because both were past due. I had these in a folder where I put all my posted invoices. I’m positive they were tucked away when I left. Monday came, money was transferred, but my invoices were nowhere to be found. I tore my desk apart looking for them. The company called looking for their money. The paperwork was misplaced in an office shuffle, I said, then assured him Both have been posted and I can pay them out today if you can fax me some copies.

I trudged on over to The Whale’s office, faxes in hand, and confronted him on this issue.

windy: What did you do with my invoices for [company]?
The Whale: What invoices?
windy: The ones I was waiting on a funds transfer for because we had no money
The Whale: I gave them back
windy: I never gave them to you!
The Whale: Sure you did, I signed off on them last week. you asked who to send the checks to.
windy: The hell I did. You signed off on them in July and I had them in my desk. I’m told to go get all my paperwork, and do so. Then he proceeds to go through every single page looking to see if maybe I had just stapled them to something else :rollseyes:

windy: They aren’t in there.
The Whale:I know I signed them last week.
windy: I told you, those were a different company, their subsidiary.
The Whale: Maybe you just stuck them together or misplaced them.
windy: I did not misplace them! They were taken from my desk!
The Whale: Ok, settle down.
windy: No. I’m going to get in trouble for the missing papers, and I had them in my desk where they belong. You or [the owner] took them, and I want them back so we don’t get a hefty late fine.

I stormed out of his office and went about my business. Boy I was angry. To top it off he now had my faxed invoices because he had to “look things over”. Thursday came and I still didn’t get the invoices back from him that he swore he gave back. I found them on his desk while he was out to lunch that day…

I’m just including this bit from AIM because my sister found it funny:

windy: i’m sick of work. i wanna go home
Sister: so go home. I give you permission
windy: i might after [co-worker] leaves
windy: blubber the whale pissed me off soooo bad today
windy: i’m missing invoices, and he is the only one who could have taken them
windy: but he insists that i just “misplaced” them
Sister: dork
Sister: the whale, not you
windy: which is stupid, because before i left on thursday i made sure i had them
Sister: how many are missing? are they correlated?
windy: 2, for the same company
windy: and i was all “yo, fat stuff, gimme back my invoices” and he’s like ” i did”
windy: and i was like “no you di’int, chunky soup”

Five reasons why I dislike The Whale this week:

1. The Whale will call my extension and ask me to come over to his office. When I get there I find he merely had to give me a bit of mail or paperwork that he could have just as easily brought over to my desk instead of disturbing my work.

2. The Whale will pull a chair up to my desk and start sorting paperwork, despite the fact that I am already immersed in my duties and have carefully placed stacks of invoices/payroll/sales to enter - on top of which he piles his papers and then leaves.

3. The Whale takes an hour long lunch break. This is not including the hour it takes him to drive to the store and do full grocery shopping before coming back to eat.

4. The Whale thinks that I am his personal secretary and asks me to file shit and look up paperwork for him when I’m not supposed to do that, and am generally busy with my own work at the time.

5. The Whale doesn’t help answer the phones when they are ringing off the hook. Even when the other gal and I are already on the phone with customers.

For the last month he has been driving me crazy, and for no reason at all that I can establish. Before, when I worked in my little cube hidden away from the world, I rarely had to deal with this guy. Now, it’s like I’ve become his target for annoyance, and he takes every chance he can to make me miserable. While I do enjoy this heavier work load and plethora of new responsibilities, I’d have reconsidered if I knew the level of whale interaction that came along with the job. I used to like him, considered him a chummy fella, but now he is my nemesis. I will get you Dr. Whale. Your time will come.

Today I was very thirsty at work and I looked everywhere for a cup so that I may get a drink of water. There was nothing available other than paper, if I so chose to break out my kickass origami skills and make my own paper cup. That wasn’t happening. The owner was in an open meeting and I had no intention of standing around the cooler with my hand-made creation chugging some water. I soon remembered that the whale had a small fridge in his office. Acting on desperation I snuck in to see what he had. Oh sweet refuge, tons of water bottles! One might think I was seeing water for the first time in weeks. I took a bottle out and went back to my desk where I enjoyed that precious liquid down to the last drop. I never told the whale that I took his water. Instead I sat happily at my desk, thirst quenched, and slightly guilty for what I had done. But, now that I’ve shared my story I’m feeling a little better about it, and can rest easy tonight.