Phone books vs. Interwebs

I don't think any explanation is necessary here:

To all Staff:

We received yesterday afternoon one copy each of the 2010-2011 Verizon White Pages telephone book, a Verizon Super Yellow Pages telephone book and a smaller size Verizon Super Yellow Pages Companion Directory. These books/directories are kept on a lower shelf in the mailing area on the second floor of the building. As a reminder, the internet can also be used to search for a telephone number and an address (although not all business contact numbers are listed in directories or on the internet).

Special K

Don't surprise me like that!!

Special K doesn't like surprises. For instance, if you approach her desk at a normal pace and politely ask, "Hi Special K, could I please get some postage for this letter?," she likes to jump mid-air and look at you as though you've pulled a gun on her. Fortunately, her aversion to shocks like this mean that she is hypersensitive to possible threats to our safety and sense of calm in the workplace.

We have a yearly fire alarm test that is carried out by our alarm company. Not a huge deal, but they do sound the alarms a few times to make sure everything is working. Now, in most places of employment I would imagine that employees are, indeed, warned. But perhaps not as well as we are:

To all Staff:

I was contacted by Bob Smith of SG Alarms on Wednesday (7/29/09) afternoon. He kindly alerted me that two gentlemen (Kevin and another person) will be testing our fire alarm system first thing Thursday morning, 7/30/09 (per our contract). I wanted to give everyone a “heads-up” – so that you will not be surprised when you see people walking around our building or hear odd noises on occasion for an hour or so. Please let me know if you have any concerns (L: I believe that I have previously mentioned this testing to you). Thank you for your attention and cooperation.

With best wishes,

Sincerely,
Special K

However, this leaves so many questions unanswered. Who is this "another person"? What do Kevin and "another person" look like? How will I distinguish them from the 6 people who work in the office? Is a "heads-up" the same as a heads-up? What constitutes "odd"? Will these noises be frightening? She has my attention, but I am not certain my fear is assuaged.

I'M IN!

I've been a little under the weather, which makes me a little less observant. I had already gotten to work, signed in, turned on my computer, drank some Emergen-C, made some tea and gone over some invoices with our accountant before I returned to my desk and realized that I hadn't noticed Special K flitting around making weird grunts and faces this morning.

I was just sitting down to start checking my morning emails when I heard the door from the warehouse open loudly. I turned just in time to lock eyes with Special K as she breathlessly, robotically blurted "I'm in!!" I nodded and said "Yeah, we're fine here, no worries" to which she replied "Metro! Crazy! I'm in!"

I then heard her greet the Boss Lady on the stairs with "I'm in!" Boss Lady seemed equally dumbfounded about how to deal with the (bizarre) statement of the obvious.

Um, I'm late to work every once in a while, but I have never felt the urge to run around to tell everyone "I'm in!" Next time, I'm going to go greet everyone with "I'm here! Did you miss me?! OMG I'm late! But I'm here now!"

The heat is supposably working

In many offices, the office manager would be aware of things like "there's water dripping through the ceiling," "our security cameras don't seem to be working" and "damn, it's downright arctic in here since the heat won't come on." Not Special K. It took having Awesome Accountant coming in and mentioning "Special K, it's pretty cold in here, have you turned the heat on?" for her to say "My, but is IS cold" and scurry off to figure out whether the fact that it's been about 65 degrees may have something to do with our heating system.

Numerous phone calls and several days later, she finally managed to get "our" heating guy in yesterday. And yes, we request the same representative of the company each time because apparently if we don't, it's like "trying to reinvent the wheel" (this according to The Boss Lady, not Special K, as Special K hasn't figured out wheels yet). So "our" heating guy came in and (according to Special K) determined that--like last year--birds somehow destroyed it? Somehow this seems treatable, and like something you might think to monitor, or at least think of when the heat fails to turn on for the second year in a row. Instead I imagine her sitting outside watching flocks flying into our vents and saying "ooooh, birdies!" while clapping her hands.

So "our" heating guy returned with an assistant today. They fiddled around, and things seemed to be working upstairs, at least. However, this also happened to be a morning where we had a large shipment leaving the building, which necessitated leaving the exterior doors open for several hours. It's about 45 degrees outside, with 45 mph gusts. The end result? It's freezing. Inside. Like 57 degrees cold (ok, that isn't freezing but I am from a warm climate, deal with it). Not cool.

However, when I asked Special K about it this afternoon, long after the truck departed and the lack of heat was quite, quite clear, she announced that "supposably" they fixed everything. Oh really? Is this why it says it's 57 degrees downstairs? And my fingernails are purple? And despite the fact that I have gone scavaging for abandoned sweaters and odd articles of clothing to layer upon myself, I still cannot feel my extremities?

Then Special K admits that she wouldn't let them really test the downstairs heat control, so she didn't know for sure whether it was working. This is where I get really frustrated. For the past several months, I have had a temperature-sensitive consignment stored in our building. Thus I very, very clearly explained to Special K that the temperature MUST remain between 68-72 AT ALL TIMES. I made a post-it and stuck it to the thermostat, lest she forget. I was impressed that she seemed to be handling it well, even going so far as to leave a large, hastily scrawled note for our cleaning person to let her know not to adjust it.

But alas, Special K didn't QUITE grasp the whole memo. In her mind, the temperature could not go above 72. Somehow realizing that it must also stay ABOVE 68 degrees was entirely too much for her to take in. Thus she warned "our" heating guy not to touch my thermostat for the downstairs temperature control. I told her that I put it on 80 degrees and "ON" rather than auto, and no fan had come on. So she called the company and they announced that "our" guy couldn't come back until tomorrow. Then she came down to check for herself, standing in the adjacent warehouse and waving her little hands around in the cold air to see if maybe she'd catch a draft of warmth and be able to claim the heat was working. During this special little heat dance, I went upstairs and told The Boss Lady that it was freezing, I was miserable, the shipment I had been storing was made vulnerable to the TOO COLD temps that Special K couldn't seem to acknowledge. So I got permission to have Special K call the company and announce that this situation was dire, and called for extreme measures--we could have someone besides "our" guy return.

The phone rang a moment later, and Special K went scurrying past me and suddenly a great blast of warm air started surrounding my office. When I asked her what had happened, she explained that the assistant to "our" guy--the one who was fishing for dead birds in our building's vents--had turned off the downstairs "system" this morning. And despite the fact that the whole point of their service call had been to turn the heat on for us, he didn't think to flip the switch before leaving.

Part of me is so grateful for this newfound warmth that I want to hug Special K. The other part of me wants to slap her for spreading her stupidity to "our" heating guy's assistant. Seriously, in the spread of the retard virus, another one bites the dust.

New calendars for the office can be a real mindfuck.

Today, M, L, and I were discussing the unique challenges that each of us face in selecting a 2009 calendar for Special K to order. We should ponder our individual work scheduling needs, weigh the office supply options available to us, and request the appropriate item from Special K. Done, and in real-world time, would take all of 5 minutes. Given that we work very differently here, the annual calendar-ordering process began at least 2 weeks ago with a hand-written note from Special K on a print-out of an office supply emailed ad that circulated with the mail.

From L: I just had to endure a 10 minute rant about ordering a calendar. I had marked which one I wanted and confirmed said information within the first 45 seconds of [my] conversation [with Special K], but it still isn’t enough. Oh no! Because I had to hear about the ordering process from The Supplier, the availability of calendars, the some-timey nature of a few of the customer service reps she deals with, the myriad options for calendars, our staff’s usual calendar picks (ahem, she said some people order TWO). She even tried to get me look at the catalogue to see if there was another one I might prefer. NO!!!!

S: Oh, the calendars…. Sigh. I order two. A book planner and a desktop. Sorry. That’s how I roll… decadence. Deal.

Special K said that the customer service reps she speaks to—and seriously again, she must be THE ONLY person to CALL Office Supply mail order companies. What office doesn’t just order online? Oh, and she mentioned that she’d requested a catalogue of more 2009 calendars, but that wouldn’t be available till December. "Just an FYI." They really push it, huh? I asked her, well, what about online? She had not looked, nor thought of that, but I’m sure thanked me profusely for the suggestion.

(I honestly think that Special K has not fully comprehended that they produced and sell 2009 calendars prior to 11:59pm, December 31st. Cause you just never know, but it's none of her business anyhow if this "2009" we speak of is really going to happen. 2009! Can you imagine?!? She also has not absorbed the fact that online catalogues have truly taken the place of printed ones... or that online catalogues, well, exist.)

My issue yesterday was that, since my usual desktop calendar of choice seems to be no longer available anywhere. I know, I know. It's really fine, and I'll be ok... I picked out a different one online and even forwarded her the link with item number. Well, she was VERY concerned when it arrived—she’d removed it from the box and examined it. Like a chimp might, turning it upside down, shaking it, poking at it with a stick, etc. It is a bit “fancier” than my old one. But, hey, I like to live it up. She grilled me as soon as I walked in the door from lunch as to whether this was, in fact, the actual item I wanted. It went on from there, and took a longer time than it ought to have to assure her that this was indeed the item I had wanted, from the link and description I had sent to her, that it was all ok, and-yes- I would like to please keep this new "controversial" calendar.

And speaking of controversial calendars, M doesn't need to order one this year-- you know why? Because she has a FOUR-YEAR calendar! Can you believe it? According to M, "I caused a tizzy last year when I decided to order a calendar that was good for 4 years—and therefore was more expensive. I don’t think that Special K understood that you could even do that..." We imagine her thinking, "you mean you can see the DAYS in 2012!!?? You can see THE FUTURE!!??" Come on, it's enough to blow anyone's mind.