The dragon, the witch and the paper fairy
Greetings my lovely darlings,
As of Thursday, "The Dragon" (also known as hairball, hair-club for men and many other "endearing" titles) is a manager. Not my manager, I am fairly certain that would not have lasted long, but the manager of PeopleSoft Administration and Security. For those of you are aren't familiar with the rants about this guy, he was a contractor that worked at CPS last fall and lucky for me he sat at a table by the entrance to my cubicle, so I've reported LOTS of coffee experiences about him over the months. Just to bring you all up to speed, Sir Draonista is in his mid-50's, with very long, very nappy hair, an incredibly eclectic sense of taste (he likes to read sci-fi / romance novels - I swear my life was better before I ever heard that genre existed) and long, pointy finger nails, including and especially one extremely long nail on his pinky finger. Needless to say he and I don't have much in common and I find avoiding him when possible is the most effective strategy for dealing with him. He's an interesting character (you know how "interesting" is never really used in a good-context, well, there's a reason I call him interesting).
This morning when he arrives at work he has a pale pink, very wrinkled (possibly slept in) polo shirt, with a giant stain just to the right of the pocket. I know we've all had the unfortunate coffee spill or breakfast sandwich faux pas and had to walk around all day with a spot on our shirt, but this didn't look like a spot, nope it looked like a baked-in, nasty grease stain. I can overlook the stain (OK, I suppose theoretically I could overlook the stain, but clearly I didn't) but then he turned his back to me and flicked his nappy-ass wet hair revealing that the entire back of his shirt was drenched (presumably from wet hair, but I am not getting close enough to examine) and that's not even the worst part. When he flicked his hair the elastic hair tie that was holding the ponytail where he'd pulled the sides of his hair back broke and landed on the floor beside my desk. I was not about to touch it, but unfortunately not touching it would mean that he would be getting very close to me and if he bent over that hair would likely fall toward me.... I was momentarily paralyzed, but before he even took a step toward the broken elastic at my feet he began undoing his belt! WTF! I am literally trapped in a corner with a freakshow unbuckling his belt! (OMG Alex, I immediately thought of you and all of your HR experiences of late worried that I might be having my own HR encounter very soon.) Luckily he was just retrieving a spare elastic hair tie that he keeps on his belt buckle. Whew! WTF, but whew!
At this point I faked a cough, grabbed a kleenex and picked up the hair tie with that. Crisis averted!
He then spent the next ten minutes telling the guy in front of me (one of the poor suckers that now reports to him) that he finally moved into his new house. He closed on a brand new house on July 30 and on August 9 had the storage box delivered and hired movers to unpack it. He moved to Colorado from New York in June in a U-Haul, hired movers to unload the U-Haul into a storage container, then had the container delivered and movers unpack it. Seems inefficient, but I get why he would it could be necessary, but when the guy he was talking with asked if he's now in the house he said no, he decided to pay for one more week in the Residence Inn because he needs to get cable at his house. Right, cable, of course. Oh well, not my life not my problem.
It was an "interesting" morning with the dragon, (I am officially traumatized by the idea of a man unbuckling his belt) but then I got an afternoon of Ms. Shay.....
Once again I am in a FitBit workweek step challenge, so I felt compelled to go for a long walk for lunch. I walked around the lake directly beside my building, but when I got to the other side it was so nice that I decided to keep going and walk around the other lake as well. If I just walk around one lake it is 2.7 miles, walking around both lakes is almost 4 miles. Apparently, even at five-month post surgery four consecutive miles is a little too much, so when I got back to my desk I was sweaty and tired and limping. Someone noticed the limp and I responded by making a comment about my stupid gimp foot. At this point Shay steps out from her desk and asks me if I realize that "gimp" is a derogatory word and she really wishes I wouldn't say that. Seriously, it's ME talking about MY FOOT, I know that it's derogatory, but it's MY FOOT and the derogatory comment came from MY mouth. I ignored the comment, but made a mental note to not say gimp around her again, I really do not need an HR moment over that nonsense.
Shay sits just over the wall from me, so we can clearly both hear everything the other says which means I get to hear her talking on her cell phone all day long. She's usually talking to her cousins or her sons in Houston and frequently these days she's talking about FEMA because her house in Houston flooded in May, but she hadn't gotten all of the clean up done from when it flooded in 2008, so now there is an ongoing saga about the claim and what is new damage versus what is old damage. I kid you not these conversations typically sound like some sort of crazy-ass drama on BET and every time I hear her on the phone I am reminded that sometimes stereotypes ARE a real time-saver.....
Fortunately, or possibly unfortunately, the most recent BET saga was interrupted when someone had the audacity to ask who was printing a 397-page PDF document. Shay proudly said that it is for her class next week. He looked directly at her and said "it's a PDF file. You realize you don't have to print it, right?"
It was all I could do to suppress my laughter, but a few minutes later Shay was at my desk fuming because the printer ran out of paper and she didn't realize, so someone (she is sure it was probably the guy who asked if she knew she didn't have to print it, because clearly she IS printing is so she wanted it printed) took her job off the printer when he added paper and now the pages are out of order, so she has to print it again. I asked her if the pages weren't numbered and that's when she declared that she didn't have time to sort though all of those pages, so she was just going to reprint it and stand over the printer to make sure no one messed with it. Seriously, you don't have time to arrange numbered pages in order, but you DO have time to stand at the printer while you reprint a 397-page PDF file. (Please note this woman has a college degree from the University of Houston, but is unable to re-order numbered pages. Do you see why I make so many jokes about Texas and Texans?) You will be proud to know that I didn't say a word!
Now she is back at her desk with a handheld single hole-punch (because she couldn't find the 3-hole punch that is in a drawer by the copier) making holes, so she can put it into a binder. There is a full case of three-hole punched paper sitting right beside the printer! I'm not telling her! I figure if she didn't have time to arrange the numbered pages (damn you counting is so hard) but she did have time to stand by the printer while she reprinted it (fairly certain I could have done all that pesky counting in half the time) then I most certainly don't have the time, the energy or the patience to try to explain to her how to select a different drawer on the printer, so she can print the damn thing for a third time.
Until next time...
XOXO