May 27, 2005
Fax Wars
A long time ago, in an engineering office not nearly far enough away…
a Kelly girl sent out thirty-seven letters and twenty-four faxes for ONE engineer—-in one morning.
The fun started on Wednesday, when the fax machine began ominously spouting one fax after another, at about two-minute intervals, all from a single office, all addressed to that one engineer in our office. They were liberally sprinkled with phrases like “please advise” and “pursuant to.” I thought it was funny until I realized what it meant. All those letters generated an equal number of letters in response, sent out by yours truly, each beginning, “I am in receipt of your letter of 25 May…” Of course, each letter was also copied to five other people, so that the entire galaxy could witness the refined verbiage of these two professionals. The letters were fanned across my desk in an imaginative pattern when I came in yesterday morning, waiting to be proofed, copied, faxed, mailed and logged.
I imagine my counter-part in that other office, both of us standing at our fax machines like two outlaws in a shoot-out. We are killing each other with pieces of paper and legalese.
Days like this suck all the kind juices right out of me. Sluuuuurrrp. They’re gone. The other evening, our pastor’s kid came to mow our lawn, as he does once a week. His mom or dad has to drive him because he’s only thirteen. That night, I sat on my sofa feeling crabby and inhospitable while the pastor’s wife sat in her van outside our house waiting for Josh to finish mowing. Usually I go out and insist that she come inside, have something to drink, etc. But that night, I just let her sit in her car. The house was a mess, *I* was a mess. I watched out the window as she went to get Josh when he was done, waved, then got in the van and drove off. I couldn’t believe it. She actually saw me sitting on the couch, not inviting her in, and she waved to me.
The point is that I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to feel so sucked dry that I can’t be hospitable or even civilized. Is money for our bleed-us-dry health insurance or credit card debt worth being like this? I don’t think it is.
Can I call a truce or drop out of this war altogether?
Posted by Lisa at 09:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 06, 2005
Hooters
How it pains me to even type that word. I now feel that I need to thoroughly clean my keyboard--or whatever the equivalent of washing its mouth out with soap would be.
I'm at work, and I just listened to a conversation among three engineers about how they take their wives and kids to the place that shall not be named (typing it twice was enough). "They wear clothes and everything," one of them (not of our office, thankfully) pointed out when I nearly vomited in disgust. And I think you know who "they" refers to.
The kicker was when our office manager (a woman, who should know better) came in and noted that she has taken her adolescent son's sports team to the place that shall not be named. "They like the wings," she said.
Here's to raising the next generation.
(I think some purging is now in order. Perhaps I'll just throw out my keyboard, maybe my entire computer, and, heck, might as well burn my desk while we're at it. Think the office would mind?)
Posted by Lisa at 10:27 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 02, 2005
"The Dust Chronicles," continued
For those of you keeping up, here is the latest installment in "The Dust Chronicles" (otherwise known as the Janitorial Comment Book, or Annals of the Banal) from the office. You can read the first part here.
Today, upon coming out of the women's bathroom, our office manager made a beeline for the Comment Book, where she stood scribbling like mad. What could have possessed her thus? What heart-rending secrets was she unleashing in this mysterious orange journal? When she turned the corner, I opened it, and here is what she revealed:
"Could you please clean the light switch plate in the women's guest bathroom. Also, could you please move the guest chair in my office. I've noticed that there has been dirt on the face plate and dirt on the floor in my room for three weeks now."
Not that anyone's counting.
I hope that our office manager's exercising or something so that her built-up resentment over the dirt doesn't just explode (thus leaving more to clean up). At least we seem to have our urine splatter problem under control these days.
On the other hand--in the annals of the nice--today someone from the office went to Burger King for lunch. I ordered a whopper meal, not super-sized or anything, just the regular meal deal, and out of the $10 that I gave my co-worker, he gave me back $7 in change. I'm pretty sure that a meal deal is more than $3. I guess he just cut me a break or something, maybe because I was the last one to order and thus didn't have anyone to share a buy one get one coupon with. Anyway, I thought it was really nice.
Posted by Lisa at 05:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 28, 2005
Happy Secretary's Day
I am in so much trouble! No, not for blogging at work. Because my supervisors gave me a card and a check for $75 for Professionals Day (what used to be known as Secretary's Day). Argh! I prayed and prayed that they wouldn't get me flowers because I do *not* want to embrace my (highly temporary) identity as a secretary. Instead they gave me money, which is a whole lot more serious.
I wonder if it's a bribe to get me to stay. I'm only there as a Kelly girl, you know. No, I'm sure they did it out of the kindness of their hearts. But my leave-taking is immanent! How I am going to go now? I feel like Teri Garr in "Tootsie," who was totally willing to take Dustin Hoffman's chocolate covered cherries even as she left him.
Posted by Lisa at 06:36 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
April 27, 2005
On the fourteenth day...
As anyone (anyone? anyone out there?) knows who's been keeping up, I am currently a Kelly girl extraordinaire as I seek to get my so-called life together. Right now I'm a secretary at a respectable engineering firm. Below are some thoughts from a previous Kelly job, at a somewhat less respectable grocery warehouse. God works in amazing ways!
It is day fourteen of my job in the call center at Roundy’s, a Midwestern grocery warehouse. It is still morning, but it’s already been *that* kind of day, the kind where, if the phone rings one more time, I swear I’m going to hurl it against the wall. I close my eyes and shift in my chair. I sigh. Finally realizing that I can’t escape the telephone, I decide to head it off at the pass. I pick up the receiver, my reasoning being that if I’m already on the phone, it can’t ring. I call Jack at St. Anne’s Country Market. Maybe he’ll have his order ready.
“Hey,” I say when Jack picks up the phone.
I stop there, even though I know I’m supposed to do more. I’m supposed to identify myself in a bright, cheery voice and tell him why I’m calling. But instead, I pause, suddenly struck dumb.
And into the pause steps something—or someone—completely unexpected.
It is not a particularly good time in my life, in case you haven’t figured this out already. Out of desperation—certainly not out of choice—I have taken a job selling meat and deli products over the telephone. If you live in certain parts of the Midwest, it’s entirely possible that that cut of beef you picked up last night made it to your fridge because I sent it on its way to the corner store.
This achievement, however important a link in the food chain, is not doing it for me right now. I am depressed at being reduced to working in phone sales; doubtful that I’ll ever make a name for myself doing something more worthwhile; and completely frazzled by the constantly ringing telephone.
It’s no wonder that on day fourteen, I pause during my phone call to Jack.
“Hey,” I say to him. What else is there to say?
But Jack surprises me. “Lisa!” he cries. He sounds genuinely glad to hear from me. He goes on. “I know your voice now. You don’t even have to say it’s you!”
Jack’s own voice is full of delight, like a kid who’s just spotted his long-lost playmate across the park.
That’s when I realized that I *have* made a name for myself. Literally speaking, anyway. I’ve made a name for myself because there are meat cutters across the Midwest who know me. They know who I am and why I’ve called. They know the distinct timbre of my voice, enough to recognize me before I even say my name. And they are gladdened by it.
Let me tell you, it was a healing moment when Jack called. It was a moment that made me think twice about the meaning of the ringing telephone.
I thought of what I long for most in this life, which is to be recognized, known and cherished. And I looked down at my call list and saw the names of over thirty people that know me. People that were once strangers but that aren't any longer. People whose voices light up when they hear my voice on the other end of the line.
I thought about voices and how intimate they are. Even more so than our names, voices are part of our created beings--like the hairs on our head, each one of which God has personally counted. To know someone’s voice is to know something not insubstantial about them. By the end of my time at Roundy’s, I think that my customers and I knew each other’s voices nearly as well as the voices of our family, friends, and lovers.
I looked at the telephone again and thought about the notion of calling, but this time in terms of calling forth, as in creation. Here it was, day fourteen in the bustling world of Roundy’s warehouse, and God was still busy creating. In Michelangelo’s fresco of the "Creation of Eve" on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, God calls forth Eve from the body of Adam. Eve emerges as if from slumber, her whole body leaning towards her maker.
On the fourteenth day, Jack the meat cutter picked up his end of the phone and called me out of my discouragement and despair. It was, in many ways, like hearing the voice of God.
“Lisa!” he cried, his voice full of delight.
And what he said in those two syllables was, I know your voice. I have called you by name. I tell you the truth, when you hear it from the least of these, you hear it from me.
Posted by Lisa at 04:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 26, 2005
The Dust Chronicles
The day of my eerie encounter with the Water Seller-cum-Jesus, I was bored out of my mind and started reading everything on or in the vicinity of my desk. After finishing the telephone book (it's a pretty small town), I hit upon an orange folder that turned out to be the janitorial log for our office--where our office manager and janitorial team leave messages for each other, since the janitors come after hours. The official title is, "Janitorial Comment Book."
The first comment my eyes fell upon was this, from our office manager: "Please take more care when dusting. There was a coffee spill spot on the conference room table last week and it's still there today." I know that cleanliness is next to Godliness and all that, but, especially after the visit from the Water Seller, it just seemed petty and absurd.
The response from the janitorial team was a lesson in humility. "I apologize for missing the spill. Thanks." Thank you for pointing out my error, the janitor said. How many people ever say that? In fact, the janitorial responses in the log are always effusive in their thanks. "Thanks for letting us know we were missing this! We'll take care of it!!" Complete with multiple exclamation points.
I pity the janitors who come here, because our office manager notices dirt on the molecular level. For example:
"Could you please make sure you vacuum good in the corners this weekend? We are noticing an accumulation of dirt right up along the baseboards. Thanks."
It's hard for me to imagine how anyone would notice dirt right up along the baseboards unless that person were crawling around them on her hands and knees. Which is entirely possible, I guess. I'm thankful that this woman is not my mother.
The following comment someone is going to have to explain to me:
"Skipper [owner of company: not his real name] noticed that the cabinets and walls in the men's bathroom in the back are not being wiped down from urine splatter. Could you please try to do that every week?"
OK, I have a husband, and he's a typical male, and never once have I had to wipe urine splatter off the walls in our bathroom. What exactly is going on back there? Is there a cache of four-year-olds that I don't know about? Can anyone out there explain this to me?
And the response from the janitorial team, so typical in its humility:
"Cleaned the urine splatter. I believe that it's the cleaner I use on the toilet that splatters [that may go some way towards explaining the conundrum]. I'll keep a better watch on it."
I thought I was pretty much the lowest of the low here at work. But there is someone whose job it is to check the bathroom for urine splatter. How's that for a reality check.
Posted by Lisa at 11:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 22, 2005
Four letter word for "I hate this job"
Every day at my (current and thankfully temporary) job as a Kelly girl secretary, I do the crossword puzzle at my desk. The other day, I was heartened when I did not immediately know the answer to one of the clues, which was "what secretaries do." Was it 'type'? 'File?' 'Sit around doing nothing for hours and then get ten extremely urgent tasks all at once?' (Wait, that has too many letters.)
Anyway, I'm taking it as a good sign that I did not know the answer. I think it means that I'm not, deep down inside or even more shallowly, a secretary. It is not my destiny. I'm bound for greater things. Hallelujah.
(I think the answer was 'file,' but I don't really remember.)
Posted by Lisa at 09:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
If Jesus were a woman...
He'd be a Kelly girl, working in an anal-retentive office where every task he's given to do is extremely urgent, where he actually has a higher degree than everyone there but no one knows it, where no one ever asks anything about him or his life, where no one sees the problem in asking him to stay late to do an extremely urgent task, even though he doesn't get paid for that since he's an hourly worker. Where people think he's just not really very bright, otherwise he wouldn't be a secretary, would he?
But, being Jesus, he'd do all this with a string of pearls around his neck and a towel around his waist; that is, unlike me, he'd do it in perfect servitude. Does he always have to ruin the curve?
Posted by Lisa at 09:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack