Friday, I was check-in at work.
Stressy College Chick had, in the interim, gotten me a late birthday present (in return for my early birthday present to her) -- three shiny pens with a cushy rubberized grip, and three shiny pens that were the interesting-colored expansion set for some pens I already had in my pen-box! I was very gleeful, and proceeded to make use of the pens in most delightful work-related ways (color-coding paperwork, mostly).
Cute Geek Super failed a major tact roll with
figment0, and was given some impromptu after-hours uptraining by yours truly.Saturday, I monitored.
figment0 mentioned that whatever I'd said to Cute Geek Super, it must have been pretty effective, because Cute Geek Super had apologized for any offense he might have caused, and it had actually resembled a real apology. I monitored my brains out, and there was plenty of cleaning up to get done afterwards. I got home on Saturday with plenty of energy left over. Darkside wasn't in, and it was game day. I found an e-mail in my in-box from Motley -- her place is a wreck, and she needs to clean. She was begging help from any and all -- haul stuff away, help sort stuff, whatever, just, something! So, since $DEITY was whacking me over the head that it was my Responsibility, I called, got directions, and showed up. She has a very cute guard dog. The dog is not cool with strangers on her home turf, but after proper introductions are made, she's very licky and waggy. I mostly stuffed things in the trash and provided moral support and reminded Motley what, exactly, was going on. (Motley has ADD. Bad ADD. Really bad ADD. Really really ... {I could go on.}) I proposed a yard sale; that was too organized for her. Alas. She just wants to Get Rid Of Stuff. I wound up dragging away a hummingbird feeder and two sharp pointy things. I must be excessively careful to not collect that much Stuff, or, at least, store things in a far more organized and dust-free fashion. I went immediately home and showered before grabbing something to eat.
When I'm left to myself with only my own creativity to keep me company, weird things come out of my head. Last time, it was Captain Davidson and a little backwater planet. (I'm still not sure what happens there, but she's been demanding my attention.) This time, some vegetables in my fried rice asked me why the Beanie Buddha should always be stuffed with mixed dried vegetables. So he could have inner peas, of course.
amberfox and iroshi were both treated to this insight. Then I went to bed. Sunday, I started out monitoring.
I'd peered at the assignment sheets on Saturday night, so I was expecting to monitor, but a scant two hours later, there was nothing left for me to do with the morning shift, so I wound up back on the phones for the remaining four-and-something hours, which made for plenty of merriment. I drew up the incident with the fax machine (the male head of household said he'd have the decision-maker on the topic at hand talk to me, and that person turned out to be the fax machine) and also something based on the truism that as soon as you take a gulp of water and you get ice in your mouth, you get a live person on the phone instead of just dead air or answering machines. I'm particularly proud of the expression I put on the phone goon's face for the "brainfreeze" moment -- except brainfreeze is actually (at least for me) a shrink-inward moment, not an explode-outward moment, leading to scrunched eyes and mouth rather than wide/spiky. Ah well.
At the end of first shift, the other check-in girl showed up; Friday, she'd been wondering if she could make it in, so the office told her she should take it off anyway, so I was going to be check-in; she showed up, so she was check-in, and I wound up monitoring again.
A whole boatload of new people means ... a whole boatload of monitor reports with items that need addressing/correction! The morning was calm. The evening had half my monitor reports requiring a trip to the printer, followed by a trip to the bullpen. Something must have been in the air; there were even a few people who are experienced and normally well-behaved who had to be spoken to.
By midshift, Rules Lawyer Monitor had topped my "Oy, vey," with a "Meshuggana!" For my part, I already was. I chatted with this evening's desk guy, who's a friend of the social group when I went out for break. Just as we were getting into some good conversation about science fiction authors, my ankle twisted out from under me in my good tall-soled work shoes, and I went down faster than the Titanic (and without as much Leonardo DiCaprio pr0n), spilling orange Dew all over the desk, the monitor, the security guard, and the remains of my dignity. To add a nice cherry on top of the sundae of assorted BS, I get to be a stunning feature in the middle of the security guard's report -- the desk guy had to get my name so I could be high-lighted as an identity attached to "that supervisor chick who unexpectedly fell over". Gee. If the workplace cared about drug use, I'd probably have to get tested. (No drug use other than caffeine and the occasional off-work glass of something adult, but it would be a merry inconvenience, and I don't suffer bureaucratic bullshit kindly when I'm in a foul mood to start with.)
Rules Lawyer Monitor issued me some of her people when I ran out of work, and that was all kinds of fun. N00bs will do that. They'll either get accustomed to the standards or leave, but in the interim, we have to make sure they're keenly aware of what it is that they're exactly supposed to be doing. And as the monitoring department, there are certain standards we have to meet, one of those being that we have to make sure that everyone gets glanced at a certain number of times per week. So when I ran out of actual stuff to do, I went and tried to make sure that we were getting what we were supposed to be getting done, done. Sort by number of times monitored, compare against attendance list, cross out the people who aren't in, highlight the ones that were in and actually were monitored, just aren't showing up on the list.... It worked out that by the time I got all done with sorting that out, there were only three people left, and Rules Lawyer Monitor had them under control. I'm really good at sorting Other People's Stuff.
I didn't get home until a quarter to nine at night; I'd left at half-past-seven in the morning. I think my brain hurts now. Darkside was home, but not entirely awake; he made up for this by being cranky as fuck when he answered the phone. Ahh, how good it is to be snarled at when one calls one's best friend. *grin*
