November 16, 2011

• The Office

  I could tell you about the awesome grant I helped write that was submitted yesterday so that I can have a mobile legal clinic at the dual diagnosis treatment centers in town, but really, what is most interesting around here is that we are getting a new refrigerator.

  Our old refrigerator was old (it was that weird avacado green color from the 70s) and the freezer made lost of frost on the walls and there were some permanent stains (brown in the eggs tray?  What?).

  There are 9 of us in this office and most of us bring our lunch (and breakfast).  There is one of us who clutters up the refrigerator with her plastic sacks with an orange, or empty sacks, or a sack with a piece of candy and half a sandwich.  One day there was half a pear left on a shelf.  Half cans of pop are common.  She also likes to put pop in the freezer (and really, if you already have 15 Cokes in the bottom drawer (seriously, the whole drawer is full of her pop and fruit) then why do you put it in the freezer?).  And when you put pop in the freezer it sometimes explodes.  And then the Coke turns the ice brown.  And she leaves it!  She does not see what an absolute slob she is.  Take out food left on the conference room table is a frequent offense.  A coworker once moved her Chinese take out garbage from the conference room table to her desk top.  Another coworker said that she has just started eating her fruit because, hey, there's no room in the refrigerator for anyone else to put food in the refrigerator, so why not eat hers?  We have been direct.  We have been passive aggressive.  We have complained to each other about her.  My kids think she is hilarious and call her "Pop Lady."  When they come in with me on the weekend they make bets about how many half full cans of pop will be in her office (I think the record is 7).  She frequently has open bags of chips and half eaten granola bars, etc., just laying around her office.  (And her office is her own space, but ew, and it all attracts bugs and mice.)

  This woman works insane hours - sometimes she is here until 2am.  She puts in hours that no self respecting non-profit worker would put in.  Most of us are here so we DON'T have to work those kinds of hours.  I think she could work much more efficiently (4 Hour Work Week?), but she is set in her ways and oblivious to everyone.  I was once in line for a buffet lunch with a secretary and the executive director when self-centered coworker breezed in and cut right in front of our boss while we stood there agape watching her fill her plate ahead of us.  She didn't even do it on purpose.  She just doesn't see anyone.  She has two small children at home and never cooks and is not home until nearly their bedtime.  Apparently she worked late on Halloween, even.  I guess the parenting stuff is irrelevant to the direct issue of rotting, half eaten fruit in the refrigerator, but it's sad and an example of how she just doesn't see or think of others.  Her mother and father live with them and do the majority of the child rearing and house keeping.

  So we are getting a new refrigerator (!!!!!!).  It is being delivered today.  We were told to have the old one completely cleaned out by the end of the day yesterday.  Of course, she hadn't done her share of this.  Everyone was talking about it all day.  ("She has 6 apples in there plus oranges," the clerk exclaimed.)  My daughter and her friend stopped by around 4:30 to get a ride home from me and asked for something to do while they waited for me.  "You could clean out the refrigerator," I said.

  So they threw out all the condiments and some old cream puffs in the freezer from a long ago party.  They claimed the 2 liter root beer left from a training lunch a month ago.  And then it was just the offending pile of lunch parts.

  So I stuck my head in her office.

  "The girls are trying to finish getting the refrigerator cleaned out."

  "I haven't gotten my stuff out!" she said in a very aggravated voice.

  "I know.  Did you want any of it?" (I am not kidding you that we were talking about half eaten sandwiches, half bags of chips, fruit, little candies, etc. and about a case of pop all cans separate and frequently in its own plastic sack.)

  "Yes!" she said.  (Seriously, it was like that show "Hoarders" at this point.)

  She got up and stormed past me and grumbled about how she wasn't leaving yet and pulled her garbage out of the refrigerator and put it in plastic sacks and took it down to the little refrigerator on the other end of the office (the folks that use that refrigerator were pissed when they got to work and couldn't refrigerate their lunches for today).

  The girls threw away everything else (like her Chinese leftovers - I love how she left her garbage).

  The Managing Attorney sent an email today with a list of rules for the new refrigerator including "don't put pop in the freezer" (which was already on a sign on the freezer that she put pop in) and "don't leave food over the weekend."  We were asked to comment.  And people are.  This is huge, huge stuff.

  And to think that I have been spending time on my proposal to help alcoholic schizophrenics modify their child support, get divorced, or file an answer against the fucking credit card company.

  We know what's really important.

  Refrigerator Turf Wars!

  • 10:29 am
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