Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Over-Achieving & The Dying Bunny

It's been said before and I'll say it again, any day that starts out with me being told to order pizza is not going to be a good day. Proven fact.  Today goes down in the books as substantiating that evidence.

My boss has been gone for a week, but returned today.  She had not been in the building even an hour when I hear from her office, "let's get Cassondra in here...Cassondra, can you come in here?"  I know the tone in her voice, this isn't going to go well for me.  "So, don't you think that everyone has done such a great job on their decorations that they should all have pizza?"  It's not like I was in shock.  I followed up with, "today?"  Indeed, she wanted it today.  This isn't my first rodeo, I got this.  No big deal.  I go out to my desk to order a buttload of pizza.

About 20 minutes goes by and my boss comes out, "have you sent the email out yet about the pizza?"  I give her the growl, "no...as soon as I'm done ordering...I will."  She scampers away to spread cheer in other places.  I've now ordered the pizza and am composing the email.  My boss walks up behind me, reads over my shoulder and says, "That email is kind of boring, it doesn't have the normal Cassondra flair, no funnies, no pictures..."  I growled a little stronger this time, "I'm not done yet, stop managing me."  She giggles and goes in her office.  I decided she was right, it did need a little something...I added a line especially for my boss, "...no one loves pizza more than [my boss].  She loves it so much she would celebrate her colonoscopy with pizza if she could!"  Flair added.  Insert picture. Click Send.

"Hey boss, I sent the email...did you see I added flair?"  She read it and then glared at me.  I smiled and left her office. You. Are. Welcome.

An hour later the pizza arrives.  I receive a phone call, "yeah, you ordered some pizza?"  I said that yes, I had.  He continued, "I'm here, but is someone going to come out and get it, because it's kind of a lot of pizza, I can't really carry it."  Mind you, every time I order it, they always bring it in.  Lucky me, I get the under-achiever today.  I grab some manual labor and some carts and off we all go to get the pizza.  Mission accomplished.

As I settle back in to my desk, the phone rings.  It's apparently one of the admins from one of the new states my company just acquired. She had questions...and an accent, a really strong accent.  I can't be certain what all of her questions even were.  You see, I thought I had done a good thing by creating a Welcome to Being An Admin at Magicland tips and tricks document.  I had shared it with about 10 admins that just got absorbed into my company and were likely clueless on our policies and procedures, as we all are in the beginning.  It was meant to be a friendly, helpful thing.  Apparently the 10 shared it with others and so on.  I guess I didn't think it through as much as I should have because here I am having a conversation about what helium is, where I live and how do we input worked hours into the system for technicians.  Shit just got real.  My boss comes out and says, "How many people did you send that to???!!!  If ever there was a time to under achieve, now is that time!"  Well, I guess being nice is not the best policy.  I mean, I've always suspected it, but now I know.  FML.

I was a bit irritated about the way the whole day was going, so I took a moment to just turn around at my desk with my back to the computer and take a break.  I sat there for a few minutes and then one of the supervisors came over and we chit-chatted a few minutes.  My boss comes out of her office all irritated and says, "Hey, I pinged you, why didn't you answer, I needed help??"  I looked her, smiled and said, "Sorry, I was under achieving, like you suggested."  I got another glare, but I smiled back and tilted my head and batted my eyes.  She wasn't having it, she turned and walked away.

I decided to head to the "ladies" room to pee.  I go in to trusty stall number one and there it is, all over the seat, piss.  I freaking hate it.  Another assault by the fire hose vagina bandit.  Ladies, and I use that term loosely, get it together, stop pissing on the seats!  I beg you.  I returned to my desk and one of my co-workers asked why I looked irritated (like I need a reason) and I told him about the bathroom.  He says, "Well, I guess loose lips really do sink ships."  Shut up.  Just...shut up.

I sit back down and I open my email.  There is one in ALL CAPS in the subject line.  I almost couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it.  Subject: DYING BUNNY IN PARKING LOT.  Am I being punked?  I mean, I've been asked to handle A LOT of stuff, a lot of shit.  a lot of utter nonsense but this might be the grand daddy of "other duties as needed."  I read the email and it was from one of our kind-hearted employees who saw a bunny out on the side of the walkway in the parking lot and it was injured and trying to run away, but it couldn't and it had blood on it.  People were poking at it and taking video of it and she was very upset.  She had called the animal control office, but no one had answered her. She tried another number, but no luck and she had to get back in the office because she didn't want to be late, so she wanted to know if I could go get the bunny and make some phone calls to get someone to care for it.  I just sat there, mouth a little agape.  Other duties as needed.  I mean, it isn't that I didn't care about the bunny, but...what exactly should I do?  Just then Naked And Unafraid shows up and says that she will go look for the bunny.  I emailed the tender heart back that I was sending re-enforcements.

The tragic turn in this story is that we have a center chat open all day for the reps to ask questions and get peer and supervisor support on issues they may have. Well, word of the bunny got out and the chat  turned dark.  The rednecks were talking about how good rabbit tastes and how it's tender and how you just put BBQ sauce on it.  It was not talk for the tender heart.  That bunny wasn't going to stand a chance.

I mean, the whole situation, while sad, was kind of funny, I mean, seriously.  So, I forward the email to our Building Dude, being kind of sarcastic, and I say, "Should I enter a ticket for this?"  I'm hilarious, right?  I get a response back that says, "Well, it's kind of late in the day, but go ahead and put a ticket in, I can send an engineer out there tomorrow to take a look."  I sat there stunned.  What?  I mean....what?  First of all, it's a bunny, hardly a corporate crisis.  Second of all, it's likely in it's final hours.  Third of all, what the hell is sending an engineer out there TOMORROW going to accomplish?  It's like, when I don't think the day can get any more ridiculous, IT DOES.

I didn't even mention about how my work place is all decorated for this Hunger Games decorating contest we are having.  The group that is the Fishing District has decorated their area so beyond what anyone would ever imagine and to top it off, everyone was wearing paper clam shell bikini tops (over their clothes) and green plastic table cloths as skirts.  And there was a bubble machine.  I mean, it's like I was stuck in a fun house all freaking day, except it wasn't fun!!!

So, anyway, that's my day in a nutshell.  Normally I can say that "at least no one died," but honestly, I don't think I can today.  I'm pretty sure that bunny is dead.  Naked And Unafraid could not find it, so who knows what became of it.

All I know is, one thing I learned today is that I am an over-achiever and I need to be an under-achiever. Roger that. Message received.




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