Girl Thursday

I’m not going to say that Thursday, 26 June 2008 holds the current title for “WTFiest 24 Hours of My Earthly Existence,” but it kind of does. I’m not even going to get into the stickiest bits — as I am a modest and proper lady, one who screams from the mountaintops, “My dignity is intact!” — but I’m eager as all get-out to share My Tales O’ Tempin’!

I printed files, collated, and bound annual reports* for a finance consultancy, downtown.

I could say more, but why? As the boss said things like “tabular reports” and “2004 as redetermined” and “JesusChristwhyisn’ttheprinterworkingcansomebodypleasecallJolenetofixthisJesusChrist,” I drew this vaguely effete gentleman:

Is he … a postal worker? A soldier? I dunno, but don’t ask, don’t tell, right?

Anyways, begin the beguine:

‘Round 11, I elevatored to the 24th floor of a 24 story building, happy to be in AC and out of the downtown bus and dust stink**. Oh, Pittsburgh!

Upon arriving, I was seated briefly to wait for the boss, Tom. I was seated in front of this, which, in case you can’t tell due to the crappy camera phoniness, is a naked, red lady draping herself across a rather sullen-looking rainbow horse.

Rainbow horse!

(I think I like it here.)

I am introduced to the boss, Tom (a man with a mild bout of the ol’ Tourette’s and some sort of, er, “skin condition”, that is verging on the “avert your eyes” variety), and my coworkers: Tim, Kevin, Kevin, Jolene***, Blair, Debbie, “Red Johnson,” Eric, Larry, Harry, and Garry. Yes, Garry with 2 R’s. Speaking of which …

I also work with a man “named” RR.

Say it out loud.

RR.

Seriously?

Anyways, I’m temping for Peggy, who is sick, and by the way, Peg, no wonder you’re sick, when you’re leaving your dairy-based “blended coffee beverages” and yogurt on your desk at least over night. You eat that?

I have to go through Excel files and mess with headers and footers and all that garbage, and as I am doing that, I realize: The client is Hershey!

This matters to me, as I am a candythusiast. This is cool, because the Excel spreadsheets**** break down, in tremendous detail, the revenue culled from each candy, 2004-06. And I don’t mean, like, “Twizzlers,” “Kisses.” I mean:

• Rolo Rg Ct.
• BgKat
• IcBrkGum
• SgrFrSpDark
• HsyNgt
• Skor Reg. Ct.
• Pot ‘ Gld Prem.
• TwizCher

ABBREVIATED CANDY!

So Tom and I need to take a conference call***** with “his boy” Joe, who tells us what needs to get printed and in what order it should be bound.

It rapidly becomes apparent that Blotchy Tom is … mmmm … slow … and that Joe is accommodating Tom’s pace by talking very … slowly.

So the call is something like 12-and-a-quarter minutes longer than it needs to be, and all the while Tom’s bustin’ out the eff bomb and the “JesusChristonacrutch”es. At one point there is a very Rooney-esque rant about how “Why is is that people still use this underscore in file names? What’s the deal with thaaaaaat? Haaawwwww.”

Imagine that with the thickest Pittsburgh accent by which your ears have ever been molested, and there you go.

Tom is also a Heavy Breather.

The rest of the temping was fairly uneventful, but while going to my car, I did see a purple charter bus with “Ruth’s” airbrushed on the side. I did see that. And I did see it while it drove all of 5 mph, rolling to a stop at a red light, drag its entire length along a street sign. Metal-screeching-on-metal, sparks, the whole bit. The driver did not get out.

* Kind of like my old job, but with less crying in my cubicle. See, that’s why I dig temping: Even if the job is serious skull-and-soul crushery, you at least know that tomorrow? You don’t have to go back. Also, though bizarre characters abound, there is no one quite as wretched as K. The Horse-Faced Bitch (a story for another day!) or Uneasy Mac. They’re more of a “enjoyable to watch and silently judge” kind of bizarre, not an “offend my delicate sensibilities” kind of bizarre.

** Note that because of the short notice (call at 10, due in at 10:30), I drove downtown. I nearly drove over a homeless man’s leg, as he chose to place it (not himself, but just the leg, natch) in the road. Later, I paid $13 in parking, at the lot I used to use when I worked at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (where it once rained poo in my acid-washed boss’s office). The very nice parking attendant informed me that the other very nice parking attendant is dead. Of a “brain explosion.” (Aneurysm? In any case, “Good morning to you, too, sir.”)

*** Jolene collects ‘lady frogs,’ which are exactly what they sound like. Frog figurines. But only the ones with eyelashes and lipstick and skirts, as ladies are wont to have. She places them decoratively around her cubicle. She has found that with the help of some double stick 3M, she securely can affix a few of the lighter ones to the top of her flat screen monitor. Go Jolene!

**** These particular Excel spreadsheets are cool, okay? Otherwise, Excel can go shake it. Damn Excel. (Don’t even get me started on Word. Word can go auto-format itself.)

***** We take this call in Tom’s office, which is a raging mess. Boxes (empty, I assume), weird piles of framed (not hung) PGA tournament posters, and Crazy Mocha coffee cups. He tells me (he says this of his own volition and extreme social awkwardness!) that he keeps it that way, “so people don’t come in. No room.” Cue his weird grin. Cue my awkward silence.