Imagine yourself standing in the middle of an office on your second day of work. You've been assigned to assemble and program a very complex and complicated piece of equipment. You've crossed your i's and dotted your t's....I mean,. . . you know what I mean, and you flip the switch. Do you ever get that little voice in your head screaming "NOOOOoooo" as you do something, and yet, despite the volume and urgency of this little voice, you go ahead and do whatever you were going to do anyways? Well I had that voice, and as soon as I flipped the switch it was telling me, "I told you so!"
Before the little voice could go any further into it's rant, Meredith was up out of her chair trying to help me extinguish the smoke coming from what looked to be a power supply. Of course, smoke tends to get the attention of bystanders so with the shitty luck I'd been having, Michael appeared to assess the situation. "Great!" I thought, "I'm three for three now." Every time I encountered Michael I feared losing my job. I mean, heck, wouldn't you? The first time I was late to the interview, the second time he scolded me about my work attire, and now I was burning down his office and all of the expensive equipment along with it. This had to be some kind of record.
Inspection of the unit revealed I had blown up a power supply and some other kind of router. Damages totaled to about $150 which was just about as much money I had earned from the company since I started, and that's before taxes are paid. Michael seemed surprisingly calm about the whole thing, as if he had planned it all along. Could he have? "No," I thought, "What would be his motive?" Whether or not the whole project had been rigged from the beginning, I had somehow escaped by my chinny chin chin and still had a job, that's all that mattered.
My smoke stack had danced it's way into Andy's nearby cubicle so he stood up to see what all of the commotion was about. "Well, well, well 'Lil' Sparky!'"
That was my new nickname...there's always one person in the office who is the "nickname assigner" and that was Andy.
"What have we here? Damaging company property are we?" He slapped his knee and laughed at his own joke. Andy is the type of guy that says, "I don't wanna brag," right before he brags about something. Despite his perceived confidence, Andy is as sensitive as the antique shower knob. You know the kind I'm talking about , the kind that will go from icy cold to boiling lava hot in less than 1/16" of an inch turn. Also, watch out for Andy's wrestling moves, apparently he was a high school wrestling coach back in the day and likes to remind everyone that he can have you down on the ground in a choke hold whenever he chooses. It would seem that this type of physical contact would probably be looked down upon in a normal office setting, but seeing Andy take down other coworkers seems to be a bi-weekly occurrence. In my time here at the office I have seen the following wrestling moves demonstrated: Back Elbow, Lou Thesz Press, Vertical Press, Knife Edge Chop, Kesagiri Chop, Short-Arm Clothesline, Bionic Elbow, and just yesterday I'm pretty sure I witnessed what is called the Kneedrop Bulldog performed against the purchasing agent.
Violent tendencies aside, Andy has become another close friend here at the office. There is a sparkle in his eye and you know that deep inside he's just a big softy. As you might already know, Andy in "The Office" is the master of politeness. He will not be outdone by favors. If you buy Andy lunch, he will buy you a more expensive dinner. If you buy Andy a birthday present, he will buy you two. If you open a door for Andy he will build you a house with two doors that can only be opened by him. It's the competitive courtesy that you can only accept with a smile because if you dare challenge him, he'll win. Spare yourself the "Flying Forearm Smash" and just trust me on this one.
"It's okay Lil Sparky, everyone here has blown something up." Andy continued to console me while artfully telling me about the time he destroyed office property even bigger and better than I had. And even though he was boasting, it did help me feel a little bit better. All of the smoke inhalation had left me thirsty so after hearing Andy's story I headed to the water cooler.
Any interior decorator will point out that water cooler placement is key. The water cooler is a magnet for "time wasters" and as such, should always be placed within earshot of someone higher up in the company. This is done for several reasons. I believe the main reason to be conversation monitoring. If you have a disgruntled employee, he or she will vent their feelings at the water cooler, it's a scientific fact (not really). If you ever want to know which employees were up until the wee hours of the morning drinking their faces off, park yourself around the corner from the water cooler. If you hear the first glug glug glugs before 8:15 am, you'll find a very hungover employee filling up his or her coffee cup with the clear cold water that soothes so many hangover maladies.
But it wasn't 8:15 am, it was a quiet 2:15 pm and there were no other water cooler patrons at the time. It was the perfect opportunity to wet my whistle without having to confront any more employees. When you're low man on the totem pole it's good to lay as low as possible for the first couple of weeks, and considering my track record I thought it best to extend that time to a few months. I bellied up to the nozzle and started pouring water into a cup I had found in the lounge. After only two or three seconds I could hear the squeaky wheels of an office chair and suddenly, out of nowhere, Dwight was standing directly behind me.
"What do you think you're doing?" Dwight asked. "Do you plan on using ALL of the water in there or do you plan on saving some for everyone else?"
I had just had my first encounter with Dwight, the Water Nazi, and I was starting to catch on to how things were going to work in this office.
No comments:
Post a Comment