2007-04-07 - 6:24 p.m.
I'd like to describe my current job at the health insurance non-profit organization and I have to say that it's pretty great in terms of an office environment. There's people who stand around the coffeemaker in the morning and say things like, "Oh god, sure do need this in the morning! heh!"; on Fridays they say, "Happy Friday!" and "Payday!" There's a knitting circle on Wednesdays. They sign up in large groups to do March of Dimes. In the break rooms, people label their squeeze bottles of I Can't Believe It's Not butter with things like "Linda's--DON'T TOUCH!"
I work in the eligibility department and while my work is both robotic and interesting, the environment as a whole is quiet and tense. My first day there I thought I was going to die because nobody was talking to each other, no one was making jokes, and every one was sitting tersely at their desks, listening to music through their headphones, and looking like their souls were melting inside.
Everyone except for Anne, my saving grace and doppelganger. She is just like me plus twenty years. And a pageboy haircut. And a slight whistle lisp. She can't say anything unless she says it loud enough for the whole office to hear. She's used the phrases "kissing on [sic] the Blarney stone" and "funny farm" with regularity the past few weeks. Every time I ask her a question to clarify the details behind some task I'm set out to do she says, "Now that's a good question because it shows me how your mind works. It shows that you're thinking about more than just the job and you're looking at the processes behind it. That's a good question. I like it. I like your mind."
So Anne's pretty amazing and I've already gotten in trouble once for chatting "too much" with Anne, even though my boss agreed that I don't actually chat that much and were it a normal work environment, it would be seen as "relaxing" and "refreshing" to have people be social and fun. As my boss said to me yesterday, "at least at the end of the day, we're [we meaning Anne, she, and I, social and joke-cracking people] not going home in tears like everyone else, right?"
The other temp in the department is Morgan and you can pretty much describe his personality succintly by saying he's an online gamer and wants to date an Asian girl. He wears the same clothes every day--black pants, black short-sleeved button-up shirt, black boots, dark blue hoodie with holes cut out in the sleeves for thumbs--and never gets restless from sitting in the same place for hours. When he comes in to work, he walks in, sits down, and just starts typing; when he leaves, he just stands up, grabs his coat, and leaves. No bag, no goodbyes, no tears.
I know I'm probably making Morgan sound creepy but he's actually really great. When the entire department leaves for meetings, he comes to my desk and we whisper about people in the office. I know his online moniker for gaming sites and call him it on a regular basis just to be that kind of guy.
However, the cream of the crop is Sherril. Yes, spelled that way. She is probably 45 years old and (not probably but yes definitely) tall, thin, and with dyed blonde hair. She wears high heels to work every day and makes the cubicles shake when she walks by. And you know those kinds of people who make sarcastic/passive-aggressive comments to co-workers like, "Don't worry, it's not like I needed you to do that or anything!" and laugh afterwards to cover up the fact that they really want you to do something but aren't ballsy enough to just say it to your face?
Sherril makes those kinds of comments to people all the time but WITHOUT THE JOKING PART IN IT. So she just puts Anne down or tells us we're talking too much just by being aggressive and laughing afterwards. Amazing. So amazing.
So it's pretty much Anne and I versus Sherril all the time, even though Anne and Sherril are supposedly friends. The best part about it all is that Anne, being the button-pusher she is (just like me!), often calls Sherril "Blondie" or "Legs." Amazing!
In a day or two I promise to get up an entry about the Peace Corps guy who is also temping at my work and is vaguely stalking me. Amazing!
