My Office Space

I've generally tried not to bitch about work here on my blog, but my world is becoming way too close to something right out of Office Space so you guys get to deal with my whining. If you'd rather just read about baby stuff you can give Shae's pregnancy post a read if you haven't already.

Let me start off my bitch fest by pointing out that in general I'm happy with my job. I get tons of time off (including every other Friday and almost every holiday you can imagine, including Columbus Day), I like the people I work with, I have great job security (I think it would take longer to fire me than it would to just wait for me to retire. In fact, I think that might be the plan with some of my co-workers.), and I get to work on basically whatever I feel like on a given day. OK, now that I got that out of the way let's get on with the bitching (and plenty of moaning too).

When I started my job, I couldn't believe that my building was right on the ocean. I actually park my car right in a lot that looks right out onto the ocean. Of course, as soon as I leave my car I walk up the hill to my office and into a prison-looking concrete monstrosity built sometime in the 40's or 50's and not really improved since (Shae says it looks like a prison with antennas instead of guard towers). I'm amazed every day that the elevators still work (sort of). In the five years I've been in my office the heater has worked exactly one day, and it was over 70 degrees outside that day.

Anyone who's ever tried to call me during the day is probably aware of this, but we have no cell phone reception at work. It doesn't matter who your provider is, you aren't getting a signal in my office (or anyone else's in my building for that matter). I've heard rumors that if you stand six steps outside the back door, hop on one foot and hold your phone above your head you can get one bar. Of course it's kind of hard to make a call from that position and even if you got a signal you'd lose it before the call went through, but it's a start.

While my work environment is frustrating, I've learned to deal with these issues; they aren't what prompted this post. Over the past few months I've noticed that my work life is getting closer and closer to something out of Office Space. If you haven't watched the movie recently, go watch it and then finish reading this when you're done.

You know what I have to do by the 5th of every month? I have to submit TPS reports. I'm not making that up, I get an email on the 1st reminding me to submit my TPS reports. Guess what happens if I don't? Yup, three different "bosses" come by and remind me. The worst part is only one of them gets my monthly joke about the cover sheet; I guess the other two didn't get the memo. Of course, the three people who ask me for my TPS reports aren't even what I would call my "real bosses". I have two of those, so that makes five different bosses. It's not eight bosses yet, but give me another year or so and I bet I'll get there.

Now we get to the final straw that made me sit down and vent. Today I had to print something and when I went to the printer I got the all-too-familiar "Load Letter Tray 2" message on the printer (I guess it's replaced "PC Load Letter"). When I asked the guy in charge of the printer where I could find some paper I was informed that there is no paper. "We don't have any, and I don't have any money in the budget to buy any more. It's bring-your-own-paper now." Now I'm sure some teachers that may be reading this won't have any sympathy for me, but you have to remember that I have to deal with government purchasing to get paper. If I put in an order for paper today(assuming I could find the funding somewhere, which I doubt), I might be able to print sometime before the kids turn two. Maybe.

OK, if you're still reading I guess I'll share the REAL reason for bitch-fest-08. The paper issue got me all fired up, but I wasn't motivated enough to sit down and type until I tried to use the restroom (and no I wasn't trying to print up reading material for my trip when I found out there was no paper, but I would understand if that was your first thought). Without going too far down the path of more-than-anyone-ever-needed-to-know-about-Pat, let me just say that I hate dropping a deuce at work. The bathrooms stink and the toilet paper is a step down from what you'd find at a National Park in the middle of cutbacks. If I'm making a run for the crapper at work, it's probably a literal run for the crapper. Having said all that, I hope everyone can understand my frustration at trying to enter the bathroom and finding it closed for cleaning. I ran to a different floor, and it was being cleaned too. I finally found an open stall on my third try. Why does the cleaning crew clean the restrooms in the middle of the day? Why can't this be done after everyone goes home like everywhere else I've worked (this goes for the monthly vacuuming, annual dusting, annual window cleaning, and all the other cleaning functions)? Every day our bathrooms are closed for about 30 minutes or so for cleaning (based on cleanliness, I can't believe it takes more than 5 minutes), and that 30 minutes always seems go be whenever I need to go.

Whew...OK...this time I'm really done venting. I could spend another couple of hours whining about work (don't even get me going about the pathetic excuse for a cafeteria we have), but I'm sure everyone's heard enough. Besides, like I said at the top of this post, overall I'm happy. Just don't get in my way when I need to drop the kids off at the pool. (Oh, and for anyone who actually read my first post on this blog, I did write that eventually this could turn into stories about my adventures using the restroom at work; you were warned.)