And so it continues...

Well after a little bit of a respite there (not from CCL, of course…just one from writing about her), I am back.  And with a fresh story about CCL.

For the last couple of weeks, our office bathrooms have been going through a total renovation.  So, if one needs to use the restroom, they must either take the stairs or elevator to another floor in the building.  There are two sets of stairs in our building; one is a contained interior style—your typical stairwell—while the other is an exterior open style made of steel and concrete.  It’s got a modern feel to it & allows you to see above and below you a bit more than the interior set does.

As you can imagine, while the last couple of weeks have been filled with bathroom remodeling noises, they’ve also included another annoying noise: CCL’s constant complaints of having to go to another floor to use the restroom.  Last week she made it a point to say daily, “it is such a pain to have to schedule your bathroom trips every day.”  There is no schedule or calendar for the bathroom usage, so I have no clue as to why she’d have to schedule them for herself.  Today she called it “cruel and unusual punishment” and said that since she’s watched “This Old House”, she thinks she can help the builders complete the job a little faster.  (Her attempt at humor.)  After returning from the restroom, she stopped by and said, “I have figured out why I get so nervous coming down the outside stairs from the second floor.  I’m fine walking up, but coming down gets me anxious.  It’s because of my fear of heights and not because I fear the concrete.”  I wanted to ask why she’d have a fear of concrete, but I held my tongue.  Then she said, “As you’re coming down, if you look to the right you can see the platform and one flight of stairs below you, which you can’t see in the inside stairwell.”

My reply: “Then look left, take the elevator or use the other flight of stairs.  Easy fix.”

She did not seem to appreciate my proposed solution (I think she was frustrated that there wasn’t a thing within my suggestion that she could reasonably argue) and mumbled some final complaint as she stalked off.  This was, of course, not her first visit of the day.  Nor the first time today she was frustrated with my replies. 

When I first got to work, a lightning-filled rain storm momentarily knocked out the building’s power.  My laptop was booting up the first time it happened & while it was booting, I was texting Doc.  As soon as the power loss happened, I added a prediction to my text to Doc: CCL would shortly be coming to my desk to vocalize some complaint about the power flicker.  Sure enough, she shuffled right on over.

She said, “You people with your laptops suck.  I have a lowly desktop and it reboots itself each time the power flickers.”

I said, “It disconnects my laptop from the network and the thing won’t reconnect until I reboot, so we’re in the same boat regardless of the computer type.” 

I had zero sympathy for her situation, as we were each inconvenienced by the exact same event.  The difference between us---well, one among many (gratefully)—is that I don’t feel that my problems, no matter how small & insignificant to the average person they may be, are 100000% worse than anyone else’s.  It is not my first assumption, nor my second.  But, that is not the way of CCL.  Her first assumption is that because she experienced it, it was the worst thing on earth and no one else could possibly understand how tough it is.  Even if they experienced it too.  (Her most common saying in general & particularly when anyone complains near her: “Welcome to my world.”) 

I may be evil, but I will admit that I find a tremendous amount of joy in shooting down her self-pity moments by pointing out that a given issue is not exclusive to her alone.  Oh that provides such a tremendous amount of joy indeed!  Her negativity is absolutely draining and so any moment it can be lessened is a wonderful moment.

Meanwhile, she just capped off the day by coming by to say good night…and to complain that her dad forgot to come pick her up, so she’s late leaving.  She said her blood sugar level was screwed up this morning (she’s diabetic).  On those days (incidentally, they typically occur only when she doesn’t have anything large in her life to complain about), she has her dad drive her to and from work.  This also provides another opportunity to complain about something, as he’s NEVER arrived at the exact time she wants him to be.  It doesn’t matter if he’s early or late—either presents major issues that then require a day of complaints.  So, she was able to get that in today too. 

In one positive note, she did say earlier today that she helped her dad use up three Groupons this weekend.  The negative side of that was that she complained about two of the three places & recommended I avoid them at all cost.  In reality, they are probably amazing places, so I’ll be checking them out soon…

DND.

First, before I get into the latest CCL fun, I must share that her predictable predictability came into play again yesterday—twice.  The first time was when I wore a striped polo.  Within a few minutes of me being at the office, she stopped by and said, “Wearing prison garb again are we?”  I said, “Yes.  I just got it.”  She said, “Oh, so you’re buying more prison garb then?”  [Sometimes I’d really like to just slap her. Hard.]  The next moment happened later in the afternoon, when she overheard a manager mention that the company would be providing lunch for the office during a long meeting today.  CCL is a nightmare when it comes to ordering food for the office.  She doesn’t like any type of food [which is well disguised by the fact she’s bordering on morbidly obese] and she whines about any option you state.  It always goes something like this:

CCL: “What are we having for lunch tomorrow?”

Me: “Barbecue.”

CCL: “From where?”

Me: “The usual place.”

CCL: “What are we having with it?”

Me: “The usual—fried chicken, potatoes, slaw…”

CCL: “STOP!  You had me until ‘slaw’.  I don’t like slaw.”

Me: “I know.  So don’t put it on your plate.”

CCL: “Why don’t we ever have anything I like?”

[Again, I want to slap her.  Harder.]

The other thing about food & CCL is that she’s the first one to run in the kitchen to load up her plate and repeatedly asks me later if there are leftovers.  It’s enough to drive a person to drink.  Anyway, yesterday when she heard that the company was providing lunch, she shouted over the cube wall & interrupted a conversation to say, “FROM WHERE?  WHAT ARE WE ORDERING?”  As soon as she found the website for the place, she came right over to me and told me the one item on their menu that she would consider eating.  As if it matters to me.  AND, the funniest part was that she was first in line today & had plenty more than just that one item on her plate.  Bless her.

Meanwhile, on to the real purpose of my post: the Do Not Disturb signs.

About three years ago, we as an office of 35-40 people had a problem with two people on the floor, one of which was CCL.  Due to CCL’s non-stop whining and complaining, she was delaying a lot of work from being done.  She’d camp out in someone’s cube & complain about every single thing under the sun & then move onto the next cube to do the exact same thing.  The other person was just obnoxious & while she and CCL shared the same trait of not knowing when to leave, this other person would interrupt phone calls and conversations.  It got to be too much & management had enough, so they had me create large “PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB” signs that I then distributed to everyone on the floor.  When that sign is hung at the entrance to a person’s cube, the common rule is that you’re to email that person to let them know you need them.  Even if they’re not on a call or talking to someone, they may be deeply involved in a project and they don’t have time to be interrupted.  The sign was to be used only when necessary so that it wasn’t an overly used solution & would be taken seriously.  For example, if someone has their DND sign up all day every day, odds are that people are going to eventually interrupt that person & then that same mentality will carry over to those who are using their signs only as needed.  CCL has missed all of these concepts.

When using the sign herself, CCL will use it to try to have everyone know that she’s busy & overwhelmed (a fact which she goes around telling everyone, just to be sure they don’t miss her sign).  When she feels particularly stressed, she takes post-it notes and covers the “PLEASE” part of the sign.  In more extreme moments, she adds a post-it note to the bottom of the sign that threatens bodily harm to anyone who disturbs her.  Those are always fun days.

In my position, I deal a lot with management, who are pretty much exempt from having to follow the sign’s rules.  Most try to respect that you need to not be disturbed, but they know that if they do need something they can interrupt.  I’m fine with that.  What I’m not fine with is that CCL has seemingly added herself to the list of exemptions.  At first she’d walk by and say, “Look! I’m not disturbing you…”  [Idiot.]  Then she’d start venturing in & saying things like, “I know you don’t want to be disturbed, but…”  Now, the concept of the entire thing escapes her as it pertains to everyone else on the floor—but Lord be with the person who disturbs her when her sign is up.  (Usual response from her is an angry “Um, hello?  Did you not see that my sign is up?”)  Today’s reaction from her to my sign was the best so far though. 

I was conducting a conference call & put up my sign.  CCL was in another area of the floor & didn’t know I was going to be conducting a call.  For all she knew I just needed uninterrupted time to work on a presentation.  Anyway, after the conference call I forgot to take it down for maybe five minutes after I’d hung up.  By then CCL was back in the area & I was just working away.  So what did she do?  She came on over & said, “You haven’t had your ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign up in a while.”  Again, she didn’t know why I had the sign up in the first place, so she would’ve been completely interrupting me had I meant to still have it up.  And why was she interrupting me?  Just to tell me she hadn’t seen me not want to be interrupted for some time!  She had absolutely nothing else to share with me at that moment (though she’s since returned to tell me I’m her moral compass & asked if her envisioning a particular manager being murdered is as bad as actually committing the murder…gee, I wonder?). 

Nothing like needlessly being disturbed by the disturbed!

Predictably predictable.

I’d like to say I’m a completely spontaneous and unpredictable person.  But I’m not.  However, I’m also not the most predictable person on earth either.  That position is occupied by CCL, who is predictably the most predictable person one could ever meet.

Today, for instance, Doc met me at my office so we could go have lunch at the restaurant next door.  While eating, CCL went walking by on the sidewalk next to the windows where we were seated.  (Predictably, she had her brown t-shirt and brown polyester pants on today, complete with five-year-old safety pin hemming.)  I said to Doc, “Oh, I bet she’s going to the cupcake shop.  And when I get back to the office, she’ll attack & get after me for having not been around to talk her out of going to get a cupcake.”  (CCL has diabetes & couldn’t care less about managing it.  It wouldn’t matter if I duct taped her to her chair, no amount of input from me is going to stop her from going for a cupcake.  But she still likes to pretend like it will.) 

I finished up my delicious lunch & headed back to the office.  I was back for maaaaaaaaybe 2 minutes when CCL came around the corner and said, “There you are.  I came looking for you and you weren’t here.  You were supposed to talk me out of going to get a cupcake.”  I did my obligatory (predictable?) fake chuckle and the usual “oh, sorry” comments, which always result in even more discussion from CCL, despite my comments not remotely being a question or seemingly implying that I want to continue any sort of interaction with her.  Yet, on she goes until my feigned interest wanes enough to finally send a hint for her to go back to her own desk.  It’s a never ending battle.

Last night I thought I’d actually got out of the whole faux interest thing, as CCL seemed to be leaving the office in a hurry.  But that was too good to be true.  Instead, she made sure she stopped by to tell me how she was going home to cuddle with her cats and watch TV.  There are only so many responses a person can give that: “Fun.” “Interesting.” “Oh.” “Enjoy.” “You’re bizarre.”  Yet, somehow CCL manages to take a non-open ended statement and treat it like you just asked her 20 questions at one time.  You can count on it.  Predict it, even.

My current prediction…CCL would absolutely love this ridiculous site: http://invisiblecats.com/

Prison Stripes

As I may have mentioned, CCL thinks she’s humorous…very, very humorous, in fact.  The problem lies in that 1) she’s not funny, 2) she uses the same “witty” comment for years on end and 3) she’s very loud & wants everyone to know when something happens in her life.  So, she goes from person to person in the office telling the same story over & over loud enough for everyone to hear; by the time she reaches me, I have heard it so much that any humor it may have once held (which would be minimal, at best) is completely gone because of the repetition of it all. 

Having worked with her for almost five years, I can tell you what CCL will say in a given situation.  If someone calls her with a question, she’s being “stalked”.  If she gets mad at her boss, she either a) tells me she needs a voodoo doll that looks like her boss, b) asks if I’ll vouch for her character in a murder trial (that’s always a tough one to answer…), c) inquires as to what I think justifiable homicide is or d) threatens to quit because she just can’t take it anymore (one can dream…).  If someone from our corporate office calls her for a work-related question, “Corporate is harassing me”.  If a coworker gets frustrated, that person is “ready to snap like a twig” (she always tells me this with great urgency & concern, as if she is just sure the person is going to lose it at any minute).  And any time I wear a striped shirt, CCL tells me I look like I’m ready for prison.  I would like to tell her that based upon her outfits, she looks like she’s ready for the psych ward & is due for one massive makeover…but I bite my tongue, because I’m kind like that.

This is what annoys me about her prison shirt comments: 1) it wasn’t that funny when she first used the line five years ago & after dozens of times of her saying it, it’s completely obnoxious.  I have a lot of striped shirts & I actually find myself not wearing them sometimes simply because I don’t want to give her one more reason to come talk to me in a given day; 2) there’s no good comeback I can come up with, aside from my desire to say, “Yes, as working with you is like serving a life sentence. What did I do to deserve this? Why does God hate me?”; 3) she is NOT one to EVER judge attire on someone else. 

This is the same woman who, four years after first buying brown polyester pants that were too long, still has safety pins in them to hem the legs short enough that they don’t hit the ground.  She is also the same woman who told me she has exactly enough underwear & outfits to get her through one week (you can imagine the multi-level trauma there was the one time her oldest cat climbed in her laundry basket & peed all over her clean bras, which she didn’t discover until she went to wear one on a Monday morning.  Not only was there the obvious trauma for her, but the even bigger trauma for me, who had visualized her attempting to put on a cat pee-stained bra.)  She thinks that brown pocket t-shirts are fashionable to wear with safety-pinned brown polyester pants, that flood jeans are good to wear with white athletic socks and that long-sleeved shirts sewn into sweater vests are the latest high style fashion.  Needless to say, it is beyond an insult when CCL negatively comments on anything you wear.  It’s like Bernie Madoff giving Alan Greenspan investment advice.  It just shouldn’t happen.  Ever.

Unfortunately for me, I did not realize that CCL had today off.  (I knew she was taking off some days soon so she could take the cats to the vet—because somehow that’s a whole day event—and because her dad has two Groupons to use up, so she was taking two days off to go have lunch with him each day.  But, I didn’t know today was one such day.)  Had I known, I could’ve worn stripes today & not thought twice about it.  However, I am willing to give up a day in which I could wear stripes without CCL comment if it means I am CCL-free the entire day!  It is a blessed day…here in prison.

CCL's Dream Car

There is SOOOO much CCL stuff to catch ya'll up on...but I haven't had time to do so.  However, I will try to get on top of it sometime soon. 

In the meantime, I came across this gem & immediately thought it would be a perfect suggestion for CCL, who sporadically continues in her car shopping ventures.  (She tends to start car shopping--which gives her something to complain about--any time that she can't come up with other drama.  It's very similar to her almost-fainting spells due to diabetes mismanagement.  If there's nothing else to complain about, she mysteriously has low blood sugar, which requires her dad to drive her to work--leading to her going around the office to tell each person about it.)

However, if she decides not to get a new car & have it outfitted like this, she could always just do it to her Chevy Cavalier instead...

CCL's Dream Car

Scary snuggling.

There have been several times now that Doc & I have joked about getting a Snuggie for two.  This is usually done when we’re battling over who has more of the blanket while we’re watching TV & neither of us wants to get up and walk five feet to get another blanket from either lounge chair across the room.  We usually then get sidetracked about discussing how we’d have to fight the dogs over it (they LOVE soft things) if we had one & then we’d end up having to get them their own.  Keep in mind, we joke about this.  Note the word “joke”.

Earlier this week I was developing a nasty sinus infection & commented to CCL that I am sure the dogs love it when I get sick because it then gives them a whole heap of time during which they can cuddle with me and take advantage of any soft blanket I pull out to use myself.  And then she hit me with this whopper: “Oh, my cats do that too with my Snuggie.  Well, it’s not a real Snuggie.  It’s an off brand that is called Snaket or something like that.  It scares the cats every time I pull it out, but then they get used to it.”

Can one blame them for being scared?!  Not only does CCL have a Snuggie, but she was too cheap to even buy the real thing.  So, yes, I’d also be scared if I saw someone pull out a knock-off Snuggie.  I don’t get how they can get past the fear part of it long enough to want to cuddle on it…

Voodoo Dolls & Virtual Viruses

I can only think of two times that I’ve been on CCL’s bad side.  I don’t recall now what action or words led to her giving me the cold shoulder each of those delightful occasions, but I’m sure it was something ridiculously minor that any reasonable soul wouldn’t ever have thought twice about. 

Most days I wish I could remember what it was that caused her to ignore me, as it was quite effective—but with it comes the risk of getting on her REALLY bad side.  And I do mean REALLY bad.  I was reminded of this today—a day during which I’ve not exactly been the most chipper or happy with my boss & her inability to communicate—when CCL suggested I take Rice Krispie treats a co-worker put in the break room & mold them to look like my boss so that I could then attack said treat…and then re-build it and do it all over again.  Shortly thereafter, she said she was thinking about it and realized that everything one would need to pull off the perfect murder exists at the flea market.  Plus, there’s the added bonus of not having security cameras or receipts that will later incriminate you.  (I told her she was scaring me.  And she was.)

But, having said all of that, CCL’s usual proposed form of revenge goes back to voodoo dolls and virtual viruses.  She actually has looked at voodoo dolls online for purchase & wants to get one to use on her boss, Cow.  (Cow has ridiculous looking orange-red hair & so CCL said she’d paint the doll’s hair accordingly.)  Fortunately for all of us, CCL is as cheap as they come, so she won’t be wasting money on a doll.  She’ll instead save that money for a kitty toy she finds at a garage sale, which is her usual weekend activity with her mother.

Beyond the voodoo doll is the threat of a virtual virus.  It is not a typical computer virus that destroys a computer—it’s some email you can send to a person letting them know they’ve been infected with a virus of some kind.  I’ve heard about this for almost five years now and still haven’t bothered to Google it to see what it actually is, but the impression I get each time she brings it up is that it’s some kind of email that says “you have been given the flu” or something.  I don’t know.  I don’t ask & she always says the exact same lines each time she tells me about it, so I never get any additional information.  Which reminds me…  What I love is that every time CCL brings something up she seems to think it’s a revelation—even though she’s talked about it for five years in some cases.  It’s always, “You know, they do have virtual viruses you can send someone!”  (Please note that if I could do half of an exclamation point here I would, as that is more representative of the excitement level she has than what is implied by using a full exclamation point.)  Today I said, “I know.”  I normally act like I’m learning along with her, but I didn’t have any ounce of charity in my bones today.

Speaking of which…

I sent her a picture today of an adorable dog that belongs to a friend of Doc’s.  He sent it in an attempt to cheer me up.  And it did.  Anyway, I passed it on to CCL & said, “Isn’t she adorable?!”  She replied with a picture of her cat and said, “Yes, but not as adorable as this.”  It took her no time at all.  She has pictures of her cat at the ready.  So, I emailed back and said that I was sure her expressed opinion was due to her own bias & that she truly meant the dog was cuter than any cat.  (I told you I wasn’t feeling charitable.)  That resulted in an immediate personal visit from her, telling me about her cat’s eyes that are like Puss in Boots’ from the Shrek movies.  I normally don’t bother emailing her or replying to emails she sends me.  Why I bothered today is beyond me.  I was regretting it the entire ten minutes she stood in my cube & told me about how sweet her cat is & how “kitty just loves mommy”.

However, I can pretty safely say that me putting up with moments like that—even when I bring them on myself—assures that there is not a voodoo doll that looks identical to me sitting in one of her drawers somewhere.  This is more than I can say for some people in CCL’s life...