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!