Friday, March 16, 2007

Workplace Camaraderie

I have to tell you this office story because it's what Dear Abby used to call "a dandy day-brightener."

One of my work duties is secondary time-sheet person. There's a lady who takes everybody's time sheets and enters them into the system so we all can get paid. If she can't do it for some reason, I do it instead. She's not allowed to enter her own time sheet, so she has had someone else doing hers. Someone who is not me.

Now she has decided that the other person is messing up her time sheets, so she's going to have me do them for her instead. That's fine. It's no big time-consuming challenge.

But to borrow a phrase from R. Crumb, what's so goddamned delightful about the situation is the way she chose to inform me of the change in responsibilities. Here's how she launched the conversation:

"Okay, well, I guess I'm going to have to trust you now."

I didn't exactly know how to react to this effusive display of confidence in my abilities, so I just said, "Hey, do you mind if I turn that into a needlepoint? I can put it on the wall for when I need a morale boost."

Then I told my boss, who I'm sure heard the whole exchange, that I was going to walk to visit another office "before my head gets too big."

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