THE WEEK THAT WAS
Routine nurtures and protects the American family. The rich soil of the predictable is what allows us to grow into the humdrum people that make this the most dynamic country in the world.
Don't believe me? Look, I could never have achieved fame and fortune as a layout/copy editor had my father not been the sort of dad who came home from work about 6 or so and my mother had not been the sort of mom who had dinner ready shortly thereafter. All the time. If Dad had come home at, say, 11 with two strippers and a "Do Not Disturb" sign, I would have spent the rest of the night taking guns and meat cleavers away from Mom (or not, depending on the state of my allowance). My schoolwork would have suffered, and I would have had to take drama class to keep my grades up. Then I likely would have been consigned to the dreary life of a movie star. Fortunately, I dodged that bullet.
A work family is much like a nuclear family in its dependence on routine. So it was a major bump in the road recently when we went to a consolidated news desk. The consolidation meant that the layout/copy editors from features -- I'll call them "Lola" and "Gustav" -- brought themselves and their work to us. In return, they take on some of our tasks. And we all switch our work weeks from five eight-hour days to four 10-hour days.
But the path to one big, happy work family has gone a little haywire, as this journal shows.
First Day, 1 p.m.
I come into work to find Lola cleaning her work station, which is next to mine, as though a plague victim had staggered into the paper and expired on her desk. She is wearing a hazmat suit, scrubbing every inch of her cubicle with ammonia and scouring powder. And she is using a pressure cleaner for good measure.
1:10 p.m.
Lola turns the pressure cleaner on me, knocking me ass-over-teacups out of my cubicle. She explains that she is appalled by my work station's (entirely relative) filthiness, so she launched a pre-emptive strike to keep the filthiness at bay. Though cleaner, I am not happy.
1:12 p.m.
Lola brings in a Wiccan priest and Zen Buddhist monk to complete the purification. This is a little over the top.
1:30 p.m.
With the last echo of chanting fading, I begin reading features copy. Features writers! use a lot! of exclamation points! The faux cheerfulness! and enthusiasm! make me want! to force them to undergo! colonic irrigation! and a root canal! at the same time!
2 p.m.
Florabelle, Kiki and Olaf (names changed, of course) arrive. With our ranks for the night filled, I start doing what I do best: passing off work and surfing the Web.
5:35 p.m.
Lola begins to have questions about the doings of the desk. This poses two problems: The answers to these questions might mean that I have to quit watching Frisky Teen Cheerleaders on the Web, and Florabelle and I might butt heads. Florabelle and I have both spent nights running the news desk, and we both have our ideas about how things should run. She thinks the desk should operate as efficiently as possible. I think it should run like a pickup truck without brakes rolling downhill backwards. We both begin to answer Lola, yet there can only be one dominant today. The struggle to be top dog between Florabelle and me is on.
5:35:30
It's all over. Florabelle has kicked my ass and for good measure chased me up one the trees outside. I am forced to stay there the rest of the night, explaining to gawking passers-by that I am fact-checking a story about squirrel mating rituals.
Second day, 1 p.m.
Gustav is already at the paper, sitting in the cubicle behind mine. There has been bad blood between us ever since I played a joke on him by using his sign-on to crop the "l" from "public defender" in a 45-point headline. That was some years back, and surely he is over that by now. Oddly, he has a crowbar with him. He says the desk drawers have been sticking a little.
2:34 p.m.
I bend down to pick up a pen I dropped. Just as I begin to bend, I feel and hear the whoosh of something scything through the air just above my head. I look up to see Gustav holding the crowbar and grimacing like Casey at strike three. Guess Gustav ain't over it.
4:27 p.m.
Kiki is humming Funky Town. Kiki has been humming Funky Town for the past three hours, an exercise in perky torture. The tune has bored its way into my brain like a meth-addled termite, and I can't get rid of it. Must find more annoying tune to exorcise Funky Town. But first must pour scalding hot coffee down Kiki's throat to sear her vocal chords.
8:42
Kiki has sailed into her eighth hour of Funky Town. The coffee had no effect upon her at all (I forgot that she is a seven-gallons-a-day coffee drinker), except to speed up the tempo of humming. I am beating my head upon the desk.
12 a.m.
My shift is over and I head out to a bar to see friends and try to forget the night I've had. But all I can do is talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, talk about it.
Third day, 1 p.m.
Gustav will not look at me as I arrive at the news desk. He is staring intently at his screen and laughing softly in a sinister way. A cobra is curled in my chair, its head raised and ready to strike. The serpent and I begin swaying and staring at each other, yet he gets the better of me. At first. His lightning quick attack strikes me on the shoulder, but then something unexpected happens. Once the venom comes in contact with my DNA, instead of coursing through my veins in the blink of an eye, it sulks about the wound for a minute or so. Then it slides listlessly out of the wound, and I can almost hear the sigh of indifference escape my shoulder. The cobra strikes several more times, with similar results. Up against a tower of sloth, the snake surrenders to the inevitable and curls itself (almost affectionately) around my shoulders for about 10 hours of Frisky Teen Cheerleaders. Behind me, Gustav weeps.
6:51 p.m.
Kiki has embraced Total Eclipse of the Heart. I feverishly look to escape. I try tunneling out.
8:09 p.m.
Oh, yeah. We're on the second floor. That must be why I landed with a thud in classified advertising. The cobra glares at me.
Fourth day
Lola has built a hermetically sealed sphere around her cubicle, Gustav has rigged my desk with dynamite, a guillotine and tripwired shotgun. Lord knows what Kiki will hum today. I decide to avoid work and co-workers by having a mannequin made to look like me and installed with an audio device that randomly plays the following statements:
"Sorry, I can't help right now. I'm doing Web stuff."
"I'm having a little trouble with this page. Can you help?"
"I think the centerpiece is more in your line of expertise. Would you mind doing it?"
"I'm going to take a break now."
And the desk rolls on without missing a beat.
Routine nurtures and protects the American family. The rich soil of the predictable is what allows us to grow into the humdrum people that make this the most dynamic country in the world.
Don't believe me? Look, I could never have achieved fame and fortune as a layout/copy editor had my father not been the sort of dad who came home from work about 6 or so and my mother had not been the sort of mom who had dinner ready shortly thereafter. All the time. If Dad had come home at, say, 11 with two strippers and a "Do Not Disturb" sign, I would have spent the rest of the night taking guns and meat cleavers away from Mom (or not, depending on the state of my allowance). My schoolwork would have suffered, and I would have had to take drama class to keep my grades up. Then I likely would have been consigned to the dreary life of a movie star. Fortunately, I dodged that bullet.
A work family is much like a nuclear family in its dependence on routine. So it was a major bump in the road recently when we went to a consolidated news desk. The consolidation meant that the layout/copy editors from features -- I'll call them "Lola" and "Gustav" -- brought themselves and their work to us. In return, they take on some of our tasks. And we all switch our work weeks from five eight-hour days to four 10-hour days.
But the path to one big, happy work family has gone a little haywire, as this journal shows.
First Day, 1 p.m.
I come into work to find Lola cleaning her work station, which is next to mine, as though a plague victim had staggered into the paper and expired on her desk. She is wearing a hazmat suit, scrubbing every inch of her cubicle with ammonia and scouring powder. And she is using a pressure cleaner for good measure.
1:10 p.m.
Lola turns the pressure cleaner on me, knocking me ass-over-teacups out of my cubicle. She explains that she is appalled by my work station's (entirely relative) filthiness, so she launched a pre-emptive strike to keep the filthiness at bay. Though cleaner, I am not happy.
1:12 p.m.
Lola brings in a Wiccan priest and Zen Buddhist monk to complete the purification. This is a little over the top.
1:30 p.m.
With the last echo of chanting fading, I begin reading features copy. Features writers! use a lot! of exclamation points! The faux cheerfulness! and enthusiasm! make me want! to force them to undergo! colonic irrigation! and a root canal! at the same time!
2 p.m.
Florabelle, Kiki and Olaf (names changed, of course) arrive. With our ranks for the night filled, I start doing what I do best: passing off work and surfing the Web.
5:35 p.m.
Lola begins to have questions about the doings of the desk. This poses two problems: The answers to these questions might mean that I have to quit watching Frisky Teen Cheerleaders on the Web, and Florabelle and I might butt heads. Florabelle and I have both spent nights running the news desk, and we both have our ideas about how things should run. She thinks the desk should operate as efficiently as possible. I think it should run like a pickup truck without brakes rolling downhill backwards. We both begin to answer Lola, yet there can only be one dominant today. The struggle to be top dog between Florabelle and me is on.
5:35:30
It's all over. Florabelle has kicked my ass and for good measure chased me up one the trees outside. I am forced to stay there the rest of the night, explaining to gawking passers-by that I am fact-checking a story about squirrel mating rituals.
Second day, 1 p.m.
Gustav is already at the paper, sitting in the cubicle behind mine. There has been bad blood between us ever since I played a joke on him by using his sign-on to crop the "l" from "public defender" in a 45-point headline. That was some years back, and surely he is over that by now. Oddly, he has a crowbar with him. He says the desk drawers have been sticking a little.
2:34 p.m.
I bend down to pick up a pen I dropped. Just as I begin to bend, I feel and hear the whoosh of something scything through the air just above my head. I look up to see Gustav holding the crowbar and grimacing like Casey at strike three. Guess Gustav ain't over it.
4:27 p.m.
Kiki is humming Funky Town. Kiki has been humming Funky Town for the past three hours, an exercise in perky torture. The tune has bored its way into my brain like a meth-addled termite, and I can't get rid of it. Must find more annoying tune to exorcise Funky Town. But first must pour scalding hot coffee down Kiki's throat to sear her vocal chords.
8:42
Kiki has sailed into her eighth hour of Funky Town. The coffee had no effect upon her at all (I forgot that she is a seven-gallons-a-day coffee drinker), except to speed up the tempo of humming. I am beating my head upon the desk.
12 a.m.
My shift is over and I head out to a bar to see friends and try to forget the night I've had. But all I can do is talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, talk about it.
Third day, 1 p.m.
Gustav will not look at me as I arrive at the news desk. He is staring intently at his screen and laughing softly in a sinister way. A cobra is curled in my chair, its head raised and ready to strike. The serpent and I begin swaying and staring at each other, yet he gets the better of me. At first. His lightning quick attack strikes me on the shoulder, but then something unexpected happens. Once the venom comes in contact with my DNA, instead of coursing through my veins in the blink of an eye, it sulks about the wound for a minute or so. Then it slides listlessly out of the wound, and I can almost hear the sigh of indifference escape my shoulder. The cobra strikes several more times, with similar results. Up against a tower of sloth, the snake surrenders to the inevitable and curls itself (almost affectionately) around my shoulders for about 10 hours of Frisky Teen Cheerleaders. Behind me, Gustav weeps.
6:51 p.m.
Kiki has embraced Total Eclipse of the Heart. I feverishly look to escape. I try tunneling out.
8:09 p.m.
Oh, yeah. We're on the second floor. That must be why I landed with a thud in classified advertising. The cobra glares at me.
Fourth day
Lola has built a hermetically sealed sphere around her cubicle, Gustav has rigged my desk with dynamite, a guillotine and tripwired shotgun. Lord knows what Kiki will hum today. I decide to avoid work and co-workers by having a mannequin made to look like me and installed with an audio device that randomly plays the following statements:
"Sorry, I can't help right now. I'm doing Web stuff."
"I'm having a little trouble with this page. Can you help?"
"I think the centerpiece is more in your line of expertise. Would you mind doing it?"
"I'm going to take a break now."
And the desk rolls on without missing a beat.
posted by John Parnell at 12:20 PM
1 Comments:
I needed that laugh today! Give the cobra a pat on the head for me.
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