Unchain my Heart
So here I arrive at my office where I work as the office manager for, well, let’s just call him, Mr. N…Nutball, that will do for now. Mr. Nutball usually stands right at the door about the time I get here, cause he believes that promptness is better than any single attribute an employee can bring to her job. He prides himself on arriving everyday at the same time. Why? I don’t know. If it was my office I would come in whenever the hell I so pleased.
But, then again, it’s not my office, is it?
Like clockwork, Mr. Nutball, is standing here when I walk through the door, and he says “Good morning” and then looks at the clock hanging dead center on the bare wall. Today, I’m three minutes late. I’m never much later than that, sometimes one minute, sometimes two. Three are risky, but I was distracted by the damn flier on the pole this morning.
Which reminds me, I still have to call that number on the tab.
Everyone in the office has been awaiting my arrival because I make the coffee. Making coffee is one of the many proud tasks of an office manager, and no one wants to jump in my grave and snatch all the glory away from me. They are an admirable bunch, these people I work around.
Within two and a half minutes I have finished creating coffee, and I head back to my desk. Immediately I can tell that someone has been sitting in my chair and has repositioned my tape dispenser and stapler again. And I also notice, like every other day, that Mr. Nutball has been rooting through my trash can before I got here this morning. He is notorious for doing this. I hear tell he did the same thing with the one who came before me, who, by the way, everyone here speaks of as if she went on to her grave rather than to the better job she did go to. I don’t know what it is exactly he’s looking for, maybe he wants to make sure I am only doing office business when I’m here and not writing personal letters or throwing away his office supplies or the like. That’s what I figure anyway. Who really knows why a grown man would dig in someone else’s trash. I try hard not to get in his head.
These are the kind of things that are very annoying to have to face first thing in the morning. But now they have become part of my little routine around here, so I am trying to get used to it, cause no matter what, I like my desk neat and my trash can in its place before I start work. Even if a lot of my morning time gets spent keeping them that way.
I align the stapler perpendicular to the back of the desk-straight as an arrow. The tape dispenser is placed parallel. Then I straighten up the rest and settle in for a day at my job. My glorious job. With my ducks all lined up nicely, I make my phone call. The tab says to ask for Dr. LeSieg. The name sounds authentic enough. We’ll see.
Ring, ring.
The answering machine picks up. “If you are phoning about our meeting, please leave your name and telephone number and someone will get back to you.”
I hang up. I always do that. I hate with a passion to leave a message out there in the world on some strange machine. Especially when I want to know information right away.
You really shouldn’t leave messages just anywhere, you sometimes don’t even know if you’ve called the right place. Plus, if you do leave a message, you are not entitled to call back. Answering machine etiquette. You have to wait for that person to call you, otherwise you look too anxious. And impatient. It drives me crazy when people don’t call you back right away, so I have decided it’s best not leave any message at all. This leaves the ball in your court to call back as often as you please.
Years of being a secretary have taught me well.