zesticle.com

So I’ve been pretty busy at work in the past week or so, and since work is where I do my blogging, that means no new posts. I could very easily write from home, but after I spend all day here on the computer, getting online and blogging is usually one of the last things I want to do when I get home. I also don’t like doing laundry, but clean undies are a necessity, whereas blog updates are not.

Since work is the reason I have been conspicuously absent, I thought I would regale you all with a couple of tales about how things have been going here in the past few days. When I started the new site, I told myself that I was not going to write about my personal very often, if at all, but these stories are somewhat humorous and/or sad and I feel I play sort of an everyman character in them, so feel free to project yourself into the scenarios.

I am sort of a loner in my office. Not in the cool way, where I would be a mysterious drifter or a guy who refuses to play by society’s rules. Just in the way that I don’t really talk very much to the people in my office. I am sure the majority of my co-workers find me to be odd or kind of a dick. What can you do, right? I thought I was the only one like that, but something happened recently that makes me think otherwise.

One of our project managers (we’ll call him Brad) called in the other day to talk to one of our draftsmen (who shall henceforth be known as Harry). Harry has worked here for about a year; Brad has been here for six or seven months. There are generally no more than a dozen people in the office, so it’s not like I work in some huge complex where you can easily lose track of people.

I go downstairs and to tell Harry about the call and we have the following conversation:

Me: Harry, Brad is on line one for you.
Him: Who?
Me: Brad.
Him: *blank stare*
Me: Gifford.
Him: Who’s that?
Me: Uh… he works here? His office is upstairs.

Awesome. I might not talk to people when I don’t have to, but I definitely know everyone’s name.

Not only is my office in an ugly part of town, but the building is ugly and everything in it is fairly crappy, including the heating and air conditioning system. Last week during our unseasonably warm weather, the rooftop heater apparently decided that spring was here to stay after two days, and promptly stopped working. When temperatures dipped back into highs in the 40s, I suspect the heater just decided that since it was going to be cold no matter whether it made the inside of the building warm for us, it was just going to lie there and not work.

The weather got cold and has stayed that way, and in a show of unflinching complacency, the heater has stayed equally broken. I’ve spent the past four work days with both a sweatshirt and my coat on, huddled over my desk like Bob Cratchit. All I need now is a gimpy little kid with an adorable zeal for Christmas.