Read My Mind

A surveyor walked into my office this morning and looked at me expectantly. I looked at her. The surveyors do this periodically, they just walk into my office and wait for me to do something - validate their parking, comment on their hair, ask if they lost weight…sometimes I will gaze back at them until they figure out that we are not psychic friends and whatever message they think they’re beaming out to me is going to be returned postage due. She just stood there and smiled at me.

I was beginning to worry, what was this strange woman looking at me like that? She looked a little like she had decided that I would fit in her caldron. I then wondered if maybe I won the lottery and somehow under went a mind wipe - but not before I told her and only her? Had I a grown a second head? Was she smiling at what the invisible people where telling her? I was afraid she was really waiting for me to read her mind – I don’t think it would be hard with her, because from what I have been able to ascertain about her through the years, she could be renting out the space up there as a loft. I also kind of think her minds eye may need glasses.

Surveyor - Can I have a white sheet of paper.

Me – There is a printer right out there. It has paper in it

Surveyor – I could do that…

Me – Yes.

Surveyor – Oh! I hadn’t thought about that! How long as that been there?

Me – Years.

Surveyor – Do you have any tape?

Me – No.

Surveyor – You need to get you a tape dispenser.

Me – When I need tape I go take some off somebody’s desk

Surveyor – You really are destitute out here.

Me – Right.

Other Duties as needed

I was also informed on Friday that while our section chief is out of the office, that I am the official supervisor of his M&M dispenser. I think I will call it into my office and have an uncomfortable meeting with it out lining my expectations of it and what I think it can do to do its job more efficiently. I also think it should do a time study. Unlike the other people who make use of the M&M dispenser I can be trusted to not eat all of them while he is gone. We have one guy who all but lifts it up off the desk and gargles from it whenever he has a chance. So, my new responsibility is protecting the M&M dispenser from this guy. I think I’ll have my manager add it to my list of duties - Take over supervisory duties for M&M dispenser while Section Chief is out of town..

Follow my train of thought as it jumps the tracks.

I now know why in the past out grandmothers wore those really big bathing costumes. It wasn’t because of strict social mores or the tragic fact of life that spandex had not been released into the wild yet - it was because they knew that when they got sunburned the only parts of them that would be burned at the parts that their clothes wouldn’t rub on too much. Grandma didn’t have to spend the day trying to find a comfortable place for her bra strap wondering why it would be so hard to make bathing suit tops and bra straps the same damn dimensions. Grandma didn’t have these issues; she didn’t waste a lot of time suffering because her blouse was rubbing her sunburned neck. Grandma was smart. Grandma probably sank under the weight of her bathing suit, bathing stockings and bathing shoes but she didn’t end up with tan lines either.