No Telephone-y, No Work-y

The phones went out this afternoon. We LJs attempted to look busy, but it didn't work. We all had a ton of people to call and no way of calling them. Cell phones? "I'm not using MY minutes," one co-worker said.

The editor at the paper is more like one of the gang. He still writes stories and edits, too. He wandered into the back to chat with us - we were no longer working. We started discussing THE MOVE. It will be a big and distressing ordeal. All of the cubes need to be moved. Stuff needs to be boxed. At the other office, everything must be labeled.

Out of the blue one of the co-workers said, "My desk makes my pants dirty." We three chicks in the group busted raucous cackles. "It's just the way you said it, like a little kid, 'My butt hurts.' What can you say to that? 'I know and I'm sorry." ("I'm glad it's just your desk," the receptionist said. She started us laughing again.)

The desks are the thing. They come from an era when people were shorter and used typewriters. Us tall 21st century people hobble home from work, wounded by the short desks. Lowering the chair is not an option because the chairs are crap. There is no up and down movement. You're lucky if you have an armrest. Two armrests is almost too much to ask. I took a mini-tour of the office today and discovered a mini-office chair cemetery in what will soon be our kitchen.

Of course, then there is the subject of The Desk. The Desk belongs to Eus. She's worked for the paper for 29 years. She started off as a paper girl (she claims). The Desk has made the move a couple of times before. It is huge, wooden and in good shape. And by huge I mean four feet deep and nearly seven feet long. She loves that thing. The movers are none too happy about moving the desk. "We'll find a place for it," one of them said today, "That might just be a dumpster." She'd be heartbroken.

One more thing, because of this move we are losing one staff member. On Tuesday we had a little ice cream party for her. She's a really nice woman, a pleasure to work with. So we offered the sports guy a big piece of cake and ice cream. "No thanks. I'm going to Curves tonight," he said. We all cracked up. He's so quiet, whenever he says something funny it really throws us off. Great fun. Good people. Bad, bad cubicles.

TARB