Mayor Matt
This morning Matt told me that when I'm not busy with his administrative tasks, he's going to need me to...go ahead and...continue doing mock loans for James.
This was terrible news. The whole point of being a temp is that you're not supposed to actually have any work to do -- but here Matt devises this diabolical scheme to keep me busy throughout the day. It wouldn't be so bad if James had an actual pile of real loan applications that I could look forward to finishing. But there are an infinite number of "fake" people waiting to apply for a Regis mortgage, so there is no tangible end to the tedium (although at least now I have some good suggestions for mortgagees.)
I soon realized, however, that I could work this double-boss situation to my advantage. Whenever James came over to check on me, I pretended to be busy with admin stuff for Matt. Meanwhile, Matt didn't say boo about me taking three hours to complete a 20-minute task because he assumed I was busy making fake loans. I think I only did about 40 minutes of actual work today.
One of the pieces of work I did do was an expense report for Matt. I'll let you in on my keen observation about this Matt character: he's kind of a prick. He always takes a very condescending tone with me, but meanwhile I don't think he's any great shakes himself. He's one of the top guys in the company, but blood relation must have gotten him there because as far as I can tell he doesn't do any work. He spends the entire day walking around the office chatting it up with the cubical drones like he's the Mayor of the Office.
Yet in the middle of campaigning with the office peasants he'll randomly wield his iron Mayor-fist. "Too much prairie dogging going on!" he'll shout like a high school study hall monitor -- and silence will fall on the office as everyone slithers down in their seats. ("Prairie dogging" is Matt's ultra-hip way of referring to the phenomenon of people popping up above the wall height of their cubes to socialize. Some folks actually crawl around the floor like Viet Cong just so they can chat with neighbors without getting caught.)
Anyway, so this expense report I did for the Mayor included about six receipts from a recent business trip of his. One was a dinner receipt for over $2,000. Another was a receipt from an airport candy store for 99 cents. Ok, if you're coming two grand out of pocket for a dinner, do you really need to be expensing the 99-cent candy? Is it even worth the space in your wallet to store that receipt? Is it worth the 30 seconds of the temp's time (or 30 minutes, realistically) for this receipt to be keyed into the expense report system?
As I was leaving at the end of the day, I overheard Matt in his office (on one of the rare occasions he was actually in there) yucking it up with the CEO. "We've got to treat the loan officers like frogs," Matt said. "If you throw a frog into a pot of hot water, he'll jump out. But did you know that if you put a frog in a pot of cold water and heat it up slowly, the dumb f*ck will swim around in there until he boils to death?"
What disturbs me the most is that he seems to truly believe his own hype.
This was terrible news. The whole point of being a temp is that you're not supposed to actually have any work to do -- but here Matt devises this diabolical scheme to keep me busy throughout the day. It wouldn't be so bad if James had an actual pile of real loan applications that I could look forward to finishing. But there are an infinite number of "fake" people waiting to apply for a Regis mortgage, so there is no tangible end to the tedium (although at least now I have some good suggestions for mortgagees.)
I soon realized, however, that I could work this double-boss situation to my advantage. Whenever James came over to check on me, I pretended to be busy with admin stuff for Matt. Meanwhile, Matt didn't say boo about me taking three hours to complete a 20-minute task because he assumed I was busy making fake loans. I think I only did about 40 minutes of actual work today.
One of the pieces of work I did do was an expense report for Matt. I'll let you in on my keen observation about this Matt character: he's kind of a prick. He always takes a very condescending tone with me, but meanwhile I don't think he's any great shakes himself. He's one of the top guys in the company, but blood relation must have gotten him there because as far as I can tell he doesn't do any work. He spends the entire day walking around the office chatting it up with the cubical drones like he's the Mayor of the Office.
Yet in the middle of campaigning with the office peasants he'll randomly wield his iron Mayor-fist. "Too much prairie dogging going on!" he'll shout like a high school study hall monitor -- and silence will fall on the office as everyone slithers down in their seats. ("Prairie dogging" is Matt's ultra-hip way of referring to the phenomenon of people popping up above the wall height of their cubes to socialize. Some folks actually crawl around the floor like Viet Cong just so they can chat with neighbors without getting caught.)
Anyway, so this expense report I did for the Mayor included about six receipts from a recent business trip of his. One was a dinner receipt for over $2,000. Another was a receipt from an airport candy store for 99 cents. Ok, if you're coming two grand out of pocket for a dinner, do you really need to be expensing the 99-cent candy? Is it even worth the space in your wallet to store that receipt? Is it worth the 30 seconds of the temp's time (or 30 minutes, realistically) for this receipt to be keyed into the expense report system?
As I was leaving at the end of the day, I overheard Matt in his office (on one of the rare occasions he was actually in there) yucking it up with the CEO. "We've got to treat the loan officers like frogs," Matt said. "If you throw a frog into a pot of hot water, he'll jump out. But did you know that if you put a frog in a pot of cold water and heat it up slowly, the dumb f*ck will swim around in there until he boils to death?"
What disturbs me the most is that he seems to truly believe his own hype.
posted by Kim Plaintive at 9:33 PM
8 Comments:
oh, for--are you like some kind of ass magnet? Every time I read one of your posts, I feel myself torn between wishing, for your sake, that for once you'd have a decent day of work, and hoping that you don't, because then what's going to entertain me? How would I get my daily dose of schadenfreude? I'm not a bad person, really, you just make it really entertaining.
I cannot wait until you start law school.
You should totally submit your typical day of work as a script suggestion to the writers of "Office Space."
That is crazy! I just don't get people. So when do leave for Cali for law school and can get out of this mess? :)
I just found your blog and it's wonderfully entertaining.
My current job has me working remotely from head office, so I only experience the joys of office society filtered via my spies. This fills the void!
Good stuff...
Do people like this really exist? Why am I stuck with relatively normal folks?
came over b/c I loved your reference on Greek Tragedy to Duane Reades being the Yankees of the drug store world. Hilar.
My first time reading of course, but I hope that things get better w/ Matt. It's never easy to balance 2 bosses!
Prairie dog! haha! Loved it! This brings me back to the days when I used to work in an office, and it's all so true. The things they come up with. Expense reports---they're insane and would make me cringe sometimes. Too funny.
This was great!
I know this is an old post, but I just had to comment.
I travel on business about 200 days a year. My expenses are routinely 10k a month, and believe me... even the $1 receipts add up in the end.
Stop bitching and do your fucking job already.
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