Lunch at K. Roger's
Whenever someone in the office has a birthday, his or her cube gets decorated with banners and balloons. The strange thing is that the balloons are always tied down to the edges of the cubicle so that they just barely peep up over the tops of the chest-high walls. It is so utterly bizarre-looking that I have to think it's the result of one of Mayor Matt's decrees. Thou shalt not fly balloons above cube wall height.
Anyway, all morning I was actually working because I kept feeling like someone was looking over my shoulder. When my phone rang, I took the opportunity to turn around as I picked up the receiver to see who this intrusive person was. Turns out it was just a birthday balloon that had come loose from one of the cubes behind me and was floating at an illegal height. I felt pretty stupid, but Amber, who was on the other end of the phone line, laughed and said she'd made the same exact mistake.
Yes, Amber and I sit directly next to each other, and yes, we use the phone to communicate (had you forgotten about the Mayor's prairie dog commandment?). Usually Amber just calls to tell me about her latest find on BP (if she says he's particularly fine I'll crawl over to look for myself) but this morning the topic was lunch.
"You wanna do the salad bar at K. Roger's?" she asked. (K. Roger's, for those not in the know, is Kroger Supermarket.) I said yes. We needed a new lunch spot after seeing something disgusting -- the details of which I'll spare you -- in the office cafeteria yesterday.
I was glad we were getting away from the office caf anyway. Amber and I always ended up eating near this loud table of guys who spend their entire lunch hour whooping it up over their "bball" skills (read: their ability to sink balled-up napkins into the giant garbage can a few yards away). One of them also had the charming habit of asking me, every single day, if I had brought chitlins for lunch. I simply didn't know how to respond to this.
So today Amber and I happily made the pilgrimage to K. Roger's. The salad bar was good and we were both duly impressed with the basket of free crackers (the office caf charges 7 cents per pack). We ate in the outdoor cafe area, the Texas heat thawing our office-frozen extremities. Being outside the walls of Regis got us talking candidly quick.
"This is one of the best temp jobs I've had," Amber said. "Shoot, we sit there doing nothing and they pay us $15 an hour!"
Wait. What? "I'm sorry, did you say $15?" Those bustas are only paying me $14!
We concluded that maybe Amber's rate was for software testing whereas mine was for the admin position I'd originally been hired for. But I talked to our temp agency and they assured me that $14 was the "correct" rate, even for software testing. I couldn't argue further without revealing that Amber and I had explicitly discussed our pay rate (a strict no-no).
So now they leave me with no choice but to take back the hourly dollar that is owed to me. Instead of working the usual 10 minutes per hour, I'm cutting back to 9 minutes 20 seconds. (I logged the time it took me to calculate that as "work time.")
I was determined to stick to the 9:20 plan for the rest of the afternoon -- but I found myself compelled to do too much work. That damn balloon was still hassling me.
Anyway, all morning I was actually working because I kept feeling like someone was looking over my shoulder. When my phone rang, I took the opportunity to turn around as I picked up the receiver to see who this intrusive person was. Turns out it was just a birthday balloon that had come loose from one of the cubes behind me and was floating at an illegal height. I felt pretty stupid, but Amber, who was on the other end of the phone line, laughed and said she'd made the same exact mistake.
Yes, Amber and I sit directly next to each other, and yes, we use the phone to communicate (had you forgotten about the Mayor's prairie dog commandment?). Usually Amber just calls to tell me about her latest find on BP (if she says he's particularly fine I'll crawl over to look for myself) but this morning the topic was lunch.
"You wanna do the salad bar at K. Roger's?" she asked. (K. Roger's, for those not in the know, is Kroger Supermarket.) I said yes. We needed a new lunch spot after seeing something disgusting -- the details of which I'll spare you -- in the office cafeteria yesterday.
I was glad we were getting away from the office caf anyway. Amber and I always ended up eating near this loud table of guys who spend their entire lunch hour whooping it up over their "bball" skills (read: their ability to sink balled-up napkins into the giant garbage can a few yards away). One of them also had the charming habit of asking me, every single day, if I had brought chitlins for lunch. I simply didn't know how to respond to this.
So today Amber and I happily made the pilgrimage to K. Roger's. The salad bar was good and we were both duly impressed with the basket of free crackers (the office caf charges 7 cents per pack). We ate in the outdoor cafe area, the Texas heat thawing our office-frozen extremities. Being outside the walls of Regis got us talking candidly quick.
"This is one of the best temp jobs I've had," Amber said. "Shoot, we sit there doing nothing and they pay us $15 an hour!"
Wait. What? "I'm sorry, did you say $15?" Those bustas are only paying me $14!
We concluded that maybe Amber's rate was for software testing whereas mine was for the admin position I'd originally been hired for. But I talked to our temp agency and they assured me that $14 was the "correct" rate, even for software testing. I couldn't argue further without revealing that Amber and I had explicitly discussed our pay rate (a strict no-no).
So now they leave me with no choice but to take back the hourly dollar that is owed to me. Instead of working the usual 10 minutes per hour, I'm cutting back to 9 minutes 20 seconds. (I logged the time it took me to calculate that as "work time.")
I was determined to stick to the 9:20 plan for the rest of the afternoon -- but I found myself compelled to do too much work. That damn balloon was still hassling me.
posted by Kim Plaintive at 11:28 AM
4 Comments:
chitlins? I think I'd be offended, if I wasn't in shock.
The balloon thing cracked me up. I can just see it hovering there, supervising.
...should have popped that stinking balloon when it was really quiet.
So KP does blogging aboutthe office fall under personal or work time?
I'm still working on the breakfast thing I went out last night so I did not have time to finish my assignment. I shamelessly plugged your site instead. Its kind of like giving the teacher an apple when you for get your homework ;).
Seems pointless with office birthdays. We used to pass around that dreaded inter-office envelope---enclosed, a card, and you had to sign it---then of course, the $3 dollar donation for the birthday party. "Ssshhh, pass this on." Come on! It adds up especially when your department has 30+ people in it. Pointless. Let the company pay for it! Ah well, I'm not a cheapo or anything, just annoyed because the majority of them I didn't even like.
Pop everyone of those annoying balloons and go crazy! :)
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