Pink Pins Update!

I just have to share something cool. My office raised $1210 in a week for Breast Cancer Awareness! That's $200 more than we raised last year!

Not bad, annoying co-workers, not bad. :)

The Pink Pins

So this week we are doing a fundraiser for Breast Cancer Awareness month. Donate $5, you can wear jeans for a day, or donate $10 and you can wear jeans for the whole entire week! Wearing jeans is a suchhhh a great way to get people to donate, because who doesn't love wearing jeans to work?! And all week? done and done!! There have been a few great people who have opted to donated more "just because", which I think is awesome. The President of the company (who happens to be a woman) donated $100, and has yet to wear jeans all week. I like this woman.

Now let's talk about the ones I don't, because let's face it, that's what this blog is really all about! :) There are 4 different people in the office that are collecting donations. I am one of them, natch. I've always helped out to collect since it makes sense since I'm in the main area and sees the most amount of people. Of course, this is when the lobby becomes a huge cluster of people. And not to mention, rude people. I literally have people who come up to my desk and throw their money at me. I have people who will stand there just holding their $10, without saying what they want. I have people who tell me they want a pin before I could get them one in exchange for donating.

Who are these people!? You're doing a nice gesture, and in exchange for that you get to be rewarded for wearing jeans for an entire week! Hold your horses and be nice to me! No one is forcing you to donate. You could be a real jerk and wear jeans when you didn't donate and no one would know! How am I to know if you're donating, ordering lunch, or just there to ask me a question!? Please just say something, don't just stand there expecting me to know what you want!

One day, someone will politely come up to my desk, and say "Hi Ruby, how are you? I would like to donate money for the Breast Cancer Awareness fundraiser." I would smile and reply "Ok! Let me get your pin. And how much do you want to donate?"

Sighhh.....

Yeah right, who are we kidding... I would never respond like that ;)

There's an issue in the bathroom

NMO. Aka New Managers Orientation. Aka one of the worst weeks at work.

During these weeks we have new managers from different sites come in and they get a 4 day "training" at the corporate office to learn about....???....managing people, I assume?? It's usually all women, and usually a TON of them. There's nothing more frightening when the gaggle of them boom into the building with all their luggage (cause, yup, they come right from the airport), yelling (not chatting, because they are just SOOO excited to be there!) and being totally lost of where they need to be or where the conference room. Oh, and where do they put their luggage? And do we have coffee? Where are the rest rooms, will we be serving a breakfast???

Welcome to my life.

So anyways, the day continues on. Until, the greatest thing ever happened. Bill told me the greatest story ever, which happened to involve a "NMO".

Bill was sitting at his desk, when an employee came looking for him since, naturally, our office manager was no where to be found. So, the employee, looking rather distraught, told Bill that there was an "issue" upstairs in the women's bathroom, and she needed his help immediately. So, Bill said he would call the property management company and would get someone out there to help out. The lady told Bill that this was a critical issue and it needed to be handled asap. So Bill, assuming it was a clogged toilet, or a leaking sink decided he would humor the lady and go upstairs to take a look.

What he found was way better.

There was a....

NMO....

STUCK IN A BATHROOM STALL!!!! Totally locked in, couldn't get the door to open at all!!!!!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA! I personally would have FREAKED out! That, or climbed under the door and freed myself.

Can you even imagine being that lady? Or better yet, the lady who was next into the bathroom? Do you think she heard "excuse me??? can you help me, I'm STUCK in here!"

So poor Bill was unfortunately stuck to get this woman out. Having her crawl under the door wasn't an option as she wasn't small in size or real young. After trying to "kick down the door" and fiddle around with the lock, Bill ended up pretty much knocking the door off the hinges to free the poor visitor. Once the scared lady left the stall, Bill took it upon himself to take a look at the damage to determine how he was going to fix it. As he entered the stall, he realized this lady decided that in the all the time she was locked in there, flushing the toilet was not an option!!

EW! Who does that??? Why would you not flush?? Especially if you're trapped in there - people are going to see what you did, or...didn't do!!

Needless to say, Bill never fixed the door.

She said what?!

The most ridiculous thing happened to me today.

It started out a typical day, I was getting yelled at by a caller who did not like that they reached a voicemail and demanded they speak to live person. No biggie, I get thousand of these calls a day. I have absolutely no sympathy for these people. Rules are rules, and if you want to speak someone about your benefits, you go to their helpdesk, end of story.

So what was so different about this caller?

Well, she rudely told me that she....

had...

wait for it....





CANCER! And was getting CHEMO on Monday. Therefore she absolutely had no time for a voicemail and demands to speak to a real live person.

A what what??

Did you just tell me you have cancer in hopes that this will get you a person to speak to? You could be the president of the United States and that still is not going to get me to transfer you to a person. You get a voicemail, just like everyone else. And honestly, who knows if she really has cancer? This lady was so rude to me, I almost feel she made it up so she would get her way. Sorry hunny, you picked the wrong girl. I mean, who just tells a random receptionist she has cancer?!?

I know, I know!! I'm SO mean, I'm horrible! But honestly, telling me that you have cancer does nothing. You might as well tell me that you have 2 heads. It's not going to get me to do anything differently. I've known people that have had cancer, and none of them would have ever used that to "get their way".

So, who's wrong? Me, for being a jerk and sticking to what the rules are and doing what I've been instructed to do, or for a caller telling me she is sick to try to get around the system???

A Bug's Life.

Yes, you read that correctly, LIVE INSECTS are in that box. And where is that box, you ask? MY DESK, of course!

And what does the small print say below OPEN IMMEDIATELY? Well, let me tell you!

"This package may include one or more of the following: butterflies, ladybugs, ants, praying mantis, silkworms, mill worms or earthworms."

What the F is this doing being delivered to a corporate office and why the F is not in the mail room and on my desk?!?!?!

Naturally I called Bill and he "handled it, handled it."

Only after shaking it.

Whoops.

Never did find out what was inside, but I'm thinking it's probably better that way. It was most likely dead anyways.

Whoops.

The STANK!

I walked into the lobby today and it was like walking into septic tank. I almost thought that an animal had crawled into the office and decided to die. So instead of just going to my desk and sitting in the rancid smell, I went on a mission to find Bill (Office Services guy that comes in at the same time as me) to figure out what the smell was. The smell of course, was just in the lobby. Lovely!

I found Bill, dragged him into the lobby and he described it as being smacked in the face by a bag full of sh*t! And he's right, I couldn't have said it better myself! So naturally, I made him handle it. He comes back a couple of minutes later saying he called the property management company, and had to leave a message. So he decided that there was only one solution to this stinky problem. He stood there holding a bottle of Febreze and a bottle of Yankee Candle spray. "Pick your poison" was what he told me. "BOTH!" was my response. He hands over the Febreze and I start walking around spraying EVERYTHING. Carpets, couches/chairs, my desk, the floors... it doesn't matter, everything was going to be covered with the lovely scent of "extra strength clean". Then Bill and I look at each other and sigh, there was only two places left to spray...

THE....

BATHROOMS!!!!

Ahhh, as if we had seconds to react before toxic fumes entered our bodies, we took turns spraying the men's and women's room. And unfortunately, we have concluded the smell originated in the women's room. G-R-O-S-S!!!!
Because of this disgusting fact, I felt the Febreze wasn't enough to mask all stinky smells, I made sure to go around the whole lobby - bathrooms included - and spray the Yankee Candle spray.

The result was deadly.

Not only was it way stronger than I thought (DUH!!!) but now I had to sit in it! I don't know what's worst, the smell in the lobby, or the fact that I knew I smelt as bad. Luckily for me, I got so stuffed up within minutes, that I couldn't smell a thing and didn't mind the comments people were making about how awful the lobby smelled. In fact, they all felt bad for me. Love it!

At the end of my shift, the property management had yet to check out what was wrong, and I had to run over to Target. All I could think of was how I must being walking around smelling all sorts of funky. I really don't know what would be worse, sitting in the stank, or smelling of the stank.

Let's just hope that tomorrow the smell is gone...

Plant Boy

Once a week I have to deal with Plant Boy. Who is Plant Boy you ask? Well he's someone we pay to come in weekly to water all the plants in the office. Yes, we actually pay someone to do this.

He's an older guy, skinny and smokes like a chimney (I can see him in his blue pedophile van sucking down his cigarette). He wheels in this HUGE tank that has this hose attached to it so he can easily water everything in the office. He even comes in with a ladder to reach the high hanging plants in the lobby. What a job, driving to different offices all week long to water plants because we are all too lazy!

I have come to the conclusion that he must be lonely interacting with plants all day, because this guy LOVES to talk! Loves it! Doesn't matter who is in the lobby or who is listening this guy is chatting away. I guess it's partly my fault, the first couple of times he came in and started a conversation, I listened and chatted back. Now it doesn't matter if I'm talking on the phone, doing other work or just flat out ignoring him, he's telling me his life story.

He has 2 dogs, he's thinking of getting a new sofa, his niece is off the college, is best friend's daughter is getting married and he's doing all of the floral arrangement - and would you believe it, she changed her colors and is now mad at him! Not to mention that he's bummed summer is over, he loves going to the beach. One of his clients has a beach house, and he got to spend a weekend there while they were away, and he loved it! How do people not live by the water? His dogs would love it.

It's intense, and I think he might be insane. Every now and then when I'm just sitting there and I get stuck with him in the lobby, I admit I do talk to him. When the phone rings, one would assume that he would pause and wait for me to finish the call. Nope! I don't hear half the things he says because he just keeps going and going and going...

I've even tried to pretend to be on the phone, but it just doesn't matter. Poor guy, he must be lonely. And of course, he is a nice friendly guy, he just unfortunately got stuck with me as the receptionist!