Work Is Work

Someone decided that this clock needed to be on the wall nearest my cubicle.  I don’t think it needed to be there, but obviously, someone did and so, there it is.    

My coworkers suck.  The work itself doesn’t.  It’s the people who work there that suck.    

I have reached a point at work to where I genuinely believe that the longer I am around certain coworkers, the dumber I stand to become, just based on proximity alone.  I don’t even need to interact with them either.  I don’t have it down to how much distance I need to maintain from them before I start losing IQ points, but I think that being able to hear them is too close.  Gloria and I were talking about the general lack of efficiency of most of the people with whom we work and it’s sad, because it wasn’t always like that.  Years ago, it seemed that people cared and wanted to do a good job.  The output was decent and most people would apply themselves as best they could.  People at least tried.  Now, it seems that everyone wants to complain, all the while doing the bare minimum, if that.  The job’s too hard, so people stop trying.  They stop asking questions and assume that they know it all, when clearly they don’t.  The overall quality of the work we’re doing suffers and those of us who have been there a while can clearly see the significant dip in the quality of the work that is being produced.  It flat out sucks.  The people we work with suck.  The bar has been set so ridiculously low that it’s actually appalling to see what qualifies as good work around that office. 

I will be stuck in an all-day training tomorrow, one that I am not particularly looking forward to.  I don’t like being tied down to a classroom all day, like what will happen to me tomorrow.  While I do look forward to not being certain coworkers tomorrow, I would prefer to not be in training.  Necessary evil, I guess. 

Desiree, one of the office student interns who I first met two years ago, stopped by my cubicle today to tell me, “Thank you”, and to drop off the gift pictured above.  Her last day was sometime last week and she is slated to graduate at the end of this week.  I wished her the best, though I told her that God willing, there is a good chance that I’d see her again.  She’s looking to be formally hired on by the end of the calendar year and I don’t see why she wouldn’t be.  The department has been known to hire morons as it is, though I figure that Desiree would do a decent job if she were to become official.  The only way, I think, that she wouldn’t be hired is if she deliberately tanked the interview, and even then, I think they’d still bring her aboard.  Desperation, or stupidity, will make you do things and I don’t put anything past the department.    

Desiree had shadowed me two or three times in the two years that I’ve known her.  I don’t think I did all that much to enrich her experience in that office, but apparently, she believed I did and she thought enough of me and the experience I provided to leave me a “Thank You” gift.  I can never see that gift as ever being negative or worthless, because I want to believe that she put a lot of thought into it and yes, it is the thought that counts 

I’ve said this before, in one way or another. 

Sometimes the smallest of gestures can end up meaning so much.    

There is absolutely no way that Desiree could have known that about me and yet, there she went, giving me a little gift that I would have never anticipated.  Suffice it to say that I am humbled, but also very appreciative. 

Well, tomorrow will be a new workday and with it, could come a whole new batch of challenges, losses, and victories.  My workday starts at 4:45am. 

Depending on what I walk into, that’s when my trauma begins.