The Milton In Me

Note to self : Never ever eat a hot dog (or any other type of food) while watching CSI. It's not, and never will be, a good combination. I think I have the weakest stomach on earth. They show one autopsy and I'm finished with hot dogs for life.
Some people are much better equipped to deal with that kind of thing. My friend Allison used to sit down in front of the TV, food in hand, and tune in to random surgeries. I'd walk in to Allison eating pizza and watching brain surgery, and my knees would go weak. Meanwhile, Allison's dipping pepperoni rolls in to a vat of ranch dressing, never giving it a second thought. This is why she's in nursing school and I'm not, I suppose...Allison, you know you're a freako, right?

So today was a much better day at work. I just go through slumps sometimes, and then I eventually emerge from them, happier than ever. What's that about? I think I have attachment issues. I get attached to people, and then it's really upsetting when something happens and I have to leave, or they have to leave. This week started off really badly, when my favorite supervisor at work retired. She was the one person who really looked out for her employees. She cared about our feelings, and she seemed to want to form personal bonds with us. Our other bosses are very statistic-driven. They literally keep stats on us at the office, much like a baseball team. It's bizarre. Every key stroke that we make on our keyboards are tallied, and then they divide the amount of work that we did by the number of hours that we worked to come up with our stats. In December, I was working at 115%, which is higher than they expect from us, but because my percentage had dropped from 116% in November, my unit supervisor made a point to let me know that we don't want our stats to drop. Evidently, they want our stats to continue to climb throughout the year. So my new strategy for this year was just to hang out in January, maybe do a few inputs in February, perhaps an actual application in March, and then I might just take a complete interview in April. That way my stats will be progressively better throughout the year...a good plan, I think.

My job is very much like the movie "Office Space." Sometimes, I even feel a little like Milton. A few months ago, they ran out of cubicles for everybody and had to move the newest people(including me) to these make-shift work spaces. I didn't have my own office to begin with, but when they took away my cubicle, my space, my shelves, etc, I wasn't happy at all. So I drew the line, and decided that I was taking my filing cabinet with me, regardless of what the boss had to say. It was a very Milton thing to do...very reminiscent of him scrapping to save his stapler after all his dignity was lost. So there I was, a relatively small girl, trying to drag this heavy filing cabinet across the office. When my boss spotted me, she was like, "Courtney, where's Lanie going to put her files?" This didn't concern me. Didn't she know this? I just muttered something about them not taking away my filing cabinet and kept on pushing that big old thing, inch by inch, to my new desk. And you know what? This Milton prevailed. Though I have no cubicle, no dignity, and not much shelf space in my new work station, I do have my own filing cabinet. It was my battle cry: "You'll never take my filing cabinet...NEVER!"