Back To Work

Nothing but the best for us Government workers.

The office was very tense when I arrived Monday morning...I was told that HQ was auditing every department, so the 'newbies' were shuffled downstairs into the training room where I used to hold my testing sessions.

For three hours , I sat and listened to my replacement tonelessly read off of the same training script that I used to read from...she was rattled by the bosses' presence and insisted on reading it all, painstakingly verbatim.  Agony.

As soon as we were escorted back upstairs, our local Office Boss made an announcement:

He stood on a platform and told the gathered staff that he had "been given an opportunity" and effective immediately, he was stepping down as our boss. He was leaving the office in a few minutes and wanted to thank the staff for doing such good work...his voice was cracking as he said that.

The office erupted into applause and cheers... "congratulations!"...they thought "been given an opportunity" meant he had found another job and was moving on to better things.

If that had been the case, there would have been notice given and the obligatory Friday cake/pizza event would have been held, along with the card that gets passed around for everyone to sign...the High School-type stuff that every office participates in to some degree or another.

He had his personal belongings in a copier paper box, all jumbled up like he had cleaned out his desk in a real hurry...the Mean Lady from HQ walked him out of the building and then came back to the office and started yelling at my boss...we work in one big, open room and sound carries everywhere, everybody got to hear her dressing him down for errors that weren't his fault.

She threatened to fire him and his whole staff, which would include me by default, a real morale booster for all of us...I was sitting three chairs away from this harangue, going "la la la la la " in my head, or so I thought, until one of my colleagues  elbowed my in the side: "Ix-nay on the ala-la-ay", he said, rolling his eyes in the direction of Mean HQ Lady.

Yesterday I experienced dental trauma that kept me out of work, but I'm heading back this afternoon, working the late shift again. I expect to be fired at any second and have absolutely nothing hopeful or optimistic to say about the job at all... the paycheck doesn't even count until I cash it.

Life isn't completely horrible, but work is.