That Just Happened!

Almost everyday I walk to the corner to the Tim Hortons to get me and/or my boss a coffee. On the way there I pass a Licks Restaurant.  This past summer Licks decided to make their outside look a bit more appealing.  They put up a white picket fence (probably to keep the people waiting for the bus off their tables) and added some shrubbery.  Since they planted the tree they have pretty much left it to its own devices.  There is one shrub tree in particular that has become unruly.  It has one branch that sticks out over past the fence at eye height. 

Every day on my way to Tim Hortons I manage to avoid it as I walk on the left.  On the way back I get hit in the face.  Every day.  You think I would learn to avoid it by now, but I am so busy walking on the left and trying to stay out of people’s way without making eye contact that I always forget about it.  Yesterday was the first day I missed it!  I actually remembered to avoid the stupid branch.  I felt smugly superior. Ha ha!  I beat you shrub!

I am a firm believer in what my sister and I like to call “the world slap”.  Kind of like what goes around comes around.  If you think/say/do bad things the world will come back around and slap you in the face.  As in this instance.  Apparently the world was not about to let me walk around feeling all holier-than-thou about the tree. This morning, I forgot about the tree.  Again.  Only it didn’t hit me. Nope, but I caught it out of the corner of my eye just in time.  Then I jerked back like I had been hit, spilt coffee down my sleeve and stumbled down the sidewalk.  In front of a looong line of cars waiting to turn left.  With drivers.  Looking at me as if I was actually carrying an Irish coffee.  Wondering if they should get out and help, but obviously too scared because I am obviously looney-tunes. Tree: lost count, Jenn: 0.

Yeah, That Just Happened!

I work in an office that has half-pods.  That means that the dividers are 2 feet high and the top half is glass, so you can pretty much see your coworker’s face, but not what they are working on, unless you sit one pod away.  Then you can also see what’s on their computer screen.  So obviously, not much by way of privacy.  I also work in an office where there is a lack of functional staplers.  I managed to get my hands on one and then it got taken away from me.  Alas, I am stuck unjamming my stapler after each and every use.

Today is, I admit, a high-strung day.  That means I am likely to blow things out of proportion and react rather than think about it first.  That being said, I kind of went a little a lot crazy about the stapler.  When my boss came by my desk to drop something off I loudly asked permission to order another one.  I explained that although I found one that worked it mysteriously went missing and someone must have taken it off my desk.  “I am tired of having to unjam it after every use” I proclaimed.  It was at this point I noticed my coworker eavesdropping openly ogling and smirking as I threw a tiny fit about the stapler.

So I called them out.  There is absolutely NO reason why they should be involved in this conversation.  Loudly I asked “I’m sorry, did you need to speak to “*insert boss’ name here*?”  They looked stunned as they shook their head no.  “Well I just wasn’t sure. It looked like you wanted to say something.” It was at this point my boss looked at me as if I was nutters.  I mean it’s a stapler right?  WRONG! 

It wasn’t just about the stapler.  It’s the fact that this coworker is always being a Nosy Nelly.  Looking at what I am doing and then reporting on it to the boss.  They are at the end of the row, so they are safe from said scrutiny.  I happen to know for a fact (thanks to an over-share by IT) that this coworker spends a lot of time playing Solitaire.  I really would not care, except why tell on me when we are all in the same boat?

I left after this “outing” to cool off outside.  When I had returned I found this…

My coworker had taped up pieces of paper so that I couldn’t see them and they can’t see me.  I know it may have seemed a bit confrontational, but honestly!  Now all I feel is shame.

Yeah, “That Just Happened!”