All day, my happy yellow duck clock has been stopped at five ’til one. I had yesterday off, and it took me a while to notice His Duckness, stuckness in time.
Now, I’ve looked at that clock about 20x today, and been perpetually surprised EACH TIME. It was fine before lunch, because for that fleeting moment, time was moving really FAST. But now that it’s 4:15 p.m., and I look up and see “12:55”, I have a tiny moment of panicky confusion. Wha? Huh? God, this is a long day!
See, our computer clocks (something most people reference) are set to an incorrect clock. I know how to change it on my computer, but somehow the NETWORK manages to override it, and it overrides it with a time that’s about ten minutes slow. Which means if you rely on it, you have to play MindGames with yourself so you get to meetings on time – something my husband is infamous for. His bedroom clock? 17 minutes fast. At one point, it was 28 minutes fast. His truck clock? Who knows. It’s been anywhere from 11 to 30 minutes fast. I never know what the Real World time is when I look at his clocks. The man hates to be late. He told me, on our first date, that the only thing that could really make him mad would be someone being really late. Honestly, I didn’t have a lot of long-term hope for our relationship at that point, because I’m terminally, criminally, and sometimes unapologetically LATE. (I was five minutes late for that same first date!) He has preached the virtues of being on time. He has offered Helpful Hints that could Assist Me. I prefer to state that I live in Reality, where I use the clock on our cable box, which is fed the time from some Naval Academy in Annapolis, and when I tried to change it, it took the cable representative three tries to get through to me that I COULDN’T CHANGE THE U.S. NAVAL CLOCKS IN MARYLAND. But I know that it is the REAL time and I don’t have to do mathematical processes to know exactly what time it really IS. And I know that I’m late, by exactly how much, and I will apologize for it, when necessary. But, and I just looked at Mr. Duck again, and it’s still 12:55, at least I am not, to quote Foreigner, playing HEAD GAMES with myself. Or that official clock in Annapolis. They won’t let you, and I can testify to that.
Day: January 18, 2005
People use interoffice email for the funniest things. For ages, we got request to return ALL INTEROFFICE ENVELOPES to the mail room, right away.
A former co-worker & I would ponder that one. So, I return all my interoffice envelopes to the mail room. Then, when I want to put something into interoffice mail, I open my drawer & whups! I don’t have any envelopes. So I go to the mail room to get one. And thus defeats the purpose of having an interoffice envelope because now I might as well walk my happy ass & document over to the recipient of my mail. OY. This is why Scott Adams is a millionaire.
Then there’s this other person who’s always losing her easel. Every two months, the easel MUST BE RETURNED IMMEDIATELY. Some poor schlub is out there, trying to finish his picasso, or else he’s joyfully scribbling on a giant tablet, and he keeps borrowing the WRONG EASEL. Thirty thumbtacks, flung in your direction.
Today, it seems, the double-sided tape has disappeared from the business center. Which is where all the office supplies are kept. So I guess we only keep one roll of double-sided tape on hand, and whoever took it is in BIG TROUBLE. Because double-sided taping needs exist in corporate amurrica, for what exactly, I’m not sure, but now that we need to stick things together, the only roll we have is gone. I have long maintained that double-sided tape is a two-faced beyotch that can’t be trusted. It looks at you while it’s walkin’ away. Whistlin’. Because it’s just that two-faced. Move the Homeland Security Alert System up a notch, Tommy. Let’s roll.