I'm a working girl, oh yes I am!

You know, I love being a mom. It’s a huge part of my identity and as a result, Sadie and Kevin get most of the attention on this blog. But there’s another part of my identity that doesn’t get mentioned a lot. I’m a cubicle-residing, computer-staring, emailing, pro-at-Word girl who happens to work in an office with a lot of slightly quirky people. I don’t talk about it a lot, though, because I have a tendency to picture everyone who reads this blog as mentally shaking their head at me for being so cold-hearted as to leave my baby in the care of my wonderful husband (and occassionally my in-laws) everyday. But my job is a part of my life, and I figure it has the right to be mentioned in just this one blog.


So, for your reading pleasure, here are some of the most quirky things that come with my job:

There’s the lady who whispers every conversation. I swear, it’s as if she’s divulging some top-secret plan to bomb the building next week and it’s of the utmost importance that the person in the next cubicle doesn’t hear. Now I don’t know about you, but when someone’s whispering to someone in the next cubicle, I’m more inclined to crane my neck to try to hear what they’re saying. Because, you know, I might just be the sole witness who caught a snatch of the conversation and can heroically save everyone from being blown up. Just saying.

There are not one, not two, but three people who laugh like hyenas. Loudly - and often!

The women have a tendency to go to the bathroom in the dark. That’s right. I regularly walk into the women’s restroom to find someone performing their...um...duties without any lights on. Is it just me, or is that weird? The worst thing is that I feel like I’m interrupting their dark-room meditation if I walk in and flip the lights on. So instead, I sulk to the next stall and do my thing in the dark also. Because I’m just a chicken like that.

People send me emails all the time with content such as the following: “Do you happen to know where such-and-such file is?” This might not seem so bad until you take into account that that person happens to be sitting two feet away from me. Really. Is it that hard to simply turn your head and talk to me? In the time it took you to type that email, press send, and then wait for me to stifle a laugh and send a response back to you, you could have asked the question, received a quick response, and gone to the bathroom in the dark.

As is the case with most cubicle settings, I get to hear everyone’s telephone conversations. One day, I sat and listened for half an hour as the lady next to me ranted and raved to her husband, and then a veterinarian, and then her husband again about how their exotic bird had a hernia so its insides were falling out and it needed a hysterectomy and should we keep her overnight at the hospital to watch her? Will we have to take an IV home with us the next day? A hospital bed? Home healthcare nurses? Note to self: never own a bird. Ever.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. Part of me will miss this funny place when I finally get to quit. But I’ll mostly just be grateful to not have any inhibitions about turning the light on when I go to the bathroom.

And you know what? I think Sadie knows just how I feel. :)