It's Not Me, It's You

This week I finally succeeded in banishing Anonymous Officemate!  That’s right, I’ve freed myself from the daily rundown of his food diary, his odoriferous tuna fish, and the rest of his incessant banal chatter, mostly relating to food and video games.  Apparently he hasn’t yet made his craziness apparent to senior management, so he’s not banished from the company but he is banished from my office.  His numerous strikes have won him his very own cubicle.  Unfortunately I won myself a new Anonymous Officemate courtesy of the current space shortage at work.  Honestly, I don’t know where they find these people; Anonymous Officemate II is just as insane as Anonymous Officemate.  He’s been in my office for all of one day and has already shared that he thinks he may be a hoarder but he’s trying to make an effort to throw things away.  I’ve also learned that at his last job, he used to work back to back shifts and he’d come back on shift to find crumbs all over his desk.  Crumbs!  Can you believe it?

Nothing beats our very first introduction:

AE: “Nice to meet you, I’m AE, your new officemate.”

AO II: “Nice to meet you too.  Do you know how often they clean this office?”

AE (looking up from my multibillion dollar excel model): “Um, no sorry.”

AO II: “Well, is there a cleaning schedule or something?”

AE: “Honestly, I don’t really know.” [pause to answer phone to discuss other multimillion dollar excel model].

AO II: “Maybe I’ll file a request for someone to come vacuum; I could do that in my last job you know.”

AE: “Sure, go for it.”

Anonymous Officemate II then opened up his briefcase, pulled out an array of cleaning products and proceeded to disinfect the entire office.  I caught him wiping down my phone and keyboard when I came back from the kitchen with my coffee.  Let’s see if he shows up with his own vacuum on Monday.  I think maybe I should swap desks for the cubicle and let my two Anonymous Officemates be nuts together.

Australia is Awesome

First thing this morning, my boss (M) and I got an urgent request to review a model. The requestor (L) came to discuss what he needed and M and I got to work. For hours we sat poring over cell after cell in a 100 gig spreadsheet looking for errors. Six hours into working without a break, L started to call. M decided to ignore it and keep working. Every 20 minutes the phone rang with the same number and then at 4:00 PM an e-mail came through from L:

Just wanted to see if you had a chance to review the model yet. I need the updated version ASAP.

Thanks,

L

M's response?

Sorry just got back from lunch. Got a little delayed with some extra rounds of beer. Opening model now.

L's response? Silence, confusion and a little bewilderment

L's not Australian, nor is he from a part of the world familiar with sarcasm. L was grateful to receive the updated model but he was not grateful enough to buy us a real round of beer or a much delayed lunch. As global as the world gets these days, some cultures still don't understand that I mean the obvious conclusion when I say the exact opposite.