Tuesday

Questionable Work Practices

Tova Darling over at the self-titled Tova Darling sent me this fantastic anecdote

During my first few months of my first "real" post-college job (in other words, not flipping burgers), I was trying very hard to exhibit a good work ethic and go "above and beyond" in order to make a good impression. (That has changed a bit, as evidenced by the fact that I'm typing this while I'm at work.)

On a Thursday, I'd been given instructions that a very important person (a friend of the boss) was coming in to pick up a thousand or so pieces of paperwork that he absolutely, positively needed by Saturday. Naturally, he never showed up.


Friday afternoon at 4:58pm, when everyone but good old strong-work-ethic me had ducked out of the office, Very-Important-Friend-Of-The-Boss (VIFOTB) called and said that he really, really needed that paperwork, but he hadn't had a chance to pick it up, and would anyone be in the office Saturday morning? (No.)

Well, VIFOTB quickly decided that it was MY responsibility to get him the paperwork that he hadn't bothered to pick up, and after brain-storming for a few minutes, provided me with the name of a skeazy dive bar where he insisted that I should drop off the paperwork so he could come get it later.

After I made him promise that they'd be expecting me and the paperwork at said dive bar, I grabbed several pounds of paper and hit the road. I soon found myself standing at a dirty bar in my grown-up stiletto heels and a skirt, being leered at by drunken old men in stained overalls, while trying to convince a skeptical and very annoyed bartender that she needed to take this huge pile of paperwork, because VIFOTB would be in to pick it up.

Of course, she'd never heard of VIFOTB, nor had the bar owner or any of the patrons, and she (much like myself) didn't get paid to act as a secretary to a creepy old guy who took delivery of important documents in a seedy bar. It took me a good 15 minutes to convince someone, anyone to take the paperwork off my hands, which they only did after I told them that I didn't care what they did with it, that they could burn it for all I cared, I just wanted to get out of there minus several reams of paper and without being molested.

As soon as the papers left my hands, I practically ran out the door to the sounds of whistles and cat-calls.

No word on whether or not VIFOTB ever picked up the papers. It wasn't long after this incident that I began habitually showing up ten minutes late for work to punish the boss for having such crappy friends.

9 comments:

Jenny said...

that is absolutely preposterous. absolutely. makes for a great post though =)

Unknown said...

Yahoo! I'm famous!

Thanks, paint-me-dioxazine!

Mel O said...

UGH! I swear, there is nothing worse than VIFOTB's!! What a pig-that sucks. I'm glad you got rid of the papers-I probably would have sat there and cried.

Unknown said...

Oh dear! The link to my blog doesn't work! Well, for the record, it's tovadarling.blogspot.com. Stop by!

LYDIA said...

I will stop by Tova - I will! Alice, are you ever going to write again?

ÄsK AliCë said...

Tova Darling, I fixed the link! I love this story :)

Lydia - I'm in Victoria until next week on vacay (hence the guest bloggers) but I have one post written for this week ;>

Unknown said...

Alice, you're amazing! Thanks!

pj said...

nothing better than showing up at a dive bar all dudded up.. for a guy its kinda cool, for a woman ehh your working it too hard..

Joe said...

What an excellent - if disturbing - story.

Now I'm going to spend the day devising plans to have my work dropped off at one of the seedy bars in my neighborhood.