Trumped

I was not in this office when 9/11 happened—that honor went to another, equally soul-sucking secretarial job—but I imagine this is a fairly close approximation of the tone of the day.

Here's how I spent my Friday: There was a coup here at the Evil Boring Day Job. Two years ago, the firm I am indentured to sold out to a large corporate conglomerate, ScrewCo., with the understanding that the company would continue to be run exactly the way it always had, only with the New and Added Bonus that we would now be a member of the large, happy, sunshiney ScrewCo. family.

I am sorry to provide such a nasty shock at this hour of the day, but… this actually turned out to not be the case. That pretty much occurred to the original owner of the company on Friday when he, my boss, and her boss were all fired.

They were rehired about an hour later after much screaming, calling of security, and general boardroom wackiness that I heard about fourth-hand but that apparently involved the word “bullshit.” Also “you bastards” and “sue your sorry asses.” But The Three Bosses —all of whom had some hand in starting the company at a point when I was still toting around a TrapperKeeper featuring Donnie Wahlberg—have been placed in a teeny, tiny made-up executive box completely removed from the rest of the company. Effective immediately.

This in turn left me and my counterpart, Michelle, completely without supervision or, in fact, any idea what in the holy hell was going on. We were not alone, however; when we approached one of the vice-presidents to find out when our new overlord would be arriving, he brought his Successories Executive Role to full bore and said, “Oh. Sometime. I guess.”

(Just between you and me and the water cooler, it appears that the company may be attempting to reduce overhead. I'm going on a total hunch here. As my job is completely composed of overhead work, and the people who created my position were fired for ninety minutes last week, it has occured to me that I am pretty much corporate toast. They'll still need someone to do my crappy job, but Michelle was basically our boss' right-hand woman, and actually competent at doing our crappy jobs, whereas my main function was to sit in my office and seethe. I mean, I'd fire me.)

Let’s all give me a big hand for my big BCWYWFBYMGI (Be Careful What You Wish For Because You Might Get It) moment of the month. I have long been on my knees with the whole “Oh, please God, get me out of this place” business, but… this is like putting in a celestial request for an island vacation and getting an all-expenses paid trip to Iwo Jima.

People are walking around here like the Fourth Horse just galloped through the break room. When my boss collected our department in my office (as workspace is assigned in an inversely proportional manner of actual work ethic and positive, team-oriented attitudes, I have the largest office in the department) to announce that she was no longer our supervisor; that she was, in fact, corporate toast, all the women started crying and all the men started staring at individual carpet fibers because the all women had started crying.

As you should well know by now, no one—no one—out drama queens me. I am the one who falls apart when the milk expires. I am the one with the rent-to-own fainting couch. I am the one with the post-graduate degree in Hand Wringing. Spazz attacking is my job.

Well, you know, I just sat there. Michelle cried and AnaMaria cried and our boss cried, and I just sat there. I felt nothing. I was honestly more upset the day I accidentally taped the Orange Bowl over Adventures in Babysitting. I handed out tissues and patted backs and was very, very concerned over whether or not I would still be getting my day off on Monday.

I felt terrible for my bosses, and also felt terrible over everybody else feeling terrible, but seriously: Nooooooooothing. This is what happens, I suppose, when you’ve been emotionally divorced from your job for over a year.

Wait a second, lemmie check how long I’ve been here... Oh. Over a year.

I can’t afford to make anybody suspicious, though, so I made sure to look Very Sad and waved around a Kleenex and occasionally put my hand over my face as though just… barely… holding it together while I was actually trying to figure out what I was going to wear to my job interview. Which had been scheduled for Monday. For about a week.

Yes, Fakery. One of the Seven Habits of Highly Apathetic People.

SCHADENFREUDE MOMENT OF THE DAY: I had trouble pulling into a space at the parking garage this morning because a sleek black Jaguar was taking up two spaces.

Its lights were on.

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