Monday on Friday
Mar. 7th, 2008 05:14 pmThe natives were restless at work today and for good reason. Crap that usually happens on your typical Monday happened today instead.
I drug myself over there just on time, still feeling like an extra in one of George Romero's nightmares, hoping that the day would go by relatively quickly. I was wrong. When I opened up the coffee machine to replenish the various brews and concoctions, I got a "brewer jam" message and the machine would give no coffee. Zip. Zero. Nato. Nada. This on a day that wasn't supposed to get much warmer than the 50 degrees I woke up to, with heavy rain and general gloom. Usually, I love days like this, but not when I'm faced with angry caffeine-deprived Germans. It does something to me, dig, like scares me.
The first thing I did was call Mike, but I got his voice mail. I left him a message asking him if he knew how to fix a brewer jam and if he'd help me out when he came with my daily delivery. In the meantime, I put in a service call and hoped for swift respite from this untenable situation. No such luck. 9 AM rolled by. Then 10 AM. No Mike. No service person.
By then, people were getting a little ticked about having no milk in addition to no coffee. I decided to secure myself in a strategic place in the canteen where my back would be against the wall, and quietly practiced my mad Ninja skills in the event of a complete meltdown by surly employees denied their druthers during their morning break.
Finally, around 10:30, this little washed-out squirrelly blonde dude named Kevin showed up, drenched to the bone and miserable. He was about my height and half my weight. I could have picked him up and wrung him out like a rag, bless his heart, and he needed a wringing out, being in the weather we had earlier. He'd been lost, delayed, and generally beaten down in every figurative way the entire morning. I felt so bad for him! It turns out that Mike had called in sick. He apparently has contracted the Slobovian Death Plague, probably from me. I went out and helped Kevin in, getting drenched myself, and then set to filling the machines up with drinks, milk, and food (which was running low by then).
Between 11:00 and 12:00, while I was filling the drink machines out in the warehouse, the service person came and did a covert repair of the coffee machine. By lunchtime, everyone had their coffee, milk, and sundries, and I was thoroughly knackered and ready to come home. I finished with setting everything up for the weekend person, and took it easy until 2 PM, when I scampered to my car and brought my sad arse home.
And here I am. And here I'll stay. Amen and hallelujah.
I drug myself over there just on time, still feeling like an extra in one of George Romero's nightmares, hoping that the day would go by relatively quickly. I was wrong. When I opened up the coffee machine to replenish the various brews and concoctions, I got a "brewer jam" message and the machine would give no coffee. Zip. Zero. Nato. Nada. This on a day that wasn't supposed to get much warmer than the 50 degrees I woke up to, with heavy rain and general gloom. Usually, I love days like this, but not when I'm faced with angry caffeine-deprived Germans. It does something to me, dig, like scares me.
The first thing I did was call Mike, but I got his voice mail. I left him a message asking him if he knew how to fix a brewer jam and if he'd help me out when he came with my daily delivery. In the meantime, I put in a service call and hoped for swift respite from this untenable situation. No such luck. 9 AM rolled by. Then 10 AM. No Mike. No service person.
By then, people were getting a little ticked about having no milk in addition to no coffee. I decided to secure myself in a strategic place in the canteen where my back would be against the wall, and quietly practiced my mad Ninja skills in the event of a complete meltdown by surly employees denied their druthers during their morning break.
Finally, around 10:30, this little washed-out squirrelly blonde dude named Kevin showed up, drenched to the bone and miserable. He was about my height and half my weight. I could have picked him up and wrung him out like a rag, bless his heart, and he needed a wringing out, being in the weather we had earlier. He'd been lost, delayed, and generally beaten down in every figurative way the entire morning. I felt so bad for him! It turns out that Mike had called in sick. He apparently has contracted the Slobovian Death Plague, probably from me. I went out and helped Kevin in, getting drenched myself, and then set to filling the machines up with drinks, milk, and food (which was running low by then).
Between 11:00 and 12:00, while I was filling the drink machines out in the warehouse, the service person came and did a covert repair of the coffee machine. By lunchtime, everyone had their coffee, milk, and sundries, and I was thoroughly knackered and ready to come home. I finished with setting everything up for the weekend person, and took it easy until 2 PM, when I scampered to my car and brought my sad arse home.
And here I am. And here I'll stay. Amen and hallelujah.
