The Scent Of Work

It has been a while since I last blogged about work. For the record, it’s been even longer since I blogged AT work, ya know my visit from HR and all of that. OK, disclaimer aside, by 10am today, I was reminded that I probably should not be working with other people. However, they are still paying me to show up, so against my better judgment I keep going in.

It all began as I got my normal morning cup of coffee at our little ‘coffee station.’ I noticed for the first time that there was a container of half and half near the creamer and sugar. I asked where it came from and was told that it was brought in by Miss Single. Because she is so good at giving me a hard time, like yesterday when she dangled a slice of caramel apple cheesecake in my face (as well as one can manage to dangle a slice of pie) after I accused her of trying to fatten me up with all the candy she had been sharing, I commented to myself out loud (which is harder to do than you might imagine) that she must have trouble committing since she can only do things half and half. It got a laugh, so I straightened my shirt and went to her cubicle to try out the new material in the hopes that I might just once be able to burn her the way she manages to burn me daily (be careful kids, one-upmanship can get messy) .

I asked her why she has so much trouble committing. She motioned that she was on the phone and didn’t look too enthused. Mental note: look before I walk into someone’s cube and start speaking, boisterously. Now I know what you are thinking. And you are right. That is the moment that I should have stepped away. But nope, I stayed until she was off the phone. Despite her somewhat annoyed and aggravated look, I again asked her why she couldn’t commit fully to things. The tone in which she asked what I meant should also have been a clue, but I told her that I noticed she brought half and half in for our coffee instead of whole. She mumbled something about that being the stupidest thing she had ever heard so I moved off to the next cubicle.***

All I did there was spill coffee all over Mr. Lay Low’s desk. It being nowhere near the first time I have done this, he opened his top desk drawer to take out napkins and paper towels as though he was prepared for this eventuality. Then to my surprise, Miss Single showed up in my office to explain that she had finally found a teacher who teaches Mime class as she has been interested in taking Mime classes. Please don’t get me started ask me why. I explained that I thought taking classes on how NOT to speak was a great idea for someone as shy as her. Then she left. Ooh, points for me! The disapproving head shake of my secretary as she passed was what kept me from asking aloud ‘was it something I said?’ I beginning now to understand that although I have the best of intentions when joking with my fellow workers how I still got less Christmas cards and candies than everyone else at work did. Hmmmm.

Then there was the conversation that took place in Female Coworker’s cube. All the longtime readers remember her, right? To get you up to speed, she’s the one I am afraid of. What I found myself in was a conversation between her, myself and two other male coworkers. We were all very much into this discussion and thoroughly enjoying ourselves. Then I realized that we were talking about candles. Scented ones. Yes, 1 woman and 3 grown men were debating whether or not Yankee Candles were more Fragrant than Gold Canyon ones. For the record, Gold Canyon won 3-1. One of my male colleagues mentioned how he likes the fruity fragrances. This prompted the other male coworker to quickly say he liked musky scents and woodsy scents. Picking up on what was going on, I tried to smooth things over by saying that I never expected to find myself in a water cooler discussion about candles and specific fragrances but that I enjoyed all candle scents equally. At that point I could hear other people in other sections of our building laughing. They were most definitely laughing at us instead of with us.

Of course Female Coworker is a Gold Canyon distributor and the newest guy in the office made the point of asking her how that worked. Then came the pyramid scheme jokes. Because as you know, you may come in buying a candle, but you leave selling them. As Female Coworker glared at me, I instantly regretted saying that. But in my defense, she was the one who gave the infomercial-like testimony that she had made $17,000 in her spare time selling them one year.

Uh, by the way, if you’d like to buy a nice smelling candle for your loved one for Valentines Day, please let me know. I’m not sure what exactly I agreed to with Female Coworker during lunch as she intimidates the testosterone outta me, but I fear I may now be a Gold Canyon Candle distributor. The catalog appears as though they have a wide variety of scents and sizes. Oh this is isn’t good…

***And you know, now that I reread the half and half joke for about the 5^th time tonight, I’m realizing she was right and it really isn’t that funny. However, it’s almost 1AM (well, on the east coast any way) and there is no way in Hank I’m going to start a new post now.