They came! Between these and Harry Potter, I wanna knock out the two most juggernaut book series (haven’t read either of them) this year. Also, my Hello Fresh package came. That’s right, I ordered Hello Fresh so I can cook myself some healthy meals and save some money by not ordering out while bae is away. Is that “feminine” to you, bud? Doesn’t fit your twisted sense of what manhood should be, you bigoted ass?
Whoaa, sorry, I thought Sean Penn snuck in here for a moment. Zing! Yeah I ordered some recipes, it’s gonna be fine. Will have my first vegetable since last week, so it’s gonna be great in fact. Otherwise, what can I say? Oh, I know. There was seating-arrangement drama at the ol’ workplace this week. Strap in folks, cuz this one is… well it’s something.
After my bout with Covid my office decided to go back to the two-people per room rule. The thing is, they put me as the third person in my current room when they hired me. So when I went into the office, my one office mate mentioned the rule, and here’s where things got weird. I think maybe he was scared to hurt my feelings, so he strangely underplayed what was actually happening, and made it seem like he and my other office mate just decided on a whim that it would be better to have two people in the room. Since we both arrived at the same time, and I was standing over my desk when this happened, well, I’ll just say it: a standoff ensued. I wasn’t being defiant or anything, I sincerely was unsure of the situation, and kind of just paused there. Until, after a very uncomfortable silence, I audibly gasped, “oh!” and started to gather my things.
Later in the day, phase 2 happened. You see, at my previous job at Merck, they had capacity limitations as well but it was an open kind of thing. If you got to your desk before someone else, and they came in and saw the room at capacity, they would just find an empty one. We work with laptops and every desk is the same. I was sort of under this impression at my current job until my other office mate came by and mentioned that my desk would be going into my boss’ office. And then probably my least favorite kind of human interaction happened. I must’ve made a twisted kind of look in my face. One that said “I’m losing my desk? So I have to use someone else’s all the time? Do I even belong here? Do you even like me?” and then a big “what the fuck?” right at the end. My face must’ve said all that, because her entire demeanor changed instantly, which made my demeanor change instantly again, because I hate when people can see exactly how I’m feeling when I don’t feel so good. You know, emotionally speaking (I’ll see a therapist at some point, I swear). She thought the full breadth of the situation had been relayed to me, but I’m pretty sure the other guy knew I might not like this solution, so he just kind of piddled his way through that whole interaction and here we are. My next words were a slowly enunciated “I… did not know that.” and I shit you not, she literally said “aww.”
Send me home. Send me home now. You know what, don’t send me home, because I’m going home of my own volition. This could not have gone any worse. Yeah, I’ll admit, it didn’t feel good. My highly pressurized old heart didn’t care about the logic and what made sense. It only heard “you’re a temporary desk guy around here now.” But, she explained the whole thing, some details you definitely don’t care about but essentially, my new desk will be vacant until at least the fall, because the woman who usually sits there is staying in Switzerland for months or something? Who cares, the important part of the story (me) is complete. But dude, her looking at me and giving me a face of recognition of my own sadness was awful. Maybe this is the thing with men. We want to feel it and get it over with and accept. But that recognition from someone else means that it’s a real thing to be acknowledged, which isn’t what we want, damn it. You don’t look at me when I’m sad, you hear me? You look away. Don’t ever look at me, actually. No eye contact, like Ellen and her verbally abused interns.
But yeah it’s gonna be fine. I actually have more privacy at the office now, and kind of a better view, too.
So hey, see you tomorrow.
Nick
Nick Denardi 