Mi Piel

If I was Gwen Stefani, I'd say this week was bananas (B-A-N-A-N-A-S). Thankfully, I'm not G-Fani and I can use ordinary phrases like, "My life = HOLY CRAP!" I've been keeping track of the number of times I've said "Jeezus H. Christ" in the workplace today in place of other, more colorful language- almost as many times as I said "You've got to be kidding me (which coincidentally, as the day progressed, turned to 'Please, for the love of Pete, PLEASE be kidding me!')". For some reason today, I was crazy emotional - I think it's the stress of all the new pressing in on me - haven't really had a whole lot of time to adjust just yet. As soon as I got home, I dove into bed, Munk hot on my heels, and ate a sushi roll while catching up on the latest news stories and blasting 'Ave Maria' as loud as my laptop would go. That's right, America. I ate sushi in bed. And I am unashamed. Certain kinds of days call for sushi in bed, and today was definitely one of those types of days. Didn't spill a crumb, even though I doused every piece in spicy sauce (I swear, if I didn't know any better, I'd think I was eating for two...).

New job's going alright... I like everyone I work with, for the most part. My boss, (whom we will henceforth refer to as 'Sal'), as I previously described, is a slim Italian man of average height, who stops by my desk unannounced several times a day to check up on me. I know this is what Sal is doing because immediately thereafter these impromptu visits, he walks 10 feet to the senior rep's desk (who is in his mid-twenties, dresses like a corporate punk rocker, and is referred to by my employers as the 'commander in chief', and has thusly earned the mental nickname CIC), and despite the fact that I am shielded only by a cubicle wall and several feet of open air, asks him in Spanish to go see what I'm doing. Neither one of them have caught on that I'm listening in on their 'secretive' conversations, and understanding most of what they're talking about, and that even when they're speaking Italian it's close enough on some things for me to infer what they're discussing.

A specific example - Today, I was working on a file that didn't have any good contact numbers, so was using every collector's best friend to try to dredge up some info - Google. This is one of the things they specifically encouraged me to utilize, as it is an effective search engine, and so stupidly I thought I'd be okay to employ it in my pursuit of mo' money.

(Sal walks heel-toe heel-toe to my desk, hands in pockets)

Sal: You okay, young lady?

Me: Yep. Doing just fine.

Sal: You like these? (offers flavored Tootsie Rolls... I do like them, actually, the vanilla ones are delectable.. he's obviously discovered my one weakness and is seeking to exploit it)

Me: Uhh... yeah... (What is it with men in this town offering me pocket-candy?!)

(Sal deposits his offering on my desk, and walks over to CIC's desk telling him in Spanish to go see what I'm looking at on the internet. Seconds later CIC appears, shuffling his sneaker clad feet in a hurried pace, as if I'm standing beside my desk, crying, and waving my arms frantically)

CIC: What's up?!

Me: Ummm..... nothing....

CIC: Whatcha doin' there?!

Me: This file doesn't have any good contact information. Just trying to dig some up.

(A period of silence follows, where CIC stands there staring at my monitor with his arms crossed, trying to discern if there's monkey business going on, and where I'm staring blankly at him, trying to discern if I'm going to be fired before the week is through. CIC eventually tires of our Mexican standoff and returns to his cube. I make a secret victory tally on my file list. Management - 0, Ciervo - 1).

What I couldn't figure out was the reason behind the sense of urgency - what exactly was I supposed to be doing back in my little corner of the office? Was Sal afraid I was using the chat feature of iGoogle to OMG and ROFLMAO with all my favorite email buddies instead of making calls to debtors? Did CIC run to my desk expecting to find me hunkered down behind a potted ficus, masturbating furiously to freaky naked-man-pr0n? Were the Tootsie Rolls a diversion, designed to keep my fingers fiddling with candy wrappers instead of changing my browser window? This line of thought created a mental image that made me LOL, and made Sal pop his head over my cubicle wall and shoot fertive looks at my computer screen.

In a sense, they created a self-fulfilling prophecy. By worrying so much about whether or not I'm actually working, they enacted a situation that made me stop doing legitimate work-related research and spend an inordinate amount of time simultaneously trying to process what just happened/creating a mental rough draft of this very blog.