Friday, April 25, 2008

In Which My Crazy Manifests Itself Yet Again

I work in an office in the midtown area of the city.

The midtown area is not known for many lovely things, unless robbery, shootings, bar brawls and murder top your Lovely List. But we do have one thing that stands out here in the heart of the city.

Beautiful, gorgeous, ornamental pear trees line the main streets.

In the Spring they are a sight to behold. You can look down the street for miles and see orderly rows of snowy whiteness that give a little wonder to even the most run-down areas. The flowering lasts only two to three weeks before the trees leaf out, but it's a glorious two to three weeks indeed.

It just makes you want to say "Ahhhhhhhhhhh..."

Which brings me to today's story.

Early this week we had a "volunteer" (who needed to get some community service time) come in to work with the maintenance people. Community service "volunteers" are not usually the most hardworking, dedicated people on the team, mostly because instead of "volunteering," they have BEEN "volunteered."

This particular person was assigned to help clean up the outside areas of the building. He was to do yardwork; planting, raking, mowing, etc.

Then someone made the mistake of giving him a gas-powered leaf blower.

Now, this blower is not the quietest machine on the earth, if you catch my drift. Even at idle speed you can hear it over the river and through the woods. But in the hands of our "volunteer," it became a lethal weapon.

The lovely ornamental pear trees have started to leaf out, and because of this they are dropping their tiny white petals to the ground in droves. The petals drop so fast that at one point I even thought it might be snowing again.

Thankfully, I was mistaken.

Our "volunteer" friend decided that it would be best to take the blower and clear off the sidewalk rather than using it for dead leaves. He power-pushed all of the lovely fallen blooms he could into the street. However, since it was a windy day and the wind was blowing in the direction of the building, every time he blew the petals away the wind blew them right back on the sidewalk again, so he'd have to re-blow the area he'd just done. This little pursuit kept him quite busy going up and down, up and down, up and down the street in front of the building.

OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

It wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that my office is located right on the front of the building with windows facing the street. And the noise wouldn't have been so bad, except that EVERY. THREE. SECONDS. he had to do this:

RRRINGdingdingding...
RRRINGdingdingding...
RRRINGdingdingding...
RRRINGdingdingding...

It sounded like a stinkin' CHAINSAW. And it was DRIVING. ME. NUTS.

Because we all know how very patient and pleasant I can be when confronted with irritating noises.

Ahem.

When it got to the point where I was about to go out there andWRRRINGdingdingding his ever loving neck (in a totally CHRISTIAN WAY of course), I asked the maintenance supervisor to move him to the back of the building instead.

Sometimes it is good to be the boss.

Even if the people you supervise look at you, then at each other, and burst out laughing because of your idiosyncrasies and obvious hormonal tantrums in the face of normal everyday life.

Have I ever told you that I love my job?

3 comments:

HeyJules said...

How did that sound go again??? :-)

groovyoldlady said...

"in a totally Christian way..."

Heh-heh-heh.

Kristen Gill, Marketing Manager said...

I love your new titling...see how long you can keep that up!

I had a neighbor we called "Obsessive Leafblowing Man" and it totally sucked.