What a Weird Workday

I had the strangest day at work today.

To begin with, I had very little to do. "Very little," in fact, was very close to being "absolutely nothing." I did have a couple of minor things to begin the day, but after that, there was nothing. It's a little strange, seeing as how we're less than a week away from our next catalog deadline and stuff isn't piling up yet, but that probably just means I'll end up getting hammered at some point next week. Then again, I may not--I think we've been making pretty good progress thus far, and so there may not be too many pages remaining to be done.

At any rate, I had almost nothing to do, and despite the approaching deadline, this wasn't entirely unexpected. Work has been fairly scarce all week, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I ran out completely. Of course, my boss is currently out of town, enjoying the first of her three weeks in Hawai'i, and no one in my department has time to show me what else I can do. I've covered all this before. Therefore, I was left with just a couple of meager tasks to stretch out as best I could so as to look busy for as long as possible.

A prelude to the weirdness started last week, actually. I was sorting some files, and had stacks of them piled on my desk and on the floor around my desk. The company president came through our office and saw my mess, and commented that I needed a bigger desk. I thought he was making a joke, so I didn't think much of it.

Today, the company president and the company controller (whatever that means) came into our department and stood behind my desk for several minutes. Of course, I had no work to do at the time, so I was trying really hard to look busy. They stood back there chatting about the size of my desk and how they might be able to fit a larger one in approximately the same space. I'm also fairly sure I heard the company president mention something about me needing a second monitor. Eventually they left, and a few minutes later the company president was back with a tape measure. He measured the size of my desk and was off again.

I took this opportunity to look over and ask a co-worker why exactly I needed a bigger desk. She just smiled and said "you'll find out."

A short time later, a lady from another department came in and asked if I was terribly busy. I said I wasn't, and she told me to clear off the top of my desk: a bigger one was going to brought in during my afternoon break. I obliged.

On the way back in from break, a co-worker (the same one I asked why I was getting a bigger desk) pulled me aside and said we needed to talk. She then told me that the lady who sits to my left is prone to occasional freak-outs. I originally thought she was going to tell me that they were planning to fire her and put me in her position, and that's why I was getting a bigger desk, but that wasn't it. She just wanted me to know, because my desk-switch might trigger an episode. I had noticed that the lady in question had been a little flighty all afternoon, so my co-worker just wanted me to know the situation in case this lady blew up in my direction.

I got back into the office, and my desk-switch was being completed. Our desks are just tabletops laid across two small filing cabinets and screwed down, and the person building it was in the process of placing the screws. The lady to my right (not the freak-out lady, but the one who warned me about her) had to move her desk back a few inches to make room for my inbox, which is actually a stack of wire baskets. After that it was back to business as usual, except now I have a lot more space in which to spread out. I still don't know why I have all this extra space--I'm on a need-to-know basis, and apparently I don't need to know...at least, not yet.

That wasn't quite all that made the day weird, although the rest was just icing on the cake. During the day, I keep my cell phone in my pocket with the ringer set to vibrate mode. It kept going off all day long. One call was from the Wood County Public Library, letting me know that an item I had reserved was ready to be picked up. A couple of calls were from Brandi. I knew she had to go to a funeral viewing today, for a friend's mom, and she told me last night that she wanted me to go with her. We're actually getting ready to leave for that pretty shortly. On most Fridays, this wouldn't have created a conflict. Today was the exception. A couple of the calls I got were from my friend Jamie, who was coming into town from Chicago and wanted to know if I could attend a going-away party tonight for her mom, who is moving to North Carolina. Also, on my way back into the office from lunch, a guy from the customer service office asked me if I wanted to meet up with him later tonight, when he'll be out on the town with some friends in Bowling Green.

So I have a lot on my plate for this evening, at least potentially. I have no idea what the rest of the day will bring, especially if the trend from the workday continues now that I'm off. I wouldn't mind if things calmed down. Then again, a little craziness on the weekend might not be such a bad thing.