2004-02-20

Who says two wrongs don�t make a right? Yesterday afternoon I caught a mean case of not giving a flying shit, and I failed to make the ream of copies I needed to bring to today�s four-hour planning meeting. Whoops. Today I came in early, planning to rectify the situation; however, I failed to take into account the craftiness of my old nemesis, the photocopier. Ten paper jams, two paper refills, three misaligned staples, fifty muttered curses, fifteen not-so-muttered curses, two hands covered in toner, one full hour, and a partridge in a paper feed later, I was still not finished photocopying. BUT! This meant that I was tragically forced to miss the directorate�s �fun� �meet-and-greet� �team-building� exercise at nine AM. Oh woe! I surreptitiously slipped the photocopier a bit of tongue, after giving it a final drubbing with my steel toes for good measure: you have to show these things who�s boss.

Ah, the ignominy of team building. How I haven�t missed it. This time I it took the form of short-bus human bingo: the staff were forced to supply tidbits of personal information � specifically information that their coworkers didn�t know � which was then catalogued on bingo cards. Everyone then had to make the rounds attempting to match the squares of personal trivia with their owners, the goal being to get a straight line of boxes checked off and also to make complete fucking asses of themselves. I�m truly sorry to have been forced to skip that, although it would have been fun to give fictitious personal information: �I have a highly contagious upper-respiratory infection of unknown origin! Also, I just had a fantastic vacation in Singapore!�