At the Office Episode 1: Hearts and Jelly Beans

I'm sure there will be more stories to come, hence the numbering. As I've stated earlier, I have multiple part-time jobs. Oftentimes, I have funny stories from work, and I decided to start sharing them with you. So here we go!

*The story begins where the asterisk is located farther down the page if you care to jump past my rambling background information. I'll forgive you for not reading every word. :)

This past week, I went to work at the engineering firm. Many times when referring to this job, I use the word "work" in quotation marks.

Exhibit A: I "worked" at the engineering firm today.

"Why?" you ask. Surely working as a drafter at an engineering firm must be filled with important duties. Nope. Wrong. Most of the time, I work only a few hours out of a normal eight-hour work day. Sometimes a big job is going out, and I have hours upon hours of work and come in on the weekends to finish the electrical plans before they send them off to the architect or whatever it is they do with them (I don't really know to be perfectly honest. After all, I'm a lowly math student who is always daydreaming of non-mathy things. Yes, I said "non-mathy." I made it up. It's now acceptable as a word.) Anyway, most of the time, I don't have that much work to do.

Also, since starting grad school and working as a TA, I only "work" at the engineering firm three days a week for a couple of hours per day. So I barely work there at all these days. So many times this year, I'll have a test coming up or I won't get to work until 3:30 or 4:00 in the afternoon because of class, blah, blah, bleck!

Get to the point! Sorry I'm longwinded.

So if I'm feeling absolutely swamped or on the verge of a nervous breakdown (which is a fairly frequent occurrence since grad school invaded my pleasant life), I'll text my boss, and simply say: "I'm not going to make it to work today. Call me if you need me."

"WHAT?!" you shout at me in a reprimanding tone.

I will have to tell you to calm down. I'm in no danger of getting fired. I work at the most laid-back business in the history of mankind.

"Episode 1: Hearts and Jelly Beans" will demonstrate this fact.

Yes, I am just now getting to the point. After all, I have to build some suspense in order to make my ordinary life stories seem interesting. I'm competing with all those blogs about world travel for crying out loud. I have to compensate somehow!

*The story begins:

For the past two weeks, I had midterms.

**Okay, I got a little carried away. The plot starts at the "**" below.

Not just any midterms, mind you. Terrifying, life-altering, ground-yourself-for-two-weeks-prior-to-midterms-so-that-if/when-you-flunk-said-midterms-you-at-least-won't-feel-guilty-for-not-trying midterms. Did I mention grad school's not one of my favorite things?

**So, I texted my boss and said, "I won't be at work until after next Wednesday because I have midterms."

Even for this laid-back business, I thought that might be pushing it a bit. I mean, I didn't ask; I just stated that I would not be at work for about two weeks.

So when I finally got to go to work two weeks later, I showed up about 3:30 on a Friday. Much to my surprise (not), there was no work on my desk. Usually when this happens, I whip out some math homework and stare at it for a couple hours until 5:00 trying to look productive and memorizing math gibberish. However, this time I had just finished taking my midterms, and I did not care about doing homework. As a matter of fact, this Friday was the Friday which marked the beginning of Spring Break. I did not even want to be at work. I wanted to let my brain shut down and turn to mush for the rest of the day and the following week, and that was exactly what I was going to do, thank you very much.

So what's a girl to do? I didn't have a book with me to read. I'm somewhat of a joke around the office. The majority of engineers hate reading, especially that useless fiction stuff. They are mesmerized by my ability to sit in my desk chair and read a book per day during the summer (when I'm not in school, obviously); oh I mean, when I'm "working."

Last Friday, though, I didn't have any work or "work" to do/read, so I did the only thing I could think of doing.

I started playing a game of Hearts on the company computer. I was in the middle of losing my third round (terribly, if I might add), when my boss walked by, and then slowed down, and then stopped at my desk.

Oh, this does not look good. This does not look good at all. I skipped work for two weeks and showed up to clock in to play card games and get paid for it. He's going to fire me or lecture me or something. Great, just great.

As I was sitting there for a few moments trying to remember which file I had saved my resume in on my computer so that I could start applying for a new job, my boss slowly leaned over my shoulder and said:

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...
...

(That's me building tension since I've spent so many words leading up this moment. Sorry. Moving on...)

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"You can make the box bigger, you know."

I was confused. "What?" I tentatively asked.

"The box," my boss said, "you can make it bigger."

Imagine me silently staring at him. Crickets are chirping.

"You mean the card game?" I asked.

"Yeah, you're sitting really close to the screen, and squinting. You know you can make it bigger, right?"

"You mean, maximize the screen?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Oh," I laughed, "I tried already, but the maximize button is grey, see? I can't click on it to make it bigger."

My boss looked doubtful of my computer knowledge and said, "Can't you just scroll over the corner until the little arrow shows up and drag the box and make it bigger?"

"Uh...well, I'll try again." I tried. Nothing happened.

"Here, let me try." He tried. Nothing happened.

"Oh...well, I'm sorry. It looks like it's hard for you to see," he said kindly.

"Oh, don't worry about it! I don't mind at all!"

"Well, sorry about that."

"It's okay, really!"

Yeah, my story's not over yet.

15 minutes later

I hear footsteps approaching. I think I'd moved onto Minesweeper by this point.

My boss stops by my desk again. I look up and smile. Perhaps he has electrical plans for me to work on or something.

Then he says, "Do you like jelly beans?"

"Well...yeah. Yeah, I like them."

My boss holds out a huge bag of Starburst brand jelly beans, "You want some?"

"Well, sure! Thanks!"

I reach out as if to take just a few, when he interrupts me saying, "No, just take them."

"What?"

"Just take the whole bag. You can have them."

"Really?"

"Yeah, go ahead."

"Well...thank you!"

"Sure."

And then my boss walked away.

BEST. JOB. EVER.