I love my job (today)

And here's why:

1) I rarely make it here on time--in fact, at least three times this semester I have slept in and arrived an hour to an hour and a half late--yet they will never fire me.

2) Where else can you find menopausal women who will flick rubber bands over their cubicle walls to entertain you?

3) I get paid to do my homework, check my email, and engage in other un-work-related tasks (such as writing this).

4) I have access to the records of every student at the University--both graduate and undergraduate. Power trips can be great fun sometimes (until people figure out how limited those powers are and call you on it).

5) They bring in food for no reason and then tell me to go get food while they do my job for me (receptionist). Today is the designated "birthday food day" for the month of November. Within thirty minutes of arriving at work, three of the women came up and asked me if I wanted to go get food while they watched the desk. I asked the first if I could take her up on it later, ignored the second because I was on the phone, and argued with the third. It went something like this:

Chris: Allison, if you want to go back and get some food, I can watch the desk for you.
Me: That's alright. I had a bagel before I came to work this morning.
Chris: Hey, Irene! Allison said she doesn't want to try your breakfast dish!
Me: I said nothing of the sort! All I said was that I had a bagel before I came into work and I'm not hungry.
Chris: See. She doesn't want to try it.
Dorothy: Allison, you really need to go try it. It's good.
Me: I'll grab some later, when Corinne takes over at the desk. I'm just not hungry.
Dorothy: It'll be cold then. It's warm now. *Stares* Just go try one bite. You have room for one bite.
Me: [chooses to withhold comment about presence of microwave] Fine. One bite.
Dorothy: *Grin* Good.
Chris: Look! She's going to try it!
Irene & Tanya: [recognizing the absurdity of this situation, continue doing their jobs]

So I went to the back of the office, stared at the breakfast casserole, knowing I hate casseroles and their textures and their tastes, and knowing that I told the women I would try it. Then I got a sudden wave of courage. I got a small piece of the casserole, put it on a plate, grabbed some fresh fruit from a bowl, and sat down (with my back to the door so I wouldn't be caught making some disgusted and nauseated face). I hesitated once more, staring at the potatoes that had been cooked into what appeared to be a scrambled egg-like mixture, and then baked with cheese and sausage on top. Then I tried it. I took a bite, noted the mushiness of the potatoes, and was relieved to find none of the sour-cream-taste I was expecting (read: dreading). Then I ate the additional three bites that comprised the small piece.

Perhaps you're failing to see the gravity of this situation. Allow me try again: I (the girl who refuses to eat mashed potatoes, gravy, creamed soups of any kind, puddings, white sauces, homemade noodles, butter, any number of casseroles, meat that has the slightest bit of gristle on it, and just about anything deemed "homestyle" or "country cooking," not to mention anything I look at that appears even slightly gross) actually ate a piece of breakfast casserole and didn't gag! This is a momentous occasion--nothing like my cultural experience with Ethiopian food.

[Allow me to digress long enough to explain the Ethiopian food. My learning community was on a new-member's retreat in Ann Arbor, MI, where our directors decided to take us out to dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. I know I'm averse to pretty much anything with flavor or texture, so I was dreading the meal. Even worse, they sat everyone around a table and then brought one huge platter of food and told us to eat with our hands. They brought the food. First, a plate of sponge-like bread. Then the gargantuan plate of food: a vast array of lumpy green stuff, creamed orange stuff, chicken on a bone that looked like it had just been hacked from the carcus with a pocket knife, a pile of stringy beef in red sauce, some lamb, and what appeared to have been carrots and potatoes coated in "creamy butter." As you can imagine, I was mortified. My roommate, sensing my apprehension, convinced me to just try it. So I took some of the sponge-bread in hand, and grabbed a bit of the lumpy green stuff with it. Alright. I gagged only slightly as the bread disintegrated into a mush around the lumpy stuff. Then I tried some string beef, which only disintegrated with the bread into spicy mush. I thought: potato! I could actually see what it was, so I thought (rather reasonably, if you ask me) it had to be safe. No. "Creamy butter" mush. Four bites. I was done. And I was convinced that the chef was either a henchman passing off jars of babyfood as his own creations or a maniacal little man with a blender.]

Anyway. The original reason for this post: As I was sitting in the back eating some fruit, Dorothy approached. "Did you try it?" "Yes." "Okay, well, now you have to play it up when you come out there. 'Oh! Dorothy, why'd you make me try that!? Ugh!'" So I smiled and agreed. She laughed, grabbed some food, and went back out front.

A few moments later, I made my entrance. The ladies were huddled between cubicles, chatting it up. Dorothy was in my line of sight, perfect placed. So I walked briskly said, "I've got a bone to pick with you," and walked back to the front desk. I knew my eyes would give me away, so I stood in the safety of my cubicle while saying, "Dorothy, when you told me I had to try it because it was soooo good, you failed to tell me it was opposite day." (Everyone paused because they didn't know what to do.) I stepped back out where they could see me and said, "It was awful. Irene, you should burn the recipe--just pretend you never found it. ...Ugh!" Irene looked like she was going to cry. Then, Tanya had to chime in, "Wait. She said it was opposite day. She would never say those things." So of course Dorothy started cracking up, high fived me, and proceeded to do a happy dance back to her cubicle. Poor Irene. It was great.

What's my point? I love my job. (And I'm a drama queen.)