I probably drink about four cups of coffee in the course of a work day. Three of these probably I have before lunch.
Being who I am, for lunch I typically head home and fix a burrito or a quesadilla that contains mad beans and probably 11 to 14 pickled jalepeno slices. Most times I head on back to work right after eating.
I do also try to stay hydrated throughout the day.
TO BE CONTINUED
My third day on the job, I learned that my nearest coworker -- in age, in seniority, and in physical proximity -- has highly sensitive hearing.
I say this as a person with highly sensitive hearing. Did the passenger-side door tweeter on your car stereo just short out? Is your input overloading your amp and distorting the bass? Can no single person in this auditorium clap ON the beat? Did that motherfucker just start playing a soprano sax?
I'm usually the first one you'll hear from in these matters.
But within three days I knew I'd met my match. "I hate to ask," came the voice from 25 feet away, in another room. "But can you not click your pen while you're thinking?"
Truth is, I can't, so I had to switch to the kind of pen you turn instead of click. Now I turn it while thinking, which is silent enough, and more masturbatory. Which is cool. I have all kinds of other "thinking" tics -- crumpling paper, kicking my desk, tapping on my keyboard, cursing under and over my breath -- but to her credit she backed off after the first one was silenced.
This was during Christmas. The town we're in is -- well -- let's just say it's the sort of town that will broadcast Christmas songs all day long from strategically placed loudspeakers throughout the central business district. Windows shut against the cold, winter winds blowing, sleet battering the windowpanes, and said coworker still needed an iPod to maintain sanity.
So. Sensitive hearing: the foundation has been laid.
TO BE CONTINUED
This story is told in first person, but don't assume it reflects the experiences of the person who wrote it, even though that may well be a notion with value for which your local bank will grant assurances.
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Where I work, noises run free. Most of my day, behind my left ear I hear the babble of the drive-thru bank teller across the street, and behind my right ear I hear every thing discussed in every room of every story of this ten-room three-story one-century house we call an office.
(Go ahead, close the door to your office. I still know your client has unconventional ideas about Hispanic businessmen.)
That's fine.
But it doesn't end there. Not when there are bathrooms.
TO BE CONTINUED