Hi there, guys and dolls! Is your workday Wednesday treating you right? I thought so. Oh well, at least it will pass. Eventually. Let me tell you about my yesterday. It may brighten up your today…

So there we all were, dutifully sitting at our desks or whatnot (mail carts, running around carrying clipboards, whatever needs to be done to get through our days), performing our work tasks or at least putting up a good appearance of doing so while drifting off into our own mindspaces, when the big boss had this huge grin on his ‘this means business’ face while he puffs on his cigar and hands Francie a letter, telling her it’s an urgent memo that needs to be typed up and sent out to all employees immediately.

Francie gives the boss a ‘right away, sir,’ clicks on her heels and passes it to Lulu as soon as the boss is out of sight, telling her to get it done, pronto. Lulu glances at her in-box that’s taller than she is, sighs and gives it to Jimmy, the passing mail clerk and tells him to hand it to Brenda and tell her to take care of it, speedy-like.

Jimmy drops by the water cooler, chit-chats up Debbie (the new girl Debbie, not Debbie who’s been here too long or Debbie who’s up for promotion), gets turned down and sulks into a funk. In his little mope, he passes the letter to the first sympathetic girl he sees, Madge, who is too busy going over bridal magazines to get the thing done, who then passes it off to Tina, who’s got most of the secretarial pool gathered around her desk while she shows off photos of her sister’s new baby.

Eventually this thing lands on my desk. Yeah, I’m not going to do it. I’ve got a hot lunch date with the new fella in accounts (payables, receivables, acquisitions, I don’t know, something like that – he has spiffy hair and a killer smile, that’s all that I remember) and I’ve got to fix my chipped nail polish and have to let it set before noonish, so I’m out of commission.

I spot Linda passing by and give the memo task to her, who smiles and nods and drops it on Sally’s desk. That’s when I lost track and at the time, I frankly didn’t care.

Lunchtime rolls around and my date strolls by my desk and out we went. Well, that was a bust. After an hour and a half, I still couldn’t figure out what department he was in exactly and the conversation was staler than the breadsticks, his hair was more Brylcream than strands and the smile couldn’t make up for the flaring nostrils over it. I was actually glad to get back to my desk – I had a copy of True Confessions turned to the story, ‘I Was A Foreign Slave for Love’ ready to be devoured.

Eventually we all lost track of the urgent memo, someone said they thought they saw the paper on the first aid kit on the third floor, but nobody bothered to confirm that or get it. Just after 3ish, the big boss came out of his office with his hat and coat, took one look around at everyone, muttered something under his breath (‘ungrateful fools’ someone thought they heard him say) and left.

Finally, 4:55 rolled around. We all started packing up when Cathy (that’s the Cathy with a ‘C’ not the Kathy with a ‘K’, and the younger one, not the one retiring soon) came running around, waving that darn handwritten note. Turns out the memo was for the office to close at 3:00 that day as a reward for profits and productivity up for the month.

Well, that’s just great.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more posts. And don’t forget to give my Poppy Cove Mysteries a try if you haven’t already. 

Toodles, Barbara Jean