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This one happened yesterday, but it's taken me this long to formulate a way to write it out. ...that and I tend to break into hysterical laughter when I dwell on it too long.
I was sitting at my desk yesterday, minding my own business, counting survivors on obits, when the elevator opened up. This happens a lot during the day, to my own personal annoyance, but oh well, it's in my job description and my boss R thinks it's good for me to have to help out people...apparently it's supposed to help make me more social-like. (Gotta give her credit for faith,
)
So I turn to greet the woman who gets off and comes charging over to my desk. The conversation is approximately as follows.
Her: "I'm here to yell at someone."
Me: Oh, great way to start, yeah, this is really gonna make sure I leap to your assistance right away. "Oh, what is it regarding?"
Her: "It's about how the paper gets laid out, are you who's in charge of that."
Me: "Well, no ma'am, but they're not in at the moment." (Blatent lie, BTW, but there's no reason to inflict this on them, I'm sure.)
Her: "Well then I'll just tell you, and YOU can go yell at them."
Keep in mind, I'm doing this with a perfectly straight face. I'm distracting myself by staring at her solid brown teeth. Unfortunately, as she prattles on, she tells me basically what the problem is. You see, boys and girls, a newspaper page has two sides, front and back. Now, on our editorial page, we had an editorial cartoon. It was amusing, yeah, but it was hardly something to write home about. On the back of this page, somewhat overlapping the cartoon, was our weekly puzzle contest.
She, this woman, got dressed, put on her make-up, forgot to brush her teeth, got in her car, drove to our office, signed in downstairs, rode the ancient, creaky elevator up to the second floor, and came to me to complain that she couldn't cut out the puzzle without ruining the cartoon, and HOW DARE WE set it up like that?? Didn't we KNOW that people would want to keep BOTH of those!
Yes, I'm quite serious. She went on and on about this for five minutes, while I sat there, nodding, mm-hmming and saying "Yes ma'am", because any other response would have broken my iron will and sent me into gales of hysterics from whence there was no return. In retrospect, I COULD have suggested she spend another 50 cents to buy two papers, but this never occured to me while she was yelling at me because I was too busy thinking don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh.
Eventually, she finished up with "Now you make SURE that you go and you YELL at whoever set up this page like this! I don't want to see it ever again!" And turned on her heel and marched out.
The second the elevator door closed and she was safely out of hearing range, the entire newsroom, which had been watching this with wide eyes...burst into laughter.
I went and immediately asked the page setters to please please please overlap the cartoon and puzzle again next time.
I was sitting at my desk yesterday, minding my own business, counting survivors on obits, when the elevator opened up. This happens a lot during the day, to my own personal annoyance, but oh well, it's in my job description and my boss R thinks it's good for me to have to help out people...apparently it's supposed to help make me more social-like. (Gotta give her credit for faith,
)So I turn to greet the woman who gets off and comes charging over to my desk. The conversation is approximately as follows.
Her: "I'm here to yell at someone."
Me: Oh, great way to start, yeah, this is really gonna make sure I leap to your assistance right away. "Oh, what is it regarding?"
Her: "It's about how the paper gets laid out, are you who's in charge of that."
Me: "Well, no ma'am, but they're not in at the moment." (Blatent lie, BTW, but there's no reason to inflict this on them, I'm sure.)
Her: "Well then I'll just tell you, and YOU can go yell at them."
Keep in mind, I'm doing this with a perfectly straight face. I'm distracting myself by staring at her solid brown teeth. Unfortunately, as she prattles on, she tells me basically what the problem is. You see, boys and girls, a newspaper page has two sides, front and back. Now, on our editorial page, we had an editorial cartoon. It was amusing, yeah, but it was hardly something to write home about. On the back of this page, somewhat overlapping the cartoon, was our weekly puzzle contest.
She, this woman, got dressed, put on her make-up, forgot to brush her teeth, got in her car, drove to our office, signed in downstairs, rode the ancient, creaky elevator up to the second floor, and came to me to complain that she couldn't cut out the puzzle without ruining the cartoon, and HOW DARE WE set it up like that?? Didn't we KNOW that people would want to keep BOTH of those!
Yes, I'm quite serious. She went on and on about this for five minutes, while I sat there, nodding, mm-hmming and saying "Yes ma'am", because any other response would have broken my iron will and sent me into gales of hysterics from whence there was no return. In retrospect, I COULD have suggested she spend another 50 cents to buy two papers, but this never occured to me while she was yelling at me because I was too busy thinking don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh.
Eventually, she finished up with "Now you make SURE that you go and you YELL at whoever set up this page like this! I don't want to see it ever again!" And turned on her heel and marched out.
The second the elevator door closed and she was safely out of hearing range, the entire newsroom, which had been watching this with wide eyes...burst into laughter.
I went and immediately asked the page setters to please please please overlap the cartoon and puzzle again next time.
I wish I had that much time on my hands... but if I did, I'd be sitting on a beach with a Corona. 
That is freaking awesome!
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