That's What We Said

From an unnamed university in the greater San Francisco Bay Area...

I am once again at my desk while not one, but two workstudy students assemble IKEA furniture. We got the remaining furniture on another office field trip this morning and I'm "trophy-wifing it" as Officemate says, while one normally-dressed and one scantily-clad youngster put my office together for me. It's not a bad life.

It turns out that putting furniture together leads to some awesome "that's what she said" opportunities. Officemate and I are not at all above a workplace "that's what she said", but our workstudies are a little horrified our liberal use of the phrase. But come on, they're bringing it on themselves:

Upon seeing the completed filing cabinet:"Holy cow, this is huge!"

Trying to install drawers into filing cabinets: "I guess you just slide it in."

Handing the other one the hammer: "Allison*, wanna bang?"

Realizing the hammer is very large: "This thing barely fits in my hand!"

Trying to maneuver filing cabinet into corner of the room: "I just really don't think it will fit."

Realizing they need help moving the filing cabinet: "We're going to need 3 people to do it."

Come on! They're asking for it. And we are delivering. Then laughing like 12-year-olds while the not-much-older-than-12-year-olds roll their eyes and get back to work.

*Not her real name.

Do It Yourself

From an unnamed university in the greater San Francisco Bay Area...

Coming back to work on Mondays is never fun, but coming back after an amazing 3 day weekend in one of the most beautiful places on Earth is just painful. My long Yosemite weekend was a complete dream and I hated to leave.

Officemate isn't here today so I'm all alone in our newly painted office, watching a workstudy student assemble Ikea furniture. Our new office is really coming together and people have finally stopped commenting on how ugly they think the new yellow paint is (it looks great; they're crazy) and noting, enviously, that our office is coming together well and has the potential to become "the hippest place on campus."

My friend M is amused that I am sitting at my computer while my workstudy puts my office furniture together. "Personally, I don't know how you can stop yourself from jumping in. I love me an alan wrench." But that's the hierarchy of our office as far as I'm concerned. I'm my boss's bitch; these 19-22 year olds are mine. It's the office food chain. My boss is SUPER into maintaining the chain of command around here and will never do anything she doesn't feel is within her sphere of importance and I'm afraid that mentality is contagious.

Our dean, however, is the consummate populist and doesn't see things that way. He refuses to sit in the fancy dean's office, preferring the small, stuffy one he held for years as a professor. This morning, he came in and said "S, I got this email asking questions about our program for accreditation. I don't have time to respond; could I send it to you?" "Yes, you're the dean. You can just tell me what to do. Just forward me any emails you want me to handle." "Well that wouldn't be very nice of me!"

No, Dean, I guess it wouldn't. You're a good person. I gotta go pick up an alan wrench.

Don't Stand So Close to Me

From an unnamed university in the greater San Francisco Bay Area...

There is literally nothing for me to write about anymore. My boss and her ridiculous antics are away in South Africa. The students and their cloying questions are gone until August. The guys next door aren't around. All of my best fodder has left the building. Officemate and I are shells of our former selves, sitting around, getting work done with no crazy shenanigans to keep us going.

Our office is currently getting painted so we're in the library with laptops, click-clicking away with no phone calls or random people stopping by to ask us for information that we make readily available in a multitude of forms. It's all very normal.

With no news on the office front, I ask this question instead: why isn't everyone on the same page with personal space? I get that personal space is a pretty American concept, as we have the luxury to actually demand space from those around us, but I live in America and am almost daily shocked by how up in your grill folks like to get.

Two examples from yesterday. 1) I went to Safeway to get some groceries around 9:30pm when the parking lot is pretty empty. I parked about 100 yards from the store with about 3 empty spaces next to me on either side. I come out maybe 2o minutes later and there's a car right next to mine. Why? Why people? You have so many other options!

2) I was at the gym yesterday, using the stationary bike. I love the gym in the summer because it's a university gym and most of the students are gone so I never have to wait for the machines I want. No, machines aplenty! This was the case yesterday and yet a dude came and sat down on the bike right next to mine. I gave him angry face and made passive aggressive sounds, but he didn't budge.

I'm trying to become a faster biker, so I was doing speed intervals and getting pretty sweaty and warm on the bike and did not appreciate someone else's body heat and potential sweat so close to my own. Given the choice, don't we all want to put a little distance between ourselves and strangers? Especially when they're sweaty?

"Maybe he thought you were cute!" you might be saying now. To this I say, no he didn't and I don't care. I do not get that sexy exercise glow that Cosmo swears will turn your guy on. I get beet red, I sweat like crazy, and I breathe really hard. I want the endorphins and I'm willing to do what I need to to get them. Also, he was not even mildly attractive and rode his exercise bike like some foppish Brit on the back of a tandem and I cannot stand for that.

Tomorrow we're supposed to go to IKEA to get our new office furniture. Hopefully I'll have a good field trip story to relay. Until then, back the hell off.