Switcheroo

It's not funny to me now, but I hope it will be ten years down the line. Work has me switching offices. I work two half time jobs that add up to a full time paycheck. Too bad one of the half time jobs doesn't realize it's half time. I talked to my boss to the problem. I'm being transferred to a new office. Problem solved? Uh, no, because the half my bosses transferred is the easy half. Now I'll be working for an office that I've had the pleasure to support a handful of times over the last couple of years.

This office is trouble.

Put yourself back on the playground. There's a kid sitting on the swings, not swinging, staring at you. You think, "Hey, maybe he thinks I look like someone he knows. He wouldn't want to beat me up. People just don't do that." So you run around with a couple of your friends playing tag. You look up. He's closer. More, the look on his face is one part Freddy Krueger, one part shark maw, frozen mid-bite by the magic of digital video. Someone calls your name. You turn and trip. Was that a leg?

On the way back into class he points you out to his friends. Your velcro wallet goes missing after gym. He drops something nasty and green into your milk at lunchtime. When you complain about it to the teacher, she sits everyone down for a conference and the kid says it was all a big misunderstanding and how a lack of familiarity can turn even friendly faces into scary creatures... in short, all of the crap he's learned to shovel over the years to avoid having to fess up over his bad attitude. At the end of the conference, you shake hands and he smiles just as wide as the teacher wants him to, only you can't: as he shakes your hand he's digging into your wrist with his fingernails.

When you walk home, you realize he lives three doors down from you. His mom and your mom really, really want you to be friends, because then they can send one over to the other's house and halve those pesky babysitting bills.

You don't even know his name and you know it's not going to work. Worse, you feel bad for your mom. Money doesn't grow on trees and you need to get out of the house once in a while.

Yeah, well, it's still not going to work. Can we call it at that?

Not today.

I first found out I would be transferred when my on-site contact told my boss that she didn't like my personality. Sure, sometimes I try to cultivate a hard nosed character on stage, but at work I try to be earnest and interested, if slightly worn out from my extracurriculars. My boss had the answer, and that answer was transfer. I got confused and asked my on-site contact what she meant and she could give me no good answer. When I got upset she said the transfer could happen then (end of February) or now (end of June). I didn't want to leave at all. I picked later.

Well, I thought, maybe I'm not giving them a fair shake. I'll probably like the new office.

No. I did not like the new office. Not at all. I told the outgoing tech support guy about this. He told me why my experience was unusual. See, even though the people I had not liked had behaved badly towards me, misunderstanding me, interrupting when I was trying to explain, sending out emails to complain about the work when I was halfway through and forced to move on because at that point I was supporting three offices while the outgoing tech was on vacation, all of the bad feelings I felt didn't matter because that was them being them. Sure. My point exactly. His advice: don't let it make me act nasty toward them.

I'm a ComedySportz ref. Until you've played target to a houseful of drunken twentysomethings out to prove that they're funnier than the show they paid to see, you don't know the meaning of the word patience.

I know how to take it and smile. It doesn't mean I want to. And just because I can doesn't mean I should, or that anyone should, but since I own my skin, I'm the one who has to look out for it.

I spoke to the on-site contact about establishing parameters of service, things that I can and cannot do. I want to establish to everyone that I am half time and that there will be some times I can't immediately see to their issues because I've got a line of issues as long as my arm on a good day. He said it would undermine my position. I think he's right. I wish it would undermine it. Some offices come to depend on a network admin to the point of addiction, where they stop caring whether they click on an infected file. Who cares when someone else can clean up your mess? Why learn when you've got someone else to do your learning for you? Isn't that what money is FOR?

Bless you, Mr. President.

I've complained a lot lately. It bugs me. Maybe I will like the new job better. Maybe the new kid's not so bad. We both like Spider-Man more than Superman. He stole my super-poseable, but he let me play with his Legos. Sure, it sucks, but patience is its own reward. Besides...

I dragged that Spider-Man through the poison ivy behind the tracks. I hope he puts it in his mouth.

I'm sending out resumes. Today.