Latest Office Episode

Most of the people who work in the area next to me got fired last week. Yeah, freaky! The few who are left have the task of cleaning out all their unwanted crap. Apparently some other people have been helping themselves to what’s lying around over there. According to a conversation I heard by two people who were standing at the copier and talking (I have complained about this before since it’s by my desk) someone stole a phone headset that was being used by a woman who still works here. They were talking about surveillance videos and dealing with the perpetrator. (Yes, I really do work with people who think this way). Well, who would be so low…well I would, kind of. I once spilled diet dew on my chair and exchanged it with one in an unoccupied cubie. But that’s different because no one was currently using it. Things are a little desperate around here and you have to do what you can. So anyway there are now signs telling people not to remove things from this area. They have been dumping the crap into big trash bins in the hallway and I saw this as an opportunity to get rid of some of my own crap.

When I started at 3M six years ago I bought a CD player/radio to use while working. I think I have mentioned that listening to music or talk radio is big at my work. Well this thing is not only huge and outdated but it no longer works. Truly a “boom box” at it’s best.
So I decided to heave it onto the trash pile. When I walked by again 10 minutes later it was gone! No lie! I just started laughing to myself thinking how someone thought they had scored something really good. Later in the day as I walked by the area of the recently canned people and the signs I noticed my CD player sitting on a filing cabinet! Let’s see I think there’s an expression about calling the kettle black. Maybe this woman thought it would somehow compensate for her lost phone headset. So all day every time I walked by there I had to rubber-neck and see if it was still there. I knew I couldn’t let this just lay. I had to do something. So when I thought no one was around I put a Post-it note (3M makes those you know) on the CD player saying “I put this in the trash because it doesn’t work but you’re welcome to it.” (What can I say, some days I get bored). My rubber necking finally paid off and I saw the woman and the gritchy manager that fired everyone looking at the Post-it. It’s been a few days and the CD player, Post-it and all, is still sitting on the filing cabinet. I have a feeling they don’t know what to do about the whole thing. I also have a feeling they know it was me.

The last laugh will probably be on me when I find out they “lifted” my fingerprints from the Post-it note and have me on the surveillance video and I have to talk to the Feds again.