Festivus in July: An Airing of Grievances

I'm not sure what it is lately, (the 100 degree heat perhaps?) but just about everything that the people I work with have been doing is driving me seriously up the wall. I've been having mini-gripe sessions with Husband and my sister but today I decided to formally air my grievances (Festivus-style) in the hopes that they will no longer continue to burden me.

Let's begin:

1) To the lady who brushes your teeth in the ladies room every single afternoon:

This is weird. Sorry, it is. What are you eating for lunch, every single day, that you must brush your teeth and muck up the sink? Seriously, aren't there products for this very type of situation? Granted, it may not be the same thing as a good toothbrushing, but I refer you to my previous point: change whatever it is you're eating for lunch!

2) To the smelly lady who hoses down the bathroom with industrial strength bathroom cleaner:

Listen, what goes on in the bathroom is your business, but the industrial strength Lysol sitting on the counter is not Febreeze. Heck, it's not even really Lysol: it's freakin' industrial strength antibacterial, "do not ingest in a unventilated space-warning" death spray. Whatever you're doing in the bathroom requires, at most, a spray or two. It's not necessary to empty the can so that the next poor soul to come into the ladies room has to hold her breath for the entire time she's in there because she's afraid she's going to die. Seriously, die.

3) To the male attorneys who are under the impression that the louder you tell your courtroom story, the more noble your cause will be.

One of the first things I did when I switched jobs was switch offices. So now I'm closer to the male contingency on our floor. These male attorneys come in each morning shouting about what cases they have on in court that day and afterwards return, regaling the secretaries with stories (at the top of their lungs) about their victories. I feel like this is something we should have learned in law school but perhaps not so I'll repeat it here: talking the loudest does not make you right. It's gotten to the point where I have to shut my door because of all the hoopla. Ridiculous.

4) To my actual office mates who neglect to walk an extra three feet down the hall to invite me to lunch:

In our office, there's a hallway that veers to the right and leads to the lunchroom. My office is literally three feet beyond that hallway. If you get winded walking those extra three feet and make sure I know you're eating, you should probably look into that. And even if you do have some sort of serious "can't walk three additional feet medical condition" (which I know for a fact you don't), why don't you pick up the phone and tell me that everyone else is eating? Just because I have a new job doesn't mean I don't eat anymore. And as I've told you many times, I'm not shutting my door because I'm avoiding you (see #3).

4) To the lady who wrote an email, sent it to 60 random people, and then instructed everyone to hit "Reply All":

Bitch, seriously? Now it's sad that your friend has cancer. Really, it's horrible. And if I had ever met the woman or had even ever say heard her name before this morning, I'd be really upset about it. But I have no idea who your friend is nor do I have any idea how I ended up on this email list. So now, I've spent the entire day downloading and deleting messages of people signing up to bring food to this woman. If you're going to send an email like this, maybe take five extra minutes to purge down the list and make sure you are sending it only to people who might actually help out. All you're doing right now is spreading gossip about your friend because the first thing I said when I got the email was, "Who the heck is Susie Johnson?" which was immediately followed by a trek around the office asking that very question of any warm body I could locate. I'm sure Susie tremendously appreciates people all over the city asking who the heck she is and if we heard she had cancer.

Photo credit.

Oh and NEVER instruct people to "Reply All". Never. Come on! If you can't take the ten minutes it's going to take to compile the list of food then you really aren't a good enough friend to be planning this endeavor. Just sayin'.
6) To the guy in the office next to me who plays weird-ass music all freakin' day.

I get it: people like to listen to music while they work, but it's your choice of music that has me confused. Like right now, for instance, he's listening to what I can only describe as music that should be played during the relaxation portion of a yoga practice: repetative soft piano playing. The other day, I swear he had the wedding march playing in there. Really weird. Our walls are paper thin so if he's listening to it, I'm listening to it. I swear one of these days I'm just going to bring in Queen II and see if his head explodes.

Does anyone have any grievances about your work place? Feel free to air them here! And then we will continue on to the Feats of Strength.

Happy Thursday!