A minor panic this week - AJ said he knew what Andy's second plant was, and for just a moment I thought he did.
Monday: LeeAnn and Amy came in first thing this morning to put paper streamers over Donna's desk and tie a couple balloons to her chair. The rest of us came in and waited, but Donna didn't show. Then Carly called up to say Donna wouldn't be in today as she'd gotten a cold over the weekend, but as she'd taken the day off herself and was calling from Donna's (with a lot of noise in the background) we all think it's a shan't-bother-to-go-in-today cold.
James said as he lived not far from her he'd drop the card off tonight, and LeeAnn said we'd leave the decorations up.
AJ called us together for the morning meeting and said he'd decided over the weekend to implement a "caller-friendly" policy, and we all have to answer the phone by saying "hello", give our name and job title (with the full company name too) and then say "how can I help you?" The only thing is when the phone rings you can't tell if it's an internal or an external call, so we're all going to have to do it for every call. Amy said she'd forget, so LeeAnn typed it all out on a sheet of paper and gave everyone a copy so we could put it next the phone to remind ourselves.
Andy's second plant grew some more over the weekend, and maybe it's my conscience but I keep thinking any day now somebody's going to guess what it is. LeeAnn's still avoiding catching my eye.
Tuesday: Donna came round to each of us and said if she'd known we'd decorated the desk she'd have come in, and she'd brought in pieces of her birthday cake for us all. Fiona said was it made with fresh ingredients and she supposed it's full of sugar, but she had a piece anyways.
LeeAnn told Donna about the "caller-friendly" policy on answering the phone, and gave her a copy of the sheet she'd typed out. It's already causing problems as she put her own name and job title on there instead of just leaving a blank space where they should go, and Amy's gotten excited and introduced herself as "LeeAnn, the Production Planner" at least four times already.
Wednesday: AJ came in with us all to see Andy's second plant this morning. Andy said we don't know what it is, and AJ said he knows what it is, of course. It's a tomato plant. He went to his Boss' place one evening, his Boss grows hothouse tomatoes, and it's got just the same type of pointed leaves they've got. Donna said she just knew it was a tomato. Fiona told Andy he must have been eating a tomato and a pip went in and took. James, Mike and Amy all agreed that's what it was. LeeAnn and I just nodded and avoided looking at each other.
I guess AJ's Boss could be growing the same stuff and saying it's tomatoes - maybe that's how we get all these spacer policies from Head Office.
The big printer wasn't working after the lunchbreak again. Walked over, pulled Mike's mobile charger, plugged the printer back in.
Thursday: Three guys came in this morning to deliver the new phone switchboard for the new automated system. One carried it up, one opened the door for him and the third one had the paperwork to say the engineer would be coming in on Monday morning to set it up. They wanted to take the old one away with them, but Amy had a panic attack and Donna finally got AJ to say no, they couldn't take it until the new one was in and working.
I finally cornered LeeAnn, and she admitted she'd put the seed for the second plant in Andy's pot. She said her last-but-two boyfriend had left some seeds behind when he'd been arrested. I asked her what he was arrested for, and she said possession with intent to supply. She said she'd done it for a laugh. We agreed we'd keep quiet about it.
Friday: Amy called in and told Donna she wouldn't be in today as she wouldn't dare leave the house on Friday 13. AJ wanted to know if she was sick, so Donna said yes, she was. She told us all later that Amy wasn't sick, but if she'd had to come out today she would've been.
AJ chaired the morning meeting as he wanted to talk seriously to us all about how much time we all were spending on the phone. Every time he comes out his office to walk around, we're all on the phone. He said we all spend too long on each call as well, and we've all got to cut the length of time spent talking to people. He wanted to know if everyone's still keeping a record of how many phone calls they get - nobody is, so we all have to start doing it again. James hinted that the reason the calls take so long is because we spend so much time following the "caller-friendly" policy and identifying ourselves, but he didn't take the hint.
We all went in to look at Andy's second plant after AJ had gone to the Head Office meeting - Andy said he's brought in tomato plant food you add to the water, and now he's waiting for it to put out tomato flowers. Fiona said she'd be able to tell how many tomatoes it'll likely produce by the amount of flowers there are.
read 00/10/01-06 or read 00/10/16-20 